Creating a Sensory Prayer Box

We’ve recently introduced a new resource to our Sunday morning sessions for children and young people with additional needs. I’d been contemplating how we could better incorporate prayer into our sessions and in particular how we could ensure that children and young people were active participants in times of prayer. I’d always included at the end of each sensory story a short prayer related to truths about God’s character and the gospel taken from that particular Bible story. I’ve talked here about how I’ve used these stories and prayers to pray for children and young people throughout the week.

It felt important though to involve the children and young people more in prayer. I wanted them to be able to have some choice in what to pray for and to be able to explore and engage with items related to prayer. With this in mind I put together a shopping bag (which has now graduated to a shoebox!) of items which could be used by children, young people and helpers to pray during our sessions. I’ve included some of the items we’ve used as well as some other suggestions below.

Mirror- We have some foam, bath mirrors which are safe for children and young people to mouth, bend etc. One of our mirrors has ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ written in sharpie around. Lots of people are interested at looking at their reflection! When our children and young people look at themselves we have the opportunity to thank God for making them, to pray that they will know that they are made in His image and pray for His blessing over them

A picture of our church- A laminated photo of our church reminds us to thank God for the body of Christ which our children and young people are part of and to pray for our community

Artificial grass, fake or real leaves/flowers- Objects which point us to the world around us help us to thank God for the beautiful world He has created

Family Photos- We asked parents to provide us with photos of their families. Our children and young people have been really interested in looking at these and I love that we have the opportunity to pray for all the members of the families we serve by name each week

Toy food (or even better, a real snack!)- Food gives us a tangible reminder to thank God for all of His blessings and provision to us

A shaker or other musical instrument- Psalm 98 verse 5 says ‘make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing'. Simple percussion instruments can give all our children and young people a way to worship God

A light toy- A simple light toy could be used to thank Jesus for being the light of the world and to pray that all of us would experience His light in our lives throughout the week

A sound button- A sound button like this could be used to record short prayers for children and young people to play back and listen to. We’ve used these to pray for individuals by name or to pray for truths that have come from our current sensory story

I created our prayer box with those who are non-verbal and have complex learning disabilities in mind. For those who have more academic skills it might be appropriate to include items like pencils and paper to write their own prayers. There might also be items/issues particularly important to an individual child or group which might be good to include. I’m sure we’ll adapt our box and add different items as time goes on.

Let me know if you’ve created a similar resource or if you have any other ideas of how to engage children and young people with additional needs in prayer. I’d love to hear them!