What do you like best about the Pentecost story?

The first time I prepared the Pentecost story was early in my introduction of Godly Play to the very young children in our church. Vandriver and I were not at all sure about knocking down a set of blocks as the opening to the story - the children were still learning our new, reflective storytime mood and we worried that knocking down a tower was going to send the wrong message!

Instead, I prepared a story based heavily on the Young Children and Worship version.

But I came down with the norovirus that year, and didn't do Pentecost at all.

our Pentecost materials

The next year, I found myself with the materials ready for the Young Children and Worship story but discovered that after months of telling Godly Play stories I was no longer really satisfied with the YCW script. It felt like the worst of lectionary readings can feel - less like a pericope (a self-contained unit) and more like a random chunk of text. It seemed to me to lack the shape of a story.

What I did like, though, was ending with Peter's words from Acts 2:39, "This promise is for you and your children," as I drew a little flame on the forehead of each figure, tall and small.

I did the best I could, but I felt quite dissatisfied with the telling. My wondering questions were genuine, as I asked what we might have added or left out from the story (I seem to recall that one child thought my table, representing the table from the upper room, was unnecessary).

Months later, the grandmother of one of our children came to visit and I encouraged the child to show her around the room after our session. I began slowly putting things away while they explored. At one point I overheard the child say, These are the Pentecost materials, (I was pleased since I'd only used the word about 2-3 times all year) and then - joy - the young voice continued, and these are the children.

So many Bible stories don't actually feature children in them. But the Pentecost promise is explicitly for children as well.

presenting the Ascension

If only I were doing Godly Play this year, it would be time for my favorite lesson from Young Children and Worship. I hope you'll bear with me if I repeat some of what I've written on this topic before:

The relationship between Young Children and Worship and Godly Play is somewhat murky, especially to outsiders. But it would seem that the Ascension lesson was written by Sonja M. Stewart after visiting and working with Jerome W. Berryman (and after reading Sofia Cavalletti). 

It's one of my favorite lessons. It is simple, while being both biblical and liturgical. It brings together the story of the Ascension with Berryman's "changing of the light", while also introducing (or reinforcing) the response we often give during the Eucharistic prayer to sum up the Mystery of Faith:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

(photo by stf, cropped by me)

In presenting this, I adapted Stewart's lesson in small ways. I didn't use a satin underlay, but a small linen table cloth. I showed the Crucifixion/Resurrection card from the Faces of Easter lesson to emphasize the connection with (and continuation of) the Easter story. I deliberately used the word Eastertide as well as "season of Easter". And I followed Berryman's choice of phrasing, the tomb could not hold him, rather than Stewart's God made him alive again. 

saying Goodbye

A couple of days ago, one of the others who leads Junior Church texted me to ask if I'd be able to lead this week (I was away last week because of a funeral). I said yes. After church we held an informal "Gathering" at which we discussed upcoming plans, including the future of Junior Church. [Vandriver and I expect to be abroad during the upcoming academic year, and I am the only [adult] Godly Play enthusiast in our congregation (Seethroughfaith being in England at present).]

photo from Beulah Enterprises

I suggested that the others consider two solutions (or a third option, which would be a combination of the first two). One is the Beulah Land curriculum (the subject of our next guest post). The other is to not have any separate Junior Church program, but to set up a "Play and Pray" area during our regular services (here's a good description of the sort of thing I have in mind, and here's my account of the one time we've tried something like this before). We have never managed to continue Junior Church through the summer, and so last year we ended at Pentecost (which came quite late in the calendar then). So I think the congregation will introduce "Play and Pray" across the summer, and order the Beulah Land materials to consider using for autumn.

(last year)

Today's lesson had been the story of the Ascension. The Gospel of Luke closes with this, and has Jesus blessing his disciples as he is taken up into heaven, after which they return to Jerusalem with great joy. But in the opening of Acts, the story is more poignant. They're discussing the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, and just minutes later Jesus is taken up into a cloud. I picture the disciples just staring into the sky in shock, mouths hanging open. Literally. God has to send messengers: Nothing more to see here, folks. Move along now.

I mention this because it suddenly became clear at our Gathering that the consensus was that we'll have no Junior Church after Pentecost this year either. Since next Sunday, Pentecost, will be a Family Service... that meant I had just led the last Junior Church for this year, my last one for at least a year, and possibly the last Godly Play session we'll have. I'm sure it's due to poor communication on my part, but I was caught completely off-guard. I went off to put things away and realized I might as well go ahead and take them home! [Most of the art materials and cleaning materials belong to the church, but I've assembled and paid for all the Godly Play materials myself.]

It was a terribly sad feeling, and all the more difficult because I had been quite unprepared. I obviously hadn't warned the children at all, hadn't explained anything, hadn't said, This may be your last time to work with these materials.

working with Advent materials today

I'll continue to blog. I'll continue to interact with the children at our church whenever I see them, and I'll continue to look for opportunities to lead Godly Play.

But I was glad of the chance to clear the room slowly and then to walk home (leaving Vandriver to follow with the car) - as my time and space in which to say Goodbye to this stage of things and grieve a bit.



(Update: a follow-up post is here)

Eastertide Guest Post: on the Emmaus Road

Featherglen came up trumps for our (Sheila's and my) Eastertide Guest Post series with not one but two blog posts. I introduced her in yesterday's post, about her Eastertide garden. Today she shares several ways of telling and remembering the story of the Emmaus Road. I appreciate how sensitive she is to the context of worship - the community, the physical location, the resources available. It's wonderful that she's included so many photos (please honor her request, "If you want to use any of them, please be lovely enough to ask me first."). I took the liberty of re-arranging them slightly, dividing the post into an introduction and then three sections.

Although all the accounts of the Resurrection are amazing, one that I particularly love is the appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yes, it is strange that they don't recognise Him - but then they aren't expecting him either - somehow He is the same but different - that's certainly what I'm hoping for myself anyway! What I love is that He doesn't just jump in and shock them and say 'I'm back!' but takes the time to walk with two grieving, wondering men. He walks alongside them, listens to them and then starts to help them put the pieces together. It is only in the breaking of the bread that finally they see Him. It certainly reminds me of my own encounters with Jesus.



For us in L'Arche, it has been a powerful theme, that God walks with us. We have used it on L'Arche retreats, with large wooden figures. When I encountered Godly Play, it seemed like a natural extension of what we do in many ways already.

Also, in L'Arche, every Easter Sunday, we read the story and it is mimed by our core members ( the adults with learning disabilities that form the centre of our Community). We use our long driveway and over the years we have even made a quite permanent looking signpost. I enjoy seeing it when I arrive at L'Arche in the morning, it reminds me of my continuing walk with Christ. I think it could be a great story to do with children, outdoors, along a quiet road.

Earlier this year I also got hold of the book 'Young Children and Worship' by Sonja M. Stewart and Jerome Berryman. It is the forerunner to Godly Play. I was thrilled to discover it has an Emmaus Road story in it. However, being too busy I haven't had the time to really learn it - but after a quick look and drawing on elements of the story I have heard and participated in in so many ways each year - I told it to our family. We just did it after dinner one evening, at the table, which felt appropriate. We did  a quick raid of my son's wooden castle blocks, then used some wooden figures, a bit of bread and a candle (our Christ candle). At the end of the story, instead of wondering, we broke and shared some bread together. And in that simple moment, Jesus walked among us anew. Amen...

my world communion materials

It was months ago that I promised Sheila from Explore and Express that I'd write about how I made my World Communion materials. Since then she's gone ahead and made her own materials in her own way, which I'm glad about for her sake. But I'm perfectly happy to describe my own - a fair amount of the "traffic" that comes to me through search engines is people looking for information about materials - it was just that I hadn't actually finished mine until this week. These were made with much love and little expense. There was no woodworking involved!

The fence enclosing the sheep fold is of plastic (by Schleich), which disappointed me at first, but it is working well for us. It's easy to disassemble and store, which I have to do every week. We use only four pieces, two of which are designed not to fasten, so it's easy to open and close the pen. My green circle bases are simply cardboard painted green. I was a bit embarrassed about doing that, but this beautiful post at What Can We Leave Out reminds me that the beauty and value of these objects is as much in how you treat them as what they're made of. Here's another photograph of a World Communion base made out of cardboard (from Godly Play in Australia), with clothes-pin people. I would encourage you not to apologize for your materials as long as you have created them with love and care.

My figures are also made of cardboard, but a very stiff and solid board. It doesn't have the holes that you can see within the base (EDIT: corrugated, that's the word. It's not corrugated) - it's just a solid stiff cardboard. I no longer remember where it came from - it was just in our recycling box on the day that I went hunting for what to use for this. I used the patterns found in the Young Children and Worship book, but my figures are like typical Godly Play figures in that they are clothed and colored rather than just being wooden silhouettes. I bought a super-basic range of the three primary colors at the craft store: blue, yellow, red, and white paint (and bitterly regretted not having bought any black, but I used a Sharpie pen for hair and definition), and did my non-artistic best to mix them into a range of plausible skin tones and hair colors. I deliberately left one man bald and gave one woman white hair, and tried to give the priest a gender-neutral hairstyle.

side view, lamb's "wool"

upholstery swatches

I had stumbled across a couple books of upholstery swatches in the flea market. What a great find! (I also used them for my "Jesus the King" Palm Sunday materials.) With them I was able to create clothing (and sheepskin) which was soft to the touch. For the lamb on the Jesus's shoulders I actually used a thicker fleece material, for a contrast with his garment. (The priest's stole is a bit of ribbon.)

The whole process of course took much longer than I had anticipated. I clothed them front and back, just using scissors and glue. A couple of hours before church I realized I wouldn't have time to finish, and decided to prioritize the children over the adults. So we had the Good Shepherd, five sheep, one priest, and five children for our first session. It was only the Shepherd, two sheep and the priest who could even stand up that day! (This was done simply by using little cardboard bases like paper dolls often have, set at right angles to the figures' flat bodies.)

(back view)

And for the next several months, that was the range of figures that we had. I did nothing else apart from provide the rest of the bases so that each figure could stand up. The unclothed adults were stashed away in a craft box at my house. We did have a communion table or altar, which was simply a simple, unvarnished dolls' house table which I bought on sale. It's not quite to scale, but seems to work fine. The "chalice" and paten were another flea market find. They were the creamer and one saucer from a little tea set. Again it's not ideal - there's a chip missing - but they do for now. In fact, if you remember, stf couldn't find them one week and substituted cardboard ones in their place (which are now lovingly stored together with these ones in their basket).

Last Sunday I presented these materials again. The story of that presentation will have to wait for another post. But it was the motivation I needed to finally finish clothing my figures. I had already tried to dress one of the girls in a shalwar kameez for some cultural diversity, although at least one person has told me it just looks like she's wearing a coat and scarf. But I gave the adults a real variety of clothing. One woman is in a cheongsam and one is in a gákti. One man is in a suit and tie and the other is in sweats (a jogging suit). One thing I don't have, though, is a diversity of mobility (at one parish in Lohja, Finland, they include a man with a cane).

It was actually a friend who was looking to do some "community service" who clothed the man in sweats - thank you!

You might also like to read the post about the first time I presented this lesson

and a short post (with a photo) about how limited my materials were then

Happy Ascension Day

Happy Ascension Day!

Hallelujah! not as orphans

Are we left in sorrow now;

Hallelujah! He is near us

(photo by stf, cropped by me)

We celebrated Ascension Day last Sunday, using the lesson from Young Children and Worship. You can read more about that below.

Welcome to any readers who have followed the link from the Child in the Midst newsletter by Mary Hawes and Going for Growth. It's a real honor to be mentioned. I'm both thrilled and a little nervous, to tell the truth! Mary wrote to me and explained that she'd first found my blog by following a link from Sheila's Explore and Express blog, so thank you to Mary and Sheila, both, for the encouragement.

ascension early

Sunday the 29th was again a day when Junior Church folk and the Big Church folk (big people, who usually worship in the big church) came together for Family Service. This is usually a communion service led by our (Finnish Lutheran) pastor, in a somewhat more child-friendly space than our "big church" is. 

This Sunday, though, I got a phone call about two hours before our service was scheduled to start. The pastor had come down with something, and was too sick to be able to take the service. She asked if I could lead a service and of course I said yes right away. 

It took me less than five minutes, bouncing my ideas against Vandriver, to run through my options and reach a decision. It was a given for me that the service would follow a Godly Play structure. And very quickly I/we decided that the lesson should be the Ascension lesson from Young Children and Worship. 

Sonja M. Stewart (source)

The relationship between Young Children and Worship and Godly Play is somewhat murky, especially to outsiders. But it would seem that the Ascension lesson was written by Sonja M. Stewart after visiting and working with Jerome W. Berryman (and after reading Sofia Cavalletti). 

It's one of my favorite lessons. It is simple, while being both biblical and liturgical. It brings together the story of the Ascension with Berryman's "changing of the light", while also introducing (or reinforcing) the response we often give during the Eucharistic prayer to sum up the Mystery of Faith:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

by Rartat (public domain)

It's what I had been planning for Junior Church the following Sunday, and I already had all the materials I needed for it. Sunday didn't seem too early for Ascension, since we'll be celebrating it with a public holiday on Thursday. And it felt perfect to present the Ascension in the same space that I had presented the Resurrection a month earlier - the beginning and the end of Eastertide. 

There was a quick phone call to see-through faith, who volunteered to drop everything and help us set up. She texted back almost immediately to add that she had some food she could bring for our coffee time, and to confirm a few other arrangements. She is a real blessing for practicalities! We packed up the car and drove to collect her, the three of us drove to our usual premises to gather some things from there, and then we all began setting up at our Family Service premises.

I want to also thank our organist, who was gracious about arriving only to have me say that we didn't need any of the music that she had prepared. I regret that I didn't even think to ask what songs she had planned to have us sing together. She took a seat in the circle, quietly preparing for a very different service than she had expected - a model of "getting ready". I wish the children could have seen her!

I did adapt Stewart's lesson in small ways. I didn't use a satin underlay, but a small linen table cloth. I showed the Crucifixion/Resurrection card from the Faces of Easter lesson to emphasize the connection with (and continuation of) the Easter story. I deliberately used the word Eastertide as well as "season of Easter". And I followed Berryman's choice of phrasing, the tomb could not hold him, rather than Stewart's God made him alive again. 

(photo by stf, cropped by me)

I felt that it was the grace of God that I was prepared to step in and lead at such short notice. I was near-ready with this lesson already, I had led Godly Play in this space before, I am a relatively confident person when it comes to leading and speaking in public. We only had one child under three this week, and his parents kindly held him close (to his great frustration) while I was working with the candle. See-through faith and Vandriver were so supportive and helpful, and the congregation was flexible about the unexpected change in program. I felt a real sense of joy as we opened the session in song: Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

wordless Wednesday

(thanks, seethroughfaith, for all these photos!)

Palm Sunday 2011

Today we were back in our old venue, just for a day. We pushed back the cafe tables, something I'd never really had the guts to do before, and I brought a blanket so we could sit on the floor. (Fortunately it has warmed up a lot recently, and the floor was not too cold.) We had a fairly minimalist set-up: the focal shelf plus one story: "Jesus the King" from Young Children and Worship.

I also had a more compact art supply center than usual: paper, clay (plus tools), colored pencils, and crayons:

But in other ways today was far from minimalist. The service began outside with adults and children together for the Liturgy of the Palms and a procession - led by our 13-year-old member carrying the processional cross! 


Moreover, for the first time ever we tried Junior Church bilingually today. Two pastors (both of whom had studied translation as well as theology) helped me translate the YCW story from English to Finnish. I told the English story by heart, and after every paragraph or so I read the corresponding Finnish text from paper. One Mom came to interpret some of my introductory explanations about how Junior Church and our classroom work, and seethroughfaith interpreted a lot of my other instructions, as well as looking after the younger of the two non-English speaking children when she began to need more help figuring out what to do next during the Response Time. Thank you to everyone who helped to make today work out as well as it did!  

He laittoivat vaatteitaan ja palmunoksia tielle, 

jotta Jeesuksen olisi hyvä kulkea, ja huusivat: 

”Hoosianna korkeuksissa!

Siunattu olkoon hän, joka tulee Herran nimessä!”

"Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Advent - the fifth candle

[I've travelled back in time, to tell about our first Godly Play sessions, last December, in my own house.]

During free time at the end of our third session (the fourth week of Advent), the second child started off  sitting on the couch with me, listening to Bible storybooks read aloud as we had done the previous week, but then chose to work with our Lent materials ("Jesus the King" from YCW). Since it had been months since we'd used them, I sat with the child to reiterate the basic plot - placing cloaks and leaves on the road to make it ready for Jesus going to Jerusalem. Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

There's a nice parallel between the Advent materials and Lent materials, in that both include an underlay which has to be rolled up when the story is put away. This child is the youngest of the three, and kept scrunching the material with tight fists - it was hard work for me to let the child do it!

Much later, I remembered that in my own training the teacher had looked mischievously at us while flicking the roll of underlay with a single finger. Aha! She was being playful, but I suspect also demonstrating that rolling and unrolling could be done with a delicate touch.

Meanwhile, the first child unrolled the Advent underlay, and placed all the plaques on it (including the fifth, white, Christmas plaque, which I had not introduced yet). This week, the child also got all the candles out, and carefully examined each candle to make sure that they were put out in the correct order. Then, just as Berryman predicts, The children will probably discover quickly that the white card needs a candle, too. The child called over to me that we needed another candle. I said, Hmmm. I wonder where in this room we could find a white candle? The child walked over to the Christ candle and, eyebrows raised, checked with me whether this could be the right answer. That's right. The Christ candle! and the child carried it across to place it on the Christmas space. 

Advent - the focal shelf

[I've travelled back in time, to tell about our first Godly Play sessions, last December, in my own house.]

On the second Sunday in December, the third Sunday of Advent, the two children returned. It was a little difficult to get them settled down before the story, but as soon as it began, it captured their attention beautifully. I had asked them to bring their own nativity set, since mine has no sheep or shepherds. (Theirs had none either, but I knew it had an angel, which commemorates the same event.)

So the first thing we did was to carefully move my nativity set to its stable on another table, and set theirs up on the focal shelf. This time, when I said that Junior Church was over and they could play freely, I was fully prepared to bring out toy trains or legos... but the first child asked very tentatively to play with the Advent materials. Of course! I replied, thrilled.

Then the other child wanted to do the same. Well, you'll have to ask N. If N wants to work alone then you'll have to do something else. The reply from the first child was so quiet we could hardly hear it, Want to work alone. With no fuss, the second child and I curled up on the couch together to read Bible storybooks instead. Out of the corner of my eye while reading the books aloud, I could see the first child carefully unroll the underlay, and place all the plaques in the right places.

That's the end of that week's story, but for the Godly Play die-hards, I thought I'd add a picture of our focal shelf. Everything on it, apart from the Christ candle, had been used before in Junior Church. (Well, the Advent materials and Holy Family had been new the previous week.) On the floor are table cloths for the other seasons. On the bottom shelf: a few storybooks (which we had read in previous months), materials for the story of the flood, and the gold box containing the parable of the Good Shepherd. The top left shelf held the Advent materials, and the top right the Lent or Palm Sunday story from Young Children and Worship, "Jesus the King". [It only occurred to me in January that it would have made better sense to place the Holy Family in the center, as they are on most focal shelves, and put the risen Christ cross above the Lent materials.]

"Legs criss-cross"

There aren't many Godly Play blogs that I'm aware of. Today I went browsing, following links from GP blogs and skimming through more general blogs about Montessori education (which is the roots of Godly Play, after all). I've found a bunch of inspiration, and come up with three resolutions for our next class.


One difficulty right now is how to communicate my expectations for the classroom. I don't want to over-do it by giving so many rules that I cannot enforce them all, or by nit-picking. For example, one child in my classroom likes to pick up the sides of the sitting mat, facilitating a rocking motion from side to side. Other children quickly pick up the idea, and movement and silliness increase until they're not in a good frame of mind for listening to a lesson.  

Chi Chang Wu (licensed)

I tried emphasizing the "getting ready" position as including having the hands on the knees or legs, but it was not a great success. Today I came across the idea of having a getting ready song. The writer of My Montessori Journey wrote, I have a little song that we sing to remind ourselves of what is expected at group time.  We sing it to the tune "Frere Jacque" and it goes like this: "Legs criss-cross, Legs criss-cross, Hands in your lap, Hands in your lap..." What a great idea! This is definitely on my agenda for our next class. 


I also came across this advice (from Creative Jewish Mom): Build your child’s understanding of life by taking the extra 20 seconds to explain a rule. I realize I haven't explained anything about standing up for communion and blessings; I just told them to do it. So that's something I need to do better next time.


And finally, I've had one more brainstorm - this one entirely my own, but motivated by reading about breaking activities down into smaller steps. I have tried a couple of times to give each child an opportunity to pray by handing a cross around a circle (an idea from this video  - jump to timer count 15:11 (Young Children and Worship))... 

Bouguereau (public domain)

But although I have tried to stress that it's perfectly okay to pray aloud, to pray silently, or even not to pray at all but just to hand the cross to the next person... it's clear that not everyone is comfortable with this yet. It finally struck me that maybe we need to go back a step and just practice nicely passing the cross around in a circle. Maybe I'll try that next time too... or maybe I'll decide that "Legs criss-cross" and showing reverence by standing are enough for one session!