A church in Scotland hosted an exhibition this month on ‘The Church Past and Present’. For the past, Church of Scotland Tayport drew together items from its history, such as a 1920′s wedding dress and baptismal registers, and presented them to the public. For the present, visitors were invited to tour the building and explore the meaning of the architecture, and to respond to the spirituality of the space through interactive installations drawn from SGM Lifewords‘ Space Encounters resource.
“We set it up a ‘Prayer Pool’” said Rev Colin Dempster. “Visitors were encouraged to say a prayer and write it on the paper boats, which they then floated in the pool. We also set up a locked prayer box for people to put prayers in for our Prayer secretary; this was well used. Our prayer is that this will encourage others to not only think about prayer, but to get in touch themselves with the ‘Hearer of all our prayers’.” Visitors also toured the building using the Look Around You leaflet from SGM Lifewords.
Space Encounters is a series of four prayer stations designed for use in historic churches. You can download full instructions and resources here.