25 February 2011

on being non-coercive

I came across a quote today from Rebecca Nye (one of the people who trained me in Godly Play). I'm going to give that quote its own post, in a moment. But while I was looking for its source, I flipped through a copy of Rebecca's book that I own. And there I found this quote:

Notice that not once did Jesus make his disciples pray. He just kept on praying until they could contain their hunger no longer and asked Him to teach them how to pray.* 
It made me wonder if I'm pushing too hard in having a prayer time in our Godly Play sessions. But I feel that the older members of the circle really appreciate having that time, and their needs are important too. Upon reading further, I felt reassured that I'm doing okay. We use a holding cross, which is passed from person to person, and I just need to keep reiterating that there are three equally valid choices - pray out loud, pray in your heart (which might include just holding the cross for a moment prayerfully), or just to politely pass the cross to the next person. Maybe I should even phrase it the other way: If you want to stop and hold the cross for a moment to pray, aloud or in your heart - that's okay.


*source: (Pat Lynch, Awakening the Giant, quoted in Rebecca Nye, Children's Spirituality, 2009)
** An update on some feedback that I got from one child is here.

1 comment:

  1. seethroughfaith27 February, 2011 17:50

    If you want to stop and hold the cross for a moment to pray, aloud or in your heart - that's okay.

    I really iike THAT way of putting it

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