Wondering about Advent

Tomorrow is Advent Sunday! I commissioned this stole from Paula-Marie at Bespoke Stoles. Isn't it lovely?

This year I have the opportunity to tell Godly Play® reflective stories at a small after-school club we are trialling for primary school children. 

We don't meet every week, so I started already last week telling the first two parts of the Advent lesson. And then I tried asking some Wondering questions, although they are not usually part of this lesson. I structured them around the Sacred Story questions, asking:

I wonder what part of getting ready for Christmas you like best?

I wonder what part of getting ready for Christmas you think is most important?

I wonder if there's any part of getting ready for Christmas that we could leave out, and still be ready?

What I hadn't expected is that the children would hear the second and third questions as ones that had "right" answers. Upon reflection, I should have anticipated this. I was there as a priest, wearing my clerical collar. They don't know me well, and are unfamiliar with Godly Play. 

So which parts of getting ready for Christmas did they tell me were most important? Praying, and going to church. Maybe those were their true thoughts, but I suspect they said this trying to please me. Nonetheless, I stuck to my training and mused on each answer as a genuine contribution, repeating it, or giving a nod and a Hmm. 

Even then, I didn't spot that my third question would suggest to them that I believed we should sacrifice the "secular" elements of Christmas in favour of more "important" ones. So I went ahead and asked, I wonder if there's any part of getting ready for Christmas that we could leave out, and still be ready? A child who'd earlier said the best part was presents now said we could leave them out. I was so genuinely shocked that I blurted out, But that's the part you like best! So another child came to our rescue and suggested that if we did leave out the presents, that would be like leaving out the Wise Men. What a brilliant answer - attempting to bridge the apparent divide between churchy priest and present-loving child. 

I need to think hard about how I will help them to wonder next time.

Christmas greetings, wherever and however you are

In my last post I left out one Wondering question. Yes, I did ask all four. And the third was the only one that got answered. (Often it can be the other way around!) 

I wonder which part of the Advent lesson we could leave out, and still have all the story we need?

One of the adults suggested we could leave out the journey to Bethlehem. I nodded and asked whether Mary and Joseph had really had to go to Bethlehem. This gave one child the opportunity to raise their hand very high, volunteering an answer, which was, Yes because they had to write their names in the book. Ok, there was a census. But mightn't it have been even better if there hadn't been any census?

pointing (like the prophet's hand) to the space for "the journey to Bethlehem"

One the adults now pointed out that although Mary might not have been very happy about travelling so close to her due date, perhaps Joseph did want to go. A fair point, I suggested. It was his ancestral homeland. There are people in this congregation who would like to be celebrating Christmas in their ancestral homelands. 

Given that one of the families present had just cancelled a trip "home" due to illness, this was pretty close to the bone. One child (from a different family) matter-of-factly explained that their non-Finnish parent had a trip planned, although it was still some months away. 

It felt good to me to get some of that acknowledged. 

So some of us are travelling and wish we weren't, while others are not travelling and wish we were. Some are glad to be at home and some are glad to be far away. Some are lonely, some are seeking a moment's peace. Some are at work, some are at war. 

Our faith is that Jesus is with us in all our circumstances: Emmanuel. 

May you be aware of his presence this Christmas.

Fourth Advent

After three weeks of Advent observed in three different countries, today I was back in Finland. As I did on Second Advent, I presented the Godly Play lesson to the whole congregation. I encouraged adults to move further forward for this, and on the floor in front of me I had a familiar group of four children. 

It's a long post today. It's a long lesson! Berryman says, "Do not minimize or rush the story," but realistically speaking it is often going to be the case that one has to shorten it a little, especially the parts you've told before. This can be done, however, without rushing and without trivializing them. 

So I reviewed the season of Advent, with its purple color (seen on our altar / focal shelf but not on our pulpit fall, which is always black), and the need to get ready to enter or come close to a Mystery. I reviewed the prophets, who we remember on First Advent, and the Holy Family on the Road to Bethlehem from Second Advent. Then I told the story of the shepherds watching over their flocks by night, who were blinded by a dazzling light. 

Once again, I am grateful to a mother who took an amazing number of photos with my ipad during the telling. And now, I notice how much detritus there is about us in the photo. The children were "playing and praying" both before and after this lesson. In fact, some found it very difficult to tear themselves away from what they were working on when I asked them to come listen. 

Looking through the pictures, though, it was striking how much of the time all of the children were really intent upon the story. One child lay down, but was watching and listening.

Did you notice in the first photos that the candles were already lit? That was one of the first things that happened in the service today. Not only that, but the candles were introduced according to the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, which is a very different system from the one that Godly Play follows. The Godly Play ordering was used in American Protestant liturgical churches for decades, long before they adopted the RCL. (The RCL's system surely has long roots elsewhere.)

I was not too bothered either by the fact that the candles were introduced with different symbolism or that they were already lit. I just mentioned once or twice, without making a very big deal about it, that there are different systems in use. And after telling the stories and placing the figures onto my underlay, I lifted down the candles one by one, and placed them by the figures. 

Today I used the Sacred Story questions for Wondering. I wonder which part of the Advent story you like best. You can say out loud if you want, but you don't have to. Nobody has to answer. Nobody did answer. 

I wonder what part of the Advent story you think is the most important. Thoughtful looks, but no words. 

I wonder where you are in the Advent story. Or where you are in terms of getting ready for the Mystery of Christmas. Are you ready for Christmas? Maybe you feel like the wise men - like you'll probably be late! Maybe you feel like you're shivering in the cold night air, trying to stay awake to keep the sheep safe... or maybe you can hear the song of the angels. 

I'm afraid I got rather long-winded. A budding preacher, that's what I am! 

Sometimes there are women who feel a lot like Mary during Advent, because they too are expecting a baby! You might feel like the prophets, that you know what is important but you fear that people aren't listening, and that it's going to take years and years and years before what's supposed to happen does happen. I wonder where you are on the road to Bethlehem.

And then once again I asked the children to snuff out the candles change the light. I liked doing it this way, although it occurs to me that it might be a bad precedent to do it this way too often. I might not be able to go back to doing it myself. [I also realized, and said, that the service leader would probably want to re-light them for the rest of the service, once we'd gone back to "playing and praying".]

And then I began to put things away. Even without taking the Holy Family back up to the altar (in case a child wanted to work with it), there was a lot to put away. It took time. 

But look. Although one child has (understandably) turned away, at least two children watched intently right through to the very end. 

Third Advent

(I'm posting this from Stockholm Arlanda airport, and having a little trouble with editing. One photo is missing and the font keeps changing. I probably won't manage to fix those things before Tuesday!)

Today I was in Madrid, on my way back from a conference in Andalucia to Finland. Vandriver found me a hotel right around the corner from St George's Anglican Church. Although I had not found time to let anyone know I'd be coming, I recognized a fellow ordinand and he asked on my behalf if I could sit in and observe the Godly Play circle. While he was off asking, I watched a liitle boy supervise the priest's preparations for the service.

The GP team graciously allowed me to join them, even though it was an awkward Sunday. Understandably but disappointingly, their usual Godly Play room had been taken over with preparations for the Christmas Bazaar. Fortunately, they have a second, much smaller room, which they tend to use for older children. It contains a second Holy Family, and materials for enrichment lessons. So we crowded into there. We were at least 15, three adults and a dozen children. [Godly Play strongly advise against having more than two adults in the room, so I tried to minimize the adult-ness of my presence by sitting on the floor (even though I was offered a low chair), and keeping quiet.]

Their Storyteller presented the Holy Family, and then the children worked on a couple of crafts. It was simply too difficult to manage a feast, but they closed by singing and signing "Go now in peace".

Imagine a photo of a crowded room here.

(I admit I did stand up for that second picture, but by then everyone was absorbed in their work.)

There were some potentially frustrating moments. (We all have those!) The story got interrupted several times, and it was hard to maintain an atmosphere of listening with wonder. When Storyteller invited all the children to help put the figures back where they belonged, even though she did this in an orderly fashion, working around the circle, one by one, these figures got knocked over when three boys at once tried to help put Mary away. 

There were also some sweet moments. When the Storyteller introduced Mary, the mother, one child clapped quietly. 

There's a line in the script about many nativity sets being too fragile for children to be allowed to play with, but reassuring children that this one is for their use. The Storyteller said that line towards the end of her telling, shortly before the Wondering. Almost right away, a child asked to hold the Risen Christ figure. 

Thank you very much, St George's!

Happy New [liturgical] Year!

We visited my parents' church today. They had purple and pink Advent candles in the Sunday School / Fellowship group session, and red ones in the worship service. The "baby boomers" in the Sunday School group debated whether to light the candles in a circular pattern (which is what I had assumed was the only way), or in the shape of a cross. As you can see (because the pink candle will be third), the cross pattern was the one chosen.

As a Finnish resident, I was pleased that we happened to sing a Hosanna song. The song, "Hoosianna", is mandatory and loved for First Advent all across Finland. 

One of our PowerPoint slides reminded me of one of Sheila's art projects, 

and we even had a geography lesson!

are you ready?

Christmas is coming, ready or not! Berryman's script reminds us that if people aren't ready, they can just walk right through a mystery and not even notice. But sometimes we have to go ahead even if we don't feel ready. Sometimes maybe we can trust that lighting the Advent candles for four weeks ... or singing the O Antiphons for seven days ... or hanging our Jesse tree ornaments or whatever it is that we've been doing has made us ready. Sometimes we can pray, but only say the word and I shall be healed. 

In Godly Play we ask people to decide for themselves if they are ready to enter the room and join the circle. Sometimes when I didn't have a Door Person I would sit outside the room with the children, encouraging them to sit still for a moment (after they'd been running around) and take time to get ready. Then I'd say, I'm going to go into the room, and you can follow me when you're ready. One week, once we were in the circle, one girl said, It's easier to get ready in here. 

So I pray for you, and for me, that as we begin to celebrate Christmas that in itself will make us ready. That as we place the baby Jesus in the nativity manger, or sing carols at a Christmas Eve candlelight service, or fill stockings, or put the turkey in the oven ... we will find that we are ready. Let every heart prepare him room. 

Merry Christmas!

gifts for godchildren

I'm so pleased with some gifts that I delivered last weekend that I'm very tempted to write a self-congratulatory post. I'm going to try to turn it into an informative post for others, though. My apologies if I fail and just sound prideful.

We have two godsons. One is a young adult; the other is six years old. We're far away from them this year, but were visiting last weekend, and so I wanted to give them gifts - partly just to show our love but partly to foster their spiritual growth. So I went shopping for Advent gifts.

image source

For our young adult godson, we bought a collection of Advent reflections, one for each day of the season (plus Christmas Day and Boxing Day): Inside the Christmas Story, by Bash & Bash. It's written by a priest who once served the parish of a relative of ours, with his wife, which gave it a little extra personal connection.

Sheila, at Explore and Express, has written a post about children's spiritual styles, and I agree that it's important not to assume that the same things will touch the same children. It's almost trite, isn't it, to comment on how different siblings can be. Our young godson and his younger sister are a case in point. He is deliberate, even cautious. He likes to know things, and to get things right. His sister is impulsive; she has no patience for long explanations. She's very extroverted - friendly and open.

image source

For our six-year-old godson, I bought the Advent magnets shown above. The big magnets on the top half of the sheet separate out into six - the wreath and candles, plus five separate flame magnets. Each "flame" can be placed over a candle on each Sunday of Advent (and Christmas Day). Below this are five "cards", with a suggested short Bible reading and prayer to go with the lighting of each candle. Besides encouraging his word-based expression of faith it also helps him practice his new reading skills, with the themes for each candle written in such large letters.

image source

We don't usually buy presents for this boy's little sister, but in the shop I spotted a holding cross (similar to the one pictured here) which was especially proportioned for a young child's hand. Do you remember the Lego stick that we pretended was a prayer cross? That was made by this little girl! So I thought of her as soon as I saw this cross, and really wanted to get it for her. Her first words upon opening it were, I remember we used to have a cross like this in Junior Church. 

I knew you would remember! I replied, and that's why I wanted to get this for you. Her second comment had to do with how small it was. I explained that it was designed for a child's hand but she corrected me: This was designed for a BABY's hand! Still, she was pleased with it. Being an extrovert, she thanked me for it (or told me how much she liked it) about four different times. Finally she said, When we have Junior Church again, I'm going to bring this, and we can pass it around the circle at prayer time.

I'm not sure our godson explicitly thanked us for his gift, except when prompted by his mother. But he immediately opened up the package and found a place to display the magnets, and later carefully asked me to help him read all the different themes. I took the opportunity for a quick chat with him about the fact that these themes don't match up exactly with the Godly Play themes for the Sundays, and encouraged him to ponder ways in which they do match up and ways in which they don't. We both laughed at the suggestion that Mary and Joseph's entry into Bethlehem might have been peaceful - probably not! Towards the end of our visit he caught my eye and slyly demonstrated how a flame would look atop a candle. As soon as we'd both seen it he snatched it away again, as if to stress how well he understood that it was not yet time to light that candle! So even though he didn't gush over the present the way his sister did, I know he appreciated it and will use it in his observance of Advent.

What about your own observances of Advent? What are you doing? And if you have children, what are you doing with them? I love the Busted Halo's suggestion that our preparations for Advent can be like preparing for a special guest. It's not that everything has to be perfect or that we need to pretend to be somebody we're not. If you're an extrovert - go ahead and gush! If you're a word-based spiritual type, do a special Bible study for the season. It's not too late to start. 

Advent art - initial reflections

As "stf" has commented, it is worth my reflecting upon what is behind my unwillingness to let go of control over the finished product of my Advent art (presented over the past several blog posts). But I do think that a big part of it was simply that I was trying to do too many things with that one project. I wanted to give the children something to do if they got bored or antsy during the sermon at church, but I wanted that to be more than "busy work". I wanted something beautiful for Advent. I used the project myself as a sort of meditative preparation exercise for Christmas.I wanted something that would link Junior Church with the all-age Christmas Day service. I liked the idea of a mystery that would become more and more understandable during Advent, to be revealed completely on Christmas.

And my other inspiration, besides the original stained glass window linked to yesterday, was Sarcastic Lutheran's congregationally-made Advent Icon. [She's moved her blog and I cannot track down the post right now to link to it, but it was created entirely of ad circulars - a transformation of the materialistic (and rubbish) into something holy.]

All this was too much burden for a single project to carry!!

Yet this is not to dismiss stf's comment lightly. As I move into ministry, leading and serving congregations, I will come up with liturgical suggestions which congregations will dislike, or find boring, or confusing. People will "mess up" my beautifully-designed plans. I do need to remember that worship is Process, not Product. May we all feel prepared, at the end of even the most muddled and "imperfect" corporate worship, to go forth to love and serve the Lord at home, at work, in our families and our communities.

advent art, part 4

It was a rush to get the collage ready for 4th Advent. I wasn't yet finished when stf came to collect me for Junior Church, so I brought the supplies with me. Once we'd got the classroom set up with our Godly Play materials, I sat down at a work table and carried on.

photo by seethroughfaith (I cropped most of myself out of it)

To my great disappointment, I realized that I had left at home the thick black magic marker with which I had planned to outline all the elements. This would have made Mary and Joseph's sleeves clearer, for example, and would have allowed me to draw in Jacob's staff. I had also still been undecided about whether to draw in windows and doors on some of the background houses, as in the original I had based this work on. But I just had to do without all that. 

photo by seethroughfaith

I have now turned the work over to the pastor, along with one important additional element - a manger, with a little head just visible nestled within the hay, surrounded by a golden halo. This will be attached to the poster collage as part of the all-age service on Christmas Day. I can't wait to hear whether and how this worked in the service (I'll be with my mother-in-law across Christmas, not here), and to see how it looks with the manger added.

(In all the rush, there was certainly no time to go over it all with a coat of Modge Podge, as I'd hoped. The pastor may find that some of the scraps begin to lift or curl. They can just be carefully left alone, or gently stuck down again with glue or paste. I hope to finish it off in the ways I'd intended after Christmas, maybe even in time for Junior Church on New Year's Day.)

advent art, part 3

By the third week in Advent, a good deal more of the picture had taken shape.

At least one child was pretty sure that this was going to be a picture of Jesus. 

(background: part 1, part 2)

advent art, part 2

(continued from yesterday)

Another problem with my art idea was that I wanted the children to be surprised by the end result. This meant not being able to tell them very much about why they were doing this cutting and pasting, and why everything was supposed to be the same color. So they lost interest fairly quickly. In hindsight, this seems a fairly obvious flaw in my plan!

And the final problem was that I found I was too invested in how I wanted this project to turn out. It wasn't primarily about the process - the final product was also extremely important to me. So I was really unable to let the children work on it freely. In the end, I did most of the work on this project myself. I did have a little help from one of the children (and another adult) on Thanksgiving Day, and three other adults gave me a little help on a couple of Sundays. But the bulk of it was me.

By the second Sunday of Advent (our first Junior Church session in Advent), I was able to place this in the room:

When asked, I explained that it was Advent art. I tried to remind them of the work they'd put into it the previous month (I'm not sure any of them really made the connection), and explained that it would be finished gradually during Advent. I wondered what they thought it might be. One suggested a boat (you can see the prow of the boat there in brown). Another said it looked like it would be a castle. Another suspected that we'd eventually see a priest in the middle. 

More tomorrow...

advent art, part 1

Way back when we had the children in Big Church for Fr Rupert's last service with us, I invited the children  to do some cut and paste work during the sermon. I had brought background shapes cut out of heavy card and asked them to cut out and paste scraps of similarly-colored paper onto them.

This was not an unqualified success. The biggest problem was that I'd set up so that they could choose whether to work on the floor or kneeling in front of chairs, using the chair as a desk... without having thought about the fact that every time a glue stick came down on a chair, a BANG would echo around our stone chapel.

the very beginning of this year's Advent art

More of the story of this year's Advent art will be posted tomorrow!

topical response work

The children in my Godly Play classroom are aged 2-6. They almost always choose to work with the art materials during Response Time, rather than story materials, and it's extremely rare that the artwork they do is [or rather, seems to me to be] related to the day's lesson, any lesson we've done, or anything to do with their spiritual lives at all!

In fact, it was striking when two new children joined us in the autumn, children who had been to Sunday School elsewhere. For the first several weeks, the older one drew pictures of Jesus on the cross, and the younger one often copied this. It seemed likely to me that the elder child was trying to do what s/he assumed would be expected. Otherwise, though, apart from rainbows when we do Noah's ark, I don't think any of the artwork has had anything to do with our lessons.

Most of the time I manage not to be bothered by this. I know that every week these children pay attention to a lesson, break bread together, and receive personal blessings from our pastor. They are given the opportunity to thank God corporately in song and individually in naming something that they're particularly thankful for that week. And so it's enough that in the Response Time they know that they'll be trusted enough to be left alone for a while if they want to be, while knowing that we will be happy to look at their work with them if they ask us to. It's enough that they are in a worshipful environment with adults who care about them.

That's enough.

But I was thrilled today when a four-year-old showed me this winding trail of glitter glue and explained, It's the road to Bethlehem.

EDIT: Just minutes after posting this, I was led to this Washington Post article about play, which reminded me that the more we limit the children's choice about what they do, the less it's play. And after all, the name of this curriculum is Godly Play.
h/t UMC Ministry with Children

Oh yes I know

One reader emailed to say that the song I mentioned in my previous post had been unknown to her until she Googled it after reading what I'd written. I'm glad she found it despite my referring to it by its second verse rather than the first! I like to think of it as an Advent song.

Our Second Second Advent

Second of Advent last year was my first full Godly Play session with children. It was held in my living room, with two children in attendance:

Now, a year later, we have been meeting in a church hall, with five children regularly attending. and the pastor comes to greet us (with communion and blessings) at the end of every session.

Today we had a new member join (and we hope to welcome another next week): 

His big sister (already a very experienced member of Junior Church) was rather disappointed to learn that he wanted to work independently during the Response Time, but she rallied well, especially when one of her friends asked to work with her.

I opened the session by introducing the Holy Family figures and changing their underlay from green to purple. I wanted to teach an Advent song, so asked children if they could think of songs about getting ready for Christmas. One child suggested "The Little Drummer Boy", but the most confident responses were "You'd better watch out" and "Santa Claus is coming to town". I conceded that insofar as these are songs anticipating Christmas then we might consider them to be Advent songs. The song I taught, though, was "Jesus is Coming (O yes, I know)" from South Africa.

Hopeful Advent

Just a quick post to share a link that Leslie at Thoughts from the Sheepfold pointed me to. This is a two-minute explanation of what Advent is all about. I think it's great! I've also put a link to it at the bottom of my blog layout for the whole season. Thank you, Busted Halo, and thank you, Leslie!

looking ahead to Advent

The first time I tried leading a complete Godly Play session was for an "away-day" for adults in our church. We used the Godly Play room and materials at a church in one of the suburbs.

But the first time I led a full Godly Play session for children, using my own materials, was the second Sunday of Advent. It was held in my living room, with art materials set out on chairs next to my dining table for the Response Time. I did the same for the third, and then the fourth Sundays of Advent, increasing the circle from two to three children, and it culminated in an all-age celebration of the first Sunday after Christmas... again in my living room, during a snowstorm on Boxing Day.

photo by seethroughfaith

Although I love our current Junior Church setting for its spaciousness and its convenience for parents, I have fond memories of those sessions in my living room. Last spring one child asked, When are we going back to your house? Liturgically, I like the fact that we started Godly Play in Advent, the first season of the Church year. It is my hope that this year again we will have some new children joining us, coming to Junior Church for the first time... in Advent.

Many people come to this blog looking for information on Godly Play materials, and the Advent materials may look daunting to those who do not have access to wood-working tools. They can be bought from Godly Play retailers in the USA, Finland, the UK, and Germany. I bought my wooden pieces ready-cut but unfinished from Johanna Kaarto-Wallin, and stained and painted them in a workshop at the Godly Play European Conference in Finland. However, if you prefer to make your own, an easy and beautiful alternative to wooden cards is to make them from felt (as shown on the Watkins Every Flavor Beans blog).

the display racks are lovely, but a basket is just fine

A quick Google image search will show you the range of variation possible when you make your materials. Some are blue, some blue-ish purple, some pink-ish purple. Some plaques are large and square, some smaller and rectangular. Some have very stylized wreathes, some look more real. But in almost all cases the first plaque has one candle on the wreath, and a pointing hand representing the prophets. The second has two candles, and shows the road to Bethlehem. The third has three candles (sometimes the third candle is pink), and a lamb. The fourth has four candles, and three crowns. The fifth has a white background, and may show a star. These plaques are laid out on a cloth underlay, something pleasant to the touch. It has four squares of purple and one of white, onto which the plaques are placed. The easiest way to do this is to use a long stretch of purple, divide it with strips of gold cord or ribbon, and glue or sew a white square onto the end.

photo by seethroughfaith

only the Storyteller is allowed
to take things from this basket

You will also need candles, ideally in the colors used by your church (the most common alternatives are four red, or three purple and one pink), and you will probably want unobtrusive candle holders for them (I have since purchased a flea-market set of glass saucers for mine). In addition to matches, you will also need a candle-snuffer. The fifth, white, candle will be the Christ candle from your focal shelf.

ready to give a hug

You probably already have a Holy Family for your focal shelf, but if not you will want one for this lesson. You don't need it for week one, though, so there is time to hunt around. Ideally, the figures will include a baby Jesus who can be taken out of his manger and has his arms spread open, Mary, Joseph, a donkey, a cow or ox, three wise men, a shepherd, and two sheep. (And the focal shelf should also hold a picture or figure of the Risen Christ.) However, you can make do with what you have. My terra cotta Christ child has his arms open for a hug but does not come out of his manger, and this has never been a problem at all.

Several times I used a nativity set belonging to my godson, in which the baby was wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes. He was also smiling. In general, we don't like to use figures with smiles, preferring to let children imagine their expressions themselves. However, I felt that for pastoral reasons it was appropriate to use my godson's set, and I just changed the words of the script on those occasions from see how he's holding out his arms to give you a hug to see how he's smiling at you.

the Holy Family, smiling

More important than sticking precisely to the words of the script is to say the words by heart. It is considered good Godly Play practice to keep to the script as well as you can, and Jerome has written some beautiful lines. But don't rely on note cards! Just gaze at your materials and tell the story from your heart. This is your story. This is our story. This is the story of our faith.

At the same time, don't fret if things don't turn out perfectly. This story officially includes no Wondering, just "enjoying the light". However, last year one young child was far more excited about changing the light than quietly enjoying the light. As soon as the candles were lit, it was Snuff them out! Snuff them out! And the children may well want to wonder or talk about the story. Great! Similarly, don't interrupt a child's intent work to make "corrections". Just enjoy the light of Christ.

"wrong" layout

For more about Advent Godly Play, try these links at Living Montessori Now or see what else I've written.

November 2012 update: This post has been included in the Explore and Express "Getting Ready for Advent" link party.

Advent in Lent

This week a child chose to work with story materials during our response time. This is a rare event, and one that makes me inordinately pleased.

I managed to keep out of the way, except for trying to help two other children ask if they could watch and/or join in, and suggesting that it would be best to lift out (with two hands) the top basket of candles and set them aside, for easier access to the plaques stored underneath.

(Misleading photo - the Christ candle is not kept with the Advent materials)

The two gawkers were unwilling to ask for permission to watch, so I shooed them back to the art materials they had originally chosen to work with. Which also helped to get me out of there. I felt it was extra-important for me to stay out of the way since (with seethroughfaith still traveling) the second adult in the classroom was someone who does not know these materials and was curious about them. She started asking questions and I was very proud of what I overheard: 

The child managed to answer the questions, sometimes with correct answers, sometimes with I forget or I don't know. A few questions which didn't get answered at first, What's that black squiggle on the second plaque? What does the pink candle represent? did get answered eventually, perhaps as working with the materials triggered memories. But frankly, I was almost as proud of the I don't knows and I forgets. Those can be hard things to say. And it can be hard to work with materials when someone is watching every move you make, so I was pleased that he carried on. I was glad to hear that many of the adult's questions were "True Questions" (ones she didn't already know the answer to). This meant that the child was the expert, and hopefully had a sense of enjoyment in demonstrating the materials to the newcomer.

If I'd stayed nearby, I would have been tempted to remind him that the Advent materials are presented from left to right, not vertically as the Lent materials are. But in fact, I made the same "mistake" myself the first time I ever saw the Advent materials, which was (just like for him) immediately after seeing a presentation of the Faces of Easter. I laid out those Advent cards to have a record of what they looked like - and the result was the photo on the right.

Boxing Day

[This is the last in a series of posts about our first Godly Play sessions, last December, in my own house.]

Christmas Day last year fell on a Saturday, and our pastor chose to have a service on Christmas Day rather than on Boxing Day. So on the fourth Sunday of Advent, I had asked Vandriver to make an announcement at church inviting folks to join us at our house on the following Sunday, Boxing Day, where we had Junior Church for all ages.

By this time, the child owner of our alternative nativity set had been given additional figures, including a shepherd, two sheep, and three wise men. 

photo from my friend, stf

It was interesting to watch the interaction of adults (who felt obliged to keep their children in line) and children (who knew the rules and customs of Junior Church). The children started right away to replace my nativity set with theirs.
The parents said, No no. Leave it alone. 

I said, The children are right - that is how we begin.
I made my own blunder, however, when one child pulled out another wooden toy. I acknowledged what it was, but said, too quickly and dismissively, but that doesn't belong here. The child was very upset, and later the mother explained that they had created a little story at home about why that extra toy was in Bethlehem. I still don't think I'd have wanted that toy on the focal shelf, but I do have to learn to be more willing to interrupt myself to listen properly to what the children have to say. 

I presented the Advent IV lesson, with the addition of a feature from the "Children's Liturgy for Christmas Eve", which was to ask everyone to sing the first verse of an appropriately themed Christmas carol while I fetched the figures and lit each candle. In this lesson, I "revealed" what the children had already discovered for themselves, that the fifth section of the underlay is white instead of purple. I had no time to ask what was missing (as recommended in the script), before one child scrambled right down off the parent's lap to fetch the Christ candle for me! 

We went straight from the lesson into something in between a Godly Play feast and a post-church coffee time, where again there was a mismatch between adults' and children's expectations - one child carefully opened napkins into Godly Play "tables" on the floor in front of each person, which didn't work at all since most of the adults were sitting on chairs! 

I was also a little sorry to find out later that although I announced that people should feel free to ask to sing more carols or to work with materials during the coffee time, one adult told me later that is was too hard to do so. One child happily got some plasticine out, but the adult felt compelled to sit and sip a hot drink and chat with the other adults. I suppose one contributing factor is that my living room is so small - there was not really enough room to create an individual space to work in. 

My biggest regret about the evening (despite the lack of space!) was in not extending the invitation further. We got a phone call from one couple who had missed the announcement about there not being church, asking why nobody was at the church building. They didn't feel up to coming to our house at that point, but just went home again, disappointed. But for those of us who did come together, it was a warm and festive evening.

photo by stf :)

Advent - a third child

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

By the fourth Sunday in Advent (our third session in my house), I was confident enough to invite another young child from church to join us for Junior Church at my house while the adults had grown-up church elsewhere. There was never any feeling that I had missed church - this was church for me those Sundays.

Once again, we began by carefully replacing my nativity set with the one belonging to one of the children. During the lesson it was easy to change the words of the story from the original, See how the Christ Child is holding out his arms to give you a hug into something more appropriate for these figures: See how the Christ Child is smiling at you. And I suddenly realized that just as I had used the angel to remember the shepherds' experience, so I could use the star to represent the journey of the Magi.

Haba nativity set

I had a certain amount of control as the leader, but not complete control. Towards the end of the lesson I said, Let's enjoy the light, fully prepared to sit for a minute in silence, watching the candles. Snuff them out! Snuff them out! was the immediate, excited cry from one of the children. Oh well! I guess that's the give and take of community.*

Again, all of us wound up "playing with clay" (plasticine) during the response time, but once Junior Church was over and we were waiting for the parents to come back, one child chose to work with the Advent materials and, as in the previous week, was quietly insistent that I want to work alone. The third child, who had opted to go back to the clay, also ended up working alone.

But unexpectedly (to me), this child was unhappy to be alone. At the time I interpreted it as a personality thing (introvert vs extrovert), and maybe that was part of it, but I've now read that it might also be a developmental thing. If I understood right, children under 4-5 are more likely to play individually or in parallel (together but separately), whereas over the age of 4-5 they want to have playmates. Anyway, my response was, When the others are done with what they're doing, you can invite them to come play with you. And that seemed satisfactory.

*Maybe I should add / explain that in Godly Play the "changing of the light" (snuffing out the candles) is a big deal. The children are encouraged to pay special attention to that part, so it's no wonder the Snuff them out child was looking forward to that part of the lesson.