I tried this prayer idea with a group today that ranged in age from 6 – 14 – and all you need is a ball of string.

I held one end of the string and told the group we were going to pass the ball of string around the whole group, one at a time, and make a web of prayer. When we held the ball of string, we could say a prayer out loud, or silently. We would the hold on to our place in the string and pass the ball of string to someone else, until everyone had had a turn.

I happened to have a very quiet group today, so no reminders about how to PASS or gently TOSS the string to the next person were needed – if some of our more boisterous members had been there, I would have taken a moment to do this.

When everyone had had a turn, we had a moment of silence with all of us holding our place on the string, connected to each other in prayer, and then we sang “O Lord, Hear My Prayer” twice.

To finish, I asked them to think of something that was worrying them, or making them sad, and when I counted three, to release their place on the string as they released that worry to God.

It worked well at providing a visual and tangible element to our prayers, and helping some of the little ones fidget less than being asked to just sit still does.

This could also work in All-Age Worship – maybe with groups of 20 or so at most. Under-5s might need some help thinking about what to pray – “what would you like to say thank you to God for?” or such like.