Cool Ideas for Camp 2012: Prayer Loom

Try this idea to provide your youth with a creative way to share their prayers at camp.

Camp provides the perfect opportunity to help youth and adults experience prayer in a different way using elements of the outdoor setting.  You can build the prayer loom pictured below by lashing together several branches using twine. More twine is then strung vertically to create the loom surface.  Provide particpants with strips of cloth, paper, and other colorful materials along with some fabric pens or markers. Invite them to write their prayers on the strips and then to work together to weave them across the loom as a symbol of the ways our prayers weave us together within God. (Those wishing to keep their prayers private can weave them into the loom upside down or simply pray over a strip of cloth or paper before adding it to the others).

A nice adaptation of this idea would be to create a loom by stringing twine between two small trees standing several feet apart.  If you create the loom early in the week, campers can add to it throughout your time time together. Perhaps at the end of the week you could invite campers to each take home a prayer from the loom.