Small Church April 6, 2025

Read Luke 19:41-48 aloud

Today, for visio divina, instead of looking at works of art to help us pray with our eyes, you are invited to create your own art as a prayer to God. There is no artistic skill necessary, today’s practice is best described as colourful journalling.

Today, we are using Luke 19: 41-48 to colour our prayers of lament.

Sybil MacBeth’s book Praying in Color is full of ideas for how to colour your prayers. One method she recommends is “Praying in the Margins of Scripture,” where you doodle and colour in white spaces of scripture.  

For this practice you have the option of colouring directly in our bible (if you are comfortable), or there are printed sheets with the scripture passage available (you can download them with the link to the left).

There is no right way or wrong way to do this practice. As you sit with your emotions let your colours, shapes and doodles guide your prayer.

This practice can take 5-10 minutes, or more, depending on the group. Once you finish with the official colouring time, you might find it helpful to keep doodling during the discussion time.

Instructions for Colouring your Prayers:

• Select a few different colours to draw with and find a comfortable place to colour your prayers.
• Read the scripture aloud together, then enter into a reflective time to colour.
• You might want to play some music during this time (there are suggestions below in the resource section, or you can select your own music).
• Re-read the scripture to yourself and consider the following questions:
  • What words stand out to you?
  • Are there images which come to mind?
  • What are the hopeless situations in today’s world which you want to weep over?
  • What about the injustices in the world which make you angry?
• As you read the scripture and meditate on these questions, colour in the margins of the page (or bible). Highlight words, draw shapes, shade in areas, doodle, write in your own words of lament or anger. Let your colouring be your prayer with God.

When the reflection time is over, if you are comfortable doing so, share your drawings with the others in the group.

• Share with one another about the things in the world which you are lamenting.
• Do you struggling with not being able to fix something? Or feeling like something is so hopeless that you are incapacitated to do anything?
• How do rituals of lament change you, or how you approach the world?
• Share some different ways of practicing lament (either ones you have participated in or have seen others practice).
• In the midst of suffering in the world, share about how you have seen God’s love shine through.

Gather up all the prayers of lament and anger and turn them over to God.

During the colouring time, consider listening to these songs:

• Why so Sad by David Benjamin Blower
• Lamb of God by Poor Clare

Or these hymns:

• We lay our broken world in sorrow at your feet
• O Lord, hear my prayer

The communion table reminds us of the “great reversal’ where the hungry are fed, the sick and hurting are healed, and sinners forgiven. If, as Brian Zahnd says, “grace runs downhill”, then this table is at the bottom of the hill.

With some bread and some juice, serve each other the body and blood of Christ as a sign of the good news we share in Jesus.

Jesus is God. And Jesus was also a human, just like us. And just like us he had all sorts of emotions. In the Bible we see that he had big feelings, he cried, and he got angry, especially when people were hurting or not being treated with kindness.

It is incredible that we have a God who felt pain and sadness, and showed these feelings through tears and even through a tantrum or two.

Just like Jesus we might feel angry or sad when other people are not treated fairly or with kindness. When we cry over someone else’s pain, it shows that we care about others. When we get angry over how others are treated, it shows us what we care about. Just like Jesus we can weep and get angry.

It is important to create rituals which allow us to be with our big feelings. Lament is a special ritual which lets us sit with our sadness or anger. There are lots of ways to lament, sometimes we do it on our own (like praying to God), and sometimes we lament with others (like during Lent at church).

Today we are going to do a special ritual for lament by colouring some pictures. Our drawings are a way we can pray with God. These drawings don’t have to be perfect but are a way for us to share with God the things that make us sad or get angry.

Read Luke 19: 41-48

Or you can read it from The Book of Belonging, pages 231 – 234.

Colouring our Prayers

As a ritual of lament (making space for big feelings of sadness and anger), we will be making drawings as a prayer to God.

You can print this sheet to have the children colour, but you can also use blank paper.

Use the following prompts for the children to draw their laments:

• What are some things which make God and us sad or angry.
• What are some ways which people are not treated with kindness and love?
• What about things in the world which hurt other people?

When everyone is done colouring (or gets too wiggly), share the different things kids are lamenting. Offer up these drawings as your prayer to God.

1) How does sadness feel in your body? What about anger? (bubbly, hot, heavy, swirly)

2) Are there any rituals you have to help you be with big feelings? On your own or with your family? With the church or in the community?

3) How does it feel to have big feelings over someone else’s pain? Or because they were not treated with kindness?

4) Think of ways you can show love and care to others when they are lamenting or having big feelings.