Developing a Prayer Room

So my job position is worship coordinator at HoneyRock camp. HoneyRock is a Christian camp owned by Wheaton College, and the sumer staff is almost exclusively Wheaton College students. So the last two weeks I have been developing a prayer room for the camp. This room is to be a place where camp counselors and other staff can escape to a sacred space to pray and study scripture. I first began by talking to others around camp to find out what their spiritual needs were, and if we even needed the room. I then began to tailor the room around the responses. One thing I found was that while HoneyRock is designed to be "A Place Apart" it is often a place with busy hectic schedules. I also found since most people live in cabins with many other people, the have to place of privacy, and often find themselves surrounded by distractions.

I decided to try and make the room as free as distractions as possible, while giving it a sense of sacredness, without other wordliness, all the while trying to make it a slow, relaxing atmosphere. I began by cleaning the room and rearranging the furniture, to make it less of a makeout spot, as I had heard the room had been lately. After cleaning out one corner with a solitary window, my friend Richard (who was visiting for the week)and I decided to build a prayer kneeler facing the window, and faux stain glass the windows. For the bench we decided to make a simple, but meaningful construction. The kneeler was constructed mainly of timber that I had milled here at he camp this past weekend, along with two logs that were left over from a newly constructed cabin at the camp. I will write a separate blog about the construction of the kneeler, for anyone interested in building their own.

The stain glass window idea, was to help minimize distractions outside the window, while adding to the overall aesthetic of the room, and helping to create a sense of sacredness to the windows. For three of the windows I created a more protestant use of Christian symbols, and the other three windows were a representation of Christ in the environment we are in at camp. I will also have a seprate post of the windows and pictures, and give details on how to create your own.

Finally the room was given a couple of candles, bible verses and historic prayers were hung on the walls, and some other visual elements were added.