Willow Avenue Mennonite Church introduced its prayer labyrinth, which is listed on the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator, during an event at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, February 9, 2020, led by Pastor Audrey Hindes. A prayer labyrinth is not a maze. “There are no wrong turns; you cannot get lost,” says a sign at its entrance. “Walk slowly, trusting each step to take you closer to the center. Take a moment when you reach the center to listen to what God might be saying to you. When you’re ready, follow the same path back out, knowing that God is with you.”
The walking path of the labyrinth is grass, while the outline of each of the labyrinth’s five circuits are bricks inlayed into the grass. Members of the congregation wrote prayers of blessing for the church and the neighborhood, which lie face-down on bricks that line the entrance to the labyrinth.
Everyone is invited to use the labyrinth, which visitors can find by following directional signs posted at the church parking lot entrances on Willow and San Gabriel avenues. “This prayer labyrinth is really a gift to the neighborhood and wider community,” Hindes says. “I’m aware of only four other public labyrinths in the Fresno-Clovis area.” A children’s Sunday school lesson has also been written to introduce children to this form of prayer.
Inspiration for the labyrinth came from the monthly “prayer walks” Hindes led at labyrinths around Fresno and Clovis after becoming pastor at Willow Avenue. She explains that a prayer labyrinth offers “a way to pray through the movement of our bodies, allowing our minds to rest and our hearts to open to God’s loving presence.”
Work on the project began in October 2019 at an all-church workday. The labyrinth was completed on January 2, 2020, when 22 volunteers moved nearly 1,000 bricks donated by a church family, laid and leveled bricks into the channels and packed sand into the gaps. The sand was donated by the Head Start preschool on the church campus.
The installation process
