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Clothespin Encouragement Prayers

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clothespins on a wire

We did these clothespin encouragement prayers at a Pizza and Prayer gathering at my church last month. We set up a table with clothespins, markers, stickers, and instructions at the entrance, and as people came in, we had them do this fun, creative prayer activity. The kids especially loved this!

These clothespin encouragement prayers make a great activity for a group that knows each other, or at least a group with different smaller groups (like friends or families) who know each other. (This wouldn’t work for a group of strangers.)

This is a great prayer idea for youth and for the classroom, but the adults loved this as well. Clothespin encouragement prayers can be set up as a prayer station and makes a great interactive prayer activity.

What You Need

  • clothespins
  • markers (Sharpies work well) and pens
  • stickers to stick on the clothespins

Clothespin Encouragement Prayers

  1. Write your name on a clothespin.
  2. Take a clothespin with someone else’s name on it (someone you know). Write a prayer, a compliment, or why you are grateful for that person on a sticker and stick it to the clothespin. Take a quick moment to say something (out loud or in your head) to God about this person.
  3. Try to pin the clothespin on the person without that person knowing.

Why is this prayer?

I love this interactive prayer practice because it’s fun. My kids and their friends were calling this “the clothespin game”. But this activity counts as prayer too!

Why is it prayer? Prayer is simply talking to God about yourself, another person, or a situation in the world. Prayer can be asking for help, saying thank you, expressing wonder at God’s creation, or saying sorry. This creative prayer practice hits three of those four elements of prayer:

  • you are saying “thank you” for someone in your life and telling them why you are thankful for them
  • you are expressing wonder and appreciation for someone in your life (in the form of a compliment)
  • you can ask for something on behalf of another person and write that as a prayer to God

Why does this prayer practice work so well?

Both the kids and the adults loved this creative prayer practice. The kids loved it because it was a stealth game of making other people feel good. They had to be sneaky to complete this prayer practice, and they loved when they could pin people without them noticing.

For the recipient of the clothespin, this prayer practice works because it helps to lift them up knowing that a prayer was said specifically for them, or having a quality about themselves recognized and named.

In fact, when you recognize and name something good in a person – especially something that God recognizes as well, then you are speaking words of blessing into a person’s life. Blessing someone involves speaking truth over them. Pick out something about that person and write it on their clothespin. Bonus if you can pair it with a Bible verse!

Here are some examples of compliments with Bible verses:

You are strong and courageous. – Joshua 1:9

You are kind. – Mark 12:31

You are wise. – Proverbs 31:26

You are a leader. – Luke 22:26

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