sneaking in some Godly Play

How long did you think it would be before I'd find a venue for presenting Godly Play again?

As part of my ministry training, I had to preach the sermon for our congregation yesterday. And what should be the Gospel text in our lectionary but a section from Mark's Gospel which included the Parable of the Mustard Seed! So, since the children are with us in their Play and Pray area in the chapel, I decided we should have a children's lesson as well as a grown-up sermon.

I invited everyone to come to the front of the chapel before the Gospel reading, and presented the Godly Play lesson then. After we'd wondered for a bit, and put the materials away, I had everyone stand to listen to the Gospel, or rather, the bits that hadn't already been presented in the Godly Play lesson, which is to say Mark 4: 26-29 and 33-34. Only then did everyone go back to their original places, and I went to the pulpit for the sermon.

This was actually the first time I've presented this lesson, as it was see-through-faith who presented it last year! There were various minor "flaws" in my presentation. It was hard for me to stay in the story and not get impatient with how long it took to unfurl the creased branches of the shrub/tree. When I'd practiced at home, I'd managed to get these to "stick" pretty well to the underlay as I unrolled it, but today they wouldn't un-crumple. Plus I was distracted with nerves about the other upcoming sermon.

I did get a good chuckle from the congregation at the beginning when I bunched up the underlay and suggested it might be a splodge of mustard.

The wondering remained silent ...

photo kindly taken by Rami Rekola
... but many people (not just children) took the opportunity to place birds and nests into the story themselves.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

album pages vs. scripts

Image
( image source ) Before signing up for this course (on the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd) I knew the name of Sofia Cavalletti , the Hebrew scholar who, upon being asked to instruct a child in the Christian faith, began by reading to him from Genesis and was delighted to find how eager and curious he was - "the beginner's mind". I hadn't understood before, though, that CGS was a team effort. The Montessori element came from Gianna Gobbi , who had trained under Maria Montessori herself. I have seen references to Montessori albums, but had never really understood what that referred to. And herein lies one important  difference between Godly Play and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd . In Godly Play we buy scripts written by Jerome W. Berryman, and we stick to them. As I've written before, we're not so slavish as to use notes - not speaking from memory is a sin even greater than deliberately changing the script - bur we are told to use the GP script and live with ...
Read more

a foray into CGS

Image
Tomorrow I'm off to the Netherlands for an intensive week of training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (in English). I had meant to blog about this already back when I registered, but I got stuck when I failed to figure out how to put a pdf of the course leaflet up here. (Now I've copied what the training center have done, which is to link to it from an image - see below.) Instead I'll just give you a few highlights: "The course will cover the first year program of level 1 of the method." Our trainer will be Linda Kaeil, from Portland, Oregon. She "is a long time experienced catechist and trainer of catechists in the United States, Germany, England, Poland, Australia, Canada and Africa. She trains the Missionaries of Charity (sisters of Mother Theresa) ... and teaches catechesis to children of 3 to 12 years at the Franciscan Montessori Earth School." Wow! I think of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd as the mother of Godly Play. Certainly, Jerome Be...
Read more

wondering with materials

Image
It's an exciting feature of the Faces of Easter lessons that instead of opening up a time of verbal wondering or discussion at the close of each story, the storyteller says, I wonder what there is in this room that can help us tell more of the story. Look around and see if you can bring something to show more about this part of the story. That's all. There are no more rules than that. Some in the circle may be thrown by this and have no idea how to respond. As Berryman says, that is okay. Many children learn by watching as well as by doing.   Since most of us will present portions of this lesson at least twice during Lent, participants will have another chance on another occasion... and after all, this is an opportunity but it is  never  a requirement. If you don't feel like getting something, that's okay. Just enjoy what we make together. [All the Berryman quotes in this post are from  The Complete Guide to Godly Play,  volume 4.] The first person I ever ...
Read more