More prayer, less pain: 2 college students design faith-inspired kneeling pads

Daniel Turek, left, and Noah Mullins are two Detroit-area students studying at Grand Valley State University who design and sell Kingdom Kneelers, foam kneeling pads for prayer. Mullins came up with the idea for Kingdom Kneelers after attending the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Kingdom Kneelers

Detroit, Mich., Dec 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Noah Mullins’ experience at the 2024 SEEK Conference cemented his reversion back to the Catholic faith.

It also sparked a business venture that can heal souls and perhaps save some pain on kneecaps.

The Grand Valley State University student and University of Detroit Jesuit High School alum was at the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis, invited by the Catholic campus ministry in Allendale in west Michigan.

Mullins grew up at St. Joseph Parish in Trenton, Michigan, and drifted away from Catholicism after high school but started visiting the Catholic campus ministry — initially to disprove the tenets of the faith but later to learn more about Catholicism through a mature lens.

It was the third night of SEEK, and after a few encouraging lectures and prayers surrounding Eucharistic adoration, Mullins was slowly coming around to discover (or rather rediscover) Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist.

“We had this time for conference-wide adoration in the stadium,” Mullins told Detroit Catholic. “We had this time for adoration, and many people were getting so emotional as the priest carried the Eucharist in the monstrance throughout the stadium. Many people, myself included, were kneeling, but the stadium had concrete-cement flooring, so it was getting very difficult to kneel.”

It was a powerful moment for Mullins. His heart was on fire for the Lord, but his knees were aching. 

The solution presented itself right away.

“On my way out of adoration, I noticed FOCUS [the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, who organize the SEEK Conference] had provided some kneeling pads,” Mullins said. “I took a kneeler because I wanted one for my dorm back at Grand Valley. When I got back to my hotel that night, it dawned on me: These could be personalized or customized with a general design — maybe have better quality, a larger pad for a wider kneeling stance. Perhaps some Catholic imagery, since FOCUS kneelers just had their logo.”

That night in the hotel room, Mullins kicked around with fellow students the idea of customized foam kneelers for Catholics on the go who wanted to pray and save themselves from joint pain.

Mullins enlisted the help of fellow Grand Valley State student Daniel Turek, a Detroit Catholic Central alum and parishioner of St. William in Walled Lake, Michigan, whom Mullins met at St. Luke University Parish located right off the GVSU campus.

Mullins and Turek would talk about the faith and various beliefs in the Church, and the occasional sparring turned into accompaniment, as Mullins was warming back up to the idea of rejoining the Church.

The two agreed to meet at Wolfgang’s Restaurant, a popular breakfast destination in Grand Rapids’ Eastown Neighborhood, where Mullins and Turek, a senior marketing major, began discussing what Kingdom Kneelers would look like and to whom they could market them.

“We had much debate on what we wanted to do for these kneeling pads,” Turek said. “Noah and I talked to over 10 different priests from the Diocese of Grand Rapids and the Archdiocese of Detroit, consulting with them on what would be a proper image. We wanted them to be good, Christian images, but we didn’t want anything that would be disrespectful to kneel on.”

The two settled on three designs: a ram caught in a thicket, a rosary wrapped around hands in prayer, and a Crusader.

Each kneeler features the Kingdom Kneelers logo — which features the Sacred Heart — in the bottom-right corner and a Bible verse in the top-left corner.

“We wanted to hit two elements in the design right away, that being Christ, of course, and the Blessed Mother,” Mullins said. “We knew going into making the designs we wanted to have those two elements. Then we decided on the Crusader, as we wanted to appeal to Catholic men who might want a more masculine image as well.”

The foam kneelers have a neoprene surface that is smooth for kneeling, are approximately 6 1/2 by 13 inches, and are just under a pound in weight.

Mullins and Turek first introduced the kneelers to friends on campus and received a positive reception. They have begun marketing the kneelers to people at campus ministry, parish gift shops, and conferences in the Grand Rapids area.

“Our best reception came a week ago at the Grand Rapids diocesan Council of Catholic Women event — the Ablaze Conference — where we sold 15 kneelers to attendees of the event,” Mullins said. “People were saying they wish they had something like this at the National Eucharistic Congress or would have loved to have them at home. Many of the women were thinking they could be great gifts for their grandsons or granddaughters to help them stay in the faith as they grow older and leave home.”

Coming full circle, Kingdom Kneelers will have an exhibition table at the SEEK 2025 conference in Salt Like City on Jan. 1–5.

“We think these will be a big hit at SEEK, but also being used at home to pray in corners because many people want to have a traditional kneeler at home,” Mullins said. “We see it being used on pilgrimages as we are going into the jubilee year, and people are traveling to visitation sites and worship sites in Europe and around the world. We see Kingdom Kneelers for companies who put on pilgrimage tours to add to their attendees’ packages.”

Kingdom Kneelers are available to purchase online for $19.99.

Mullins and Turek hope the kneelers will help people enter into a more intentional — if not more comfortable — state of prayer. 

“Our goal here is to bring a lot more comfort within prayer,” Turek said. “Allow more people to dive deeper into prayer life. My knees start to ache when I’m on them for too long, particularly when the ground or floor is so hard. Providing something that brings comfort that will bring people into prayer with Our Lord longer; that’s our goal.”

This story was first published by Detroit Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.