Minecraft Prayer Space

This post originally appeared here last year but I'm trying to pool some of these prayer posts in the same place....

The 'God Building'

Inside on the Mezzanine Landing of the Chapel

I've been inspired by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes 'Teenage Prayer Experiment' due out as a book shortly which included her recent post, in which she encouraged her son to build a place of prayer on Minecraft (a digital game which enables kids to build worlds and creations using square blocks). Minecraft sounds basic but it actually has no end of possibilities! My youngest two are big fans of the game and so today (first day of the hols!) I set them to work creating their own Minecraft Prayer Spaces.

They actually loved the idea and took it on with great enthusiasm. I've got to admit I wondered whether they would just end up playing on the game, but no, they both took it seriously, we prayed first and they spent about 2 hours building their spaces. I basically just left them to get on with it and it's been interesting to see the ideas they have come up with. They had a Prayer space in their school recently and I think they were inspired by that as they both chose to have different areas with different themes in their spaces. It's also interesting how they have used the dynamics of the game to come up with different ideas. My daughter just came in and showed me how she had Jesus both walking on water and ascending to heaven!

Space to pray for animals and living things

My son has really gone to town and the pictures here are from his space. I don't think the pics really do it justice, it's really an amazing building and I think it would be great as a real building (although the cross on top might be a tad oversized! see pic above). It has two levels, glass walls, a chapel inside it, mezzanine level, underground room to pray for friends and family, and lots more. In fact it reminded me of the early temples, with an inner space and lots of different areas, including animals!

Once they had built their spaces I encouraged them to actually pray and imagine themselves praying in the space. My son said he liked the idea of having different areas to pray for different things and that he found this helpful when praying. He also liked the idea of having a prayer space within Minecraft, which is his favourite game. He really enjoyed building it and said that it made him think about why and how he prays.

This is a great idea and I am very glad Miranda highlighted it. It's so important to get our kids thinking about prayer, what it is, and what it can mean for them and their relationship with God. I really love new and interesting ways of thinking about prayer especially for kids and this one is a definite hit in our house! I'm hoping we can use this again in our family prayer time.