the parable of the Great Pearl

Warning: spoilers ahead. If you haven't had the Parable of the Great Pearl presented to you by a Godly Play storyteller, and you think you might get that chance - stop reading.

photo, used by permission, from Explore and Express

If you already know the lesson, and would like to read about my experiences with it, carry on. 

guest post: remembering a parable

Written by see-through faith on 23 May

Saturday was our wedding anniversary. 23 years.

We woke up together but spent the morning apart. Hubby busy with stuff around the house and I – I cycled over to our all age Godly play morning.

It was fabulous. Storyteller opened up the story of the great family of God in a new and exciting way.

But before that there was a heart stopping moment for me. As part of her introduction to the session storyteller explained to the group that all the stories in the room we had already had this year except for the one we were about to hear that morning. One of the young members of junior church raised their hand and repectfully reminded us that there was one story storyteller hadn’t heard! Because stf (that’s me!) had put in a new parable box the week before.

photo by see-through faith

That was nice.

But then the heart-stopping moment all teachers dread … One of the adults asked. Oh … can you tell us what parable it was?

silence

(I’m sitting there thinking … wrong question … I never gave the parable a name. How awfully embarassing for the child. How awfully embarrasing for me.)

But I was wrong.

The three little children (all 5 and under) looked at where the box was placed and then at me and then with very little prompting they remembered – and started to tell the story to the grown ups.

They remembered the story of the tiny little seed, so tiny if I had it on the end of my finger you wouldn’t be able to see it!

which was planted by a sower

and it grew

and grew

and grew

until it was a huge shrub

as big as a tree

photo by see-through faith (taken from the children's viewpoint)

and the birds of the air

came

and made their nests in it.


Then it was time to quiz the adults as to what parable that actually was. That was the fun part. (grin) You see there is more than one parable about the Kingdom of God which talks about seeds and sowers and birds, but only one in which the birds of the air make their nests.

That parable is – of course!- the parable of the mustard seed.
(You can find it in Matt 13:31-32)

Our new room, part 1

Last week was our first time in our "new" building, but we couldn't use our normal room. So today was another first, the first time in "our" room. It's only ours for this one time slot, so I bring everything from home.

The process of setting up helped me focus and felt good. Here's the view from the door. I'll post more pictures later, but maybe you can just about see that I've formed a square out of low benches, which become our shelves. The bench on the right of the photo is our focal shelf. The Sacred Story shelf is sort of hidden behind a pillar, but you can probably just make out a parable box in the lower left of the photo.

That parable box held today's lesson: The Good Shepherd. It draws on imagery from Psalm 23 as well as John 10 and Matthew 18 / Luke 15. At the feast we sang the song, "The Lord is my shepherd / I'll follow him always". Then our pastor came to give us communion and blessings, and we ended with "Go now in peace".