![]() “God is within us in the Holy Spirit, who sustains and re-creates us. “God is beside us in Jesus in the Gospels as well as experientially. God is beyond us as Creator, yet hinted at through God’s creation. “It works to open us to wonder, which opens us to the creative process. Open to wonderĪ Godly Play session is organised around the deep structure of the holy Eucharist, which is used by nearly all parts of the Christian family for worship.ĭr Berryman says, “The Christian language system involves four genres: sacred stories, parables, liturgical action and contemplative silence. ![]() More about this can be found in “Playful Orthodoxy: Reconnecting Religion and Creativity by Education” in the Sewanee Theological Review, Volume 48, No. ![]() “Godly Play attempts to draw children and adults together into a spiritual practice that has implications for and fosters the maturity of all.” When we are with children in a wondering way, it opens adults to be more childlike and more respectful of children’s gifts. “Children show how to bless and be blessed. They do this more naturally than adults, who sometimes need to relearn what they knew as children and develop conscious practices to do what they once did without thinking. “Children reveal the importance of deep, contemplative silence to know God. “They reveal how to play hide and seek with God, a theme of Samuel Terrien’s The Elusive Presence. The revelation children convey as a means of grace involves three insights. I also began to realise Godly Play worked very well with adults in counselling as well as educational and pastoral care settings.” “The Parable of the Good Shepherd enables children to sense God’s presence to cope with what cannot be known. My experience in the hospital made it clear that children need more than play therapy to cope with their existential limits, which are palpable in a ward. “I also worked extensively with dying children in hospital settings. “After working with suicidal children in Houston in the 1980s, I realised that what these families lacked was any sense of a family story. The power of narrativeĭr Berryman says Godly Play harnesses the power of narrative. The shelves surround the gathered community when listening and wondering, and illustrate the stories. The parables are contained in gold boxes on the other side of the room. The sacred stories are contained in woven baskets and a desert bag is used to tell the sandy desert stories. In the shelf below are the materials for the World Communion story, the cloths in liturgical colours and the materials for the Baptism story. To the left is a Baptism candle and to the right some sheep in a pen with a Good Shepherd figure next to them. The focal shelf has a Holy Family nativity in the centre in front of a risen Christ. The materials used in Godly Play stories are simple and hand-crafted. It can be a way of preparing children or adults to join fully in the worship life of their congregations.Ī Godly Play room has been created at the Centre for Ministry to enable people to experience Godly Play storytelling in a space that is specially created to “speak” to them, and that is beautiful and invites response.Įvery Tuesday afternoon from 4 to 6 pm a group of Godly Play storytellers meets to practise stories and welcome visitors. Godly Play is used extensively with adults and children in many settings from schools to hospitals, churches to aged care facilities. It invites the listener to connect faith stories with personal experience through wondering questions, open-ended response and silence. Godly Play is a Montessori style of telling Bible stories, parables and liturgical action about religious traditions using simple, natural materials. In Godly Play, children discover who God is.” “In most religious education children are told what God did.
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