We made a brief visit back to Finland during the summer. Sadly, our pastor has been unable to continue offering weekly services, so our congregation now meets only twice a month. The Sunday we were there was one of the Sundays when there was no service. So I organised a sort of "house church" Godly Play session with one of the families whose children used to come to Junior Church.
I made a focal shelf in their living room.
Ahead of time, I had asked the children each to request a set of story materials they'd like me to bring. I used these, as well as some of the family's own possessions (like a storybook about Jonah), to surround us with stories the way a Godly Play classroom does.
I presented the Circle of the Church Year and we had crayons to use during Response Time. During our feast we listened to the passage from Ecclesiastes about there being a right time for everything, and we had a short time of prayer. I asked the parents what hymns they would like us to sing together, and we used those to open and close our service.
The children had lost some of their sense of how we used to do things, and found it a little difficult to settle down in the space they usually use for play and watching tv, but one thing I really notice from the photos is the way the children moved closer and closer to the story materials as I presented the lesson. They were literally drawn in!
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