Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest - Mark 6:31

Do Quiet days work?

  • “There was a playground of thoughts, words and imagery to help us in exploring where we are in our lives. ”

    Stephen

  • “I really liked the collage idea - the way all the parts of our lives don't fit together neatly, but how our faith is built up over time from so many different experiences. I liked the slow start with tea and amazing cookies (recipe please).”

    Angela

  • “If you do it again ... anywhere or somewhere, don’t change anything and a HUGE thank you for so much incredible time and effort on your part.”

    Ruth

  • “I had a great time, thank you for providing it. I spent time meditating on the WiFi password actually. JesusLovesMe.”

    David

  • “This was a new thing for me as I had no experience of Christian based quiet days and have only done secular guided meditation sessions. … It has inspired me to do further days like this as I felt God spoke to me  - it was almost as though words and images were jumping out of the pages to create calm and help me slot things into place. ”

    Catherine

  • “For me, it worked very well because there was so much of you in it, it made it genuine and truly inspiring. Although I've looked at religious art many many times, I'd never felt it helped me connect intimately with God before. I suppose having time and quiet is the key! ”

    Claire

  • “I felt / was surrounded by 'the presence of' God, the moment I entered the building. This was enhanced / confirmed / made more real by the plethora of 'routes' I experienced as being 'on offer' as I visited round the various areas / themes and honest options available. I was glad to have seen them all before the day 'began,' because I knew which I wanted to choose. “

    Keith

  • "We need to do more of this sort of thing in church. To help us connect in spirit and focus on areas of healing. And make things real. A lot of our time is focussed on service to others which is how things should be but we need to be careful not to run on empty. Taking time to be mindfully present in God’s love is a great way of ensuring we can serve in the spirit rather than just go through the motions."

    Andrea

I offer tailored Quiet Days. These can be for a morning or a whole day but always involve a balance between prayerful input and reflective space, usually they offer the opportunity for working with artistic materials, images and poetry. Recent ones included a focus on Pain, for Holy Week, or Ways of Praying and Darkness and Light, in Advent.

“Thank you for the Quiet Day on Monday.

It was refreshingly different to have the opportunity to spend time with God and enjoy the silence. I found the variety of prompts – poetry, pictures, artwork, and activities were very helpful in stimulating my thoughts and prayers. The flexibility to move between these different spaces gave me a chance to choose where to spend my time – finding out for myself which areas drew me close to God and which I found more challenging. I learned more about myself, and my relationship with God as a result.

The practical actions of lighting a candle, drawing, painting, and creating bottles of tears provided different ways to respond – again it was refreshing to see that prayer can take many forms and to experiment with these different approaches. I was interested to see how many people were comfortable with these forms of expression, and to hear about how they had used them to get close to God. This inspired me to have-a-go and experiment with new forms of prayerful expression.

Many visitors came into the church for the first time and were immediately struck by the quiet, calm, ‘beautiful’ atmosphere and many felt compelled to join in, sitting in silence or praying. It was a powerful witness, a chance for them to see the church in action and for us to welcome them in to experience the ‘living’ church.”

— Louise Pain Quiet Day

Another Quiet day was based on Chaos, Clouds and Confusion in our lives.

… and looking at ourselves as The Collage of God (with thanks to Mark Oakley for his use of this phrase). I used this image from Mary Fleeson of the Lindisfarne Scriptorium as inspiration.