Recently our friends in the USA celebrated ‘Thanksgiving’, so we thought this would be a good moment to express a bit of gratitude for what’s going on with Prayer Spaces in Schools in the USA at the moment.

A little over a year ago, Phil Togwell was in Portland, USA, for the 24-7 Prayer USA Gathering with Darnell Robinson from Milwaukee. Together, they hosted our first Prayer Spaces in Schools seminar, and it was an fantastic opportunity to talk with a roomful of school teachers, youth pastors and church leaders about the needs and the opportunities.

A few months later, Katie was invited to make a place of ‘safety, rest, and peace’ for the teachers at her daughter’s school in Kansas City. ‘It was amazing!’ she wrote afterwards. ‘The teachers come from various backgrounds and they had never experienced anything like it. Some of them were quiet and they engaged with each of the activities methodically. Others came in, stayed at one activity the entire time and just wept. I had a team – myself and two of the leaders from church – and we were available to help welcome people to the room, and pray with them if they wanted us to.’

‘One exciting thing is that we had two public school teachers visit who’d heard about the prayer room and wanted to experience it. One was so impacted by it that we began talking about what it would look like to have a space available in his school for students and staff. He was blown away by the personal impact and excited about how something similar could work in public school.’

Early next year, Phil will be in the USA to host some conversations about the development of Prayer Spaces in Schools. We suspect that some will adopt or adapt Darnell’s Quiet Space model, because it seems to be one that works. It will also be interesting to see if another model emerges from Katie’s conversations with her new friends from the public schools in Kansas City. Elsewhere, we’ve heard from Christian schools workers in Texas who are using prayer activities during lunchtime clubs in some of the schools where they have good relationships. And we’re also figuring out how to support Christian students who want to set up prayer spaces in their schools. Friends in lots of places in the USA – from Tulsa to Detroit, and from Portland to New York City – are dreaming and scheming (and praying) for ways to host prayer spaces.

This feels like a good moment to say thank you for all that has happened so far, and look forward with expectation towards all that may be to come.