Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes is Vicar of Belmont and Pittington in the Diocese of Durham and an honorary fellow of Durham University. She is co-editor of Being a Chaplain (SPCK, 2011) and author of The Essential History of Christianity (SPCK, 2012).   
Noah Threlfall-Holmes is 13 years old. He likes playing video games with friends, going to Scouts and cats.

This book is based on a blog run by Revd Miranda Threlfall-Holmes and her teenage son, Noah, www.TeenagePrayerExperiment.blogspot.co.uk. Miranda and Noah developed the blog and book as they could find nothing on the market to introduce teenagers to different ways of praying.   
Each chapter of the book introduces a prayer practice, eg using labyrinths, Lego Bible modelling, prayer beads, prayer walking. It also includes comments by teenagers who have tried it out and space for the young person to record their own thoughts.

An interactive prayer journal for teenagers.

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes

Cover page

Title page

Imprint

Introduction

How to use this book

Prayer den

Bedroom door prayers

Minecraft church

Praying with your whole body

ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication

The Lord’s Prayer

Colouring the Bible

Lego Bible modelling

Pearls of Life

Labyrinth

Breathing meditation

Nerf gun confession

Examen

Taste and see

Prayer walking

The authors

Acknowledgements

An interactive prayer journal for teenagers. Each chapter of the book introduces a prayer practice, e.g using labyrinths, Lego Bible modelling, prayer beads, prayer walking. It also includes comments by teenagers who have tried it out and space for the young person to record their own thoughts.

Interactive and experiential journal introducing prayer practices to teenagers Space for teenagers to record their own thoughts on the practice and to read what other people have said Ideal confirmation gift Fresh, contemporary design This book is based on a blog run by Revd Miranda Threlfall-Holmes and her teenage son, Noah, www.TeenagePrayerExperiment.blogspot.co.uk. Miranda and Noah developed the blog and book as they could find nothing on the market to introduce teenagers to different ways of praying. Each chapter of the book introduces a prayer practice, e.g using labyrinths, Lego Bible modelling, prayer beads, prayer walking. It also includes comments by teenagers who have tried it out and space for the young person to record their own thoughts.

'It's really captured the imaginations of my young people' Ruth Harley, youth worker

Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes is Vicar of Belmont and Pittington in the Diocese of Durham and an honorary fellow of Durham University. She is co-editor of Being a Chaplain (SPCK, 2011) and author of The Essential History of Christianity (SPCK, 2012). Noah Threlfall-Holmes is Miranda's teenage son.

Practical, interactive and experiential - this notebook for teenagers will help them start their very own prayer experiment

\["Want to engage Teenagers in prayer?","This notebook explores all the creative paths prayer can take","An exciting resource for parents and youth leaders to open, explore, and share"\]

Introduction

How to use this book

Prayer den

Bedroom door prayers

Minecraft church

Praying with your whole body

ACTS:

Adoration

Confession

Thanksgiving

Supplication

The Lord's Prayer

Colouring the Bible

Lego Bible modelling

Pearls of Life

Labyrinth

Breathing meditation

Nerf gun confession

Examen

Taste and see

Prayer walking

It’s really captured the imaginations of my young people - Ruth Harley, youth worker  
  
Produced by a mother-and-son team (Noah is aged 13), this is a different attempt to engage with younger people and encourage them to learn about prayer, using innovative and contemporary culture to hold their attention.

Centring around a blog produced by mum (a vicar in the Diocese of Durham and author), each chapter presents a 'prayer practice' offering diverse activities to encourage prayer including Lego Bible modelling, building a Minecraft church and prayer walking. Whilst written from an Anglican perspective, there are useful tips and suggestions for anyone seeking to engage with children and young people and seeking to encourage them to discover prayer or a deeper spirituality.

The book, produced in a very different style to SPCK's typical catalogue, clearly to appeal to a younger market, was inspired when mum Miranda had two brothers seeking to be confirmed within her parish. When looking for a suitable gift for them, she could find nothing in local Christian bookstores and resolved to find or create something that would measure up.

However, both authors are clear that the book is not experts preaching or telling others what to do. Rather it offers permission and gives room for experimentation in allowing pre-teens and teenagers to discover their own prayer life. Summarising the premise of the work, Miranda writes: This is not a book to teach teenagers about prayer. It is a book to encourage teenagers to try prayer out for themselves. - Life and Work

"I have found this really helpful and inspiring....It really worked!" - Jasmine, 14, On 'Bedroom door prayers' experiment

"I thought it was quite a nice idea because it allows you to focus on the prayer a lot and.... it allowed me to connect with God" - Daniel, 11, on 'The Lord's Prayer' experiment

"A great activity for groups." Becky, youth group leader

MIranda and Noah Threlfall-Holmes are a mum and son based in Durham, in north-east England.

Noah is 13 years old, and attends Durham Johnston Comprehensive School in Durham. A laid-back character, he proudly describes himself as a bit of a nerd. He enjoys video games, especially playing online with friends; reading books by authors such as Charlie Higson and Philip Reeve, Manga graphic novels, and playing Pokemon.

A Scout patrol leader, he is particularly skilled at map reading and navigating. His favourite subjects at school are Geography and Mandarin. For the past four years, he has been a regular at the CPAS 'Stagefright' venture week, exploring faith through drama, and he also enjoys attending Greenbelt and the 'Totally Awesome Youth Club' of St Mary Magdalene Church, Belmont.

Miranda is 41 years old, and is vicar of St Mary Magdalene Church, Belmont, and St Laurence, Pittington. She is not a laid-back character, she first worked in brand management and was then a historian before ordination, and holds first-class degrees in history from Cambridge and theology from Durham, and a PhD in medieval monastic history.

Her publications include The Essential History of Christianity (SPCK), Being a Chaplain (SPCK, 2011), Monks and Markets: Durham Cathedral Priory, 1460-1520 (OUP, 2005), poems and articles in the church and popular press. She trained for ministry at Cranmer Hall, Durham, served her title at St Gabriel, Heaton in the Newcastle diocese, and was Chaplain of University College Durham and Interim Principle of Ustinov College, Durham, before taking up her current post in 2012.

She has been a member of the Church of England's General Synod and Vice-Chair of Women and the Church (WATCH).

She enjoys felting, reading murder mysteries and Regency romances (and trying to write a murder mystery), and gardening. She has been married to Phil, a chemical engineer, for 18 years, and they have three children, of whom Noah is the eldest.

The Good Book Stall

I was won over in the introduction of this book. The mother and son commitment to challenging and encouraging teenagers to experiment in prayer rather than instructing in a set of 'expert methods', shines throughout each chapter.

Any book that is birthed out of a discovered need in the market oftens comes from a genuine heart to see that need fulfilled. The Threlfall-Holmes's stay true to their commitment to allow the reader to experiment with each suggestion. The genuine good &amp; bad reviews show that not all methods will work for everyone and that the reader should be free to accept the varying degrees of success and failure along the way.

The self-review space also encourages the reader to be able to reflect on their own progress and interest of each option. This is so often overlooked in efforts to have young people learning, but vital in helping them discover what is right for them and not to feel a failure when it's not working.

I'm particularly impressed by the diverse range of options available including practical, interactive, written, virtual, food, physical activity, quiet and loud variations. In line with the authors' heart, I felt it important that I didn't review this book as an 'adult expert', but considered the thoughts of teenagers I know. It was encouraging to hear their mixed viewpoints and a range of preferred options to continue with.

This book would be very supportive of any individual teenager looking to discover how prayer can work for them, but I would also encourage parents or youth leaders to look at how they can read this with their teenagers and be part of the experiment themselves.

My personal favourite? Whilst I love anything active and prayer walking is definitely helpful to my personal experiment, I am excited about the Taste &amp; See option. I love seeing Communion experinced by young people and I would love to see the reviews of more young people taking part in this.

I encourage you to buy this book for the teenage in your life...and then ask if you can read it with them!

The Teenage Prayer Experiment

Teenage Prayer Experiment Notebook

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