an update, at long last

Thank you, Nicky, for your kind comment asking after me. I'm sorry to have neglected the blog. It's not for lack of photos!

The boy who used to attend our sessions sometimes as a sort of gentle giant (a good-natured 13-year-old among 4-year-olds because our congregation had nothing to offer teens) is now a young man of 16, and agreed to photograph my lesson about the Magi (complete with burning frankincense and myrrh). He took about 100 photos, or more! So I was a bit overwhelmed with trying to choose a mere three or so to put on the blog.

And when I forgot my i-pad at Candlemas, a mother snapped some photos with her camera phone and sent them to me afterwards:

Meanwhile, I have accepted a post as curate (assistant minister, on-the-job training) for next year. It will mean moving to England, which Vandriver and I are very excited about but also a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to do between now and then. 

But today I am about to drive to Helsinki, because tomorrow and Tuesday there is a Godly Play symposium in Finland in the town of Järvenpää, with special guest Carolyn Pritchard. Sounds like I could well be inspired to write another couple of blog posts this week already, eh?

Candlemas - links

(Apologies if you just got an unfinished post about Anna & Simeon. I'll be finishing that up soon and posting it properly, I hope. Boy do I wish Blogger would ask, "Are you really ready to publish?" before going ahead.)

Sheila and Browniesmoke have asked about my Candlemas lesson and materials. This is perhaps the impetus I need to start a small series of posts about "making do".

But there's so much I'd like to say about Candlemas, too, that I'm going to try to split it up into two or more posts. I'll edit the links here as I publish the relevant posts.

• Candlemas 
• last year's post, including much of the (very short) "script" I wrote for the lesson itself
• the One who was, and is, the Light
• first Candlemas post for 2012 (very short)
• Anna & Simeon ("making do", part 1)
• more info about the Anna & Simeon figures, specifically

the conclusion of our congregation's Candlemas procession

the one who was, and is, the light

In the story we remember on Candlemas, 

it says that many, many years before Jesus himself told people, "I am the light," 

a man named Simeon said that Jesus would be a light to the People of God 

and to everyone else, too. 

And so even though this is a green week in the church calendar,

today the color is white.

Faces of Easter (Lent 5)

Today we had the plaque about Jesus' work as a teacher and friend/healer, and the plaque about the Last Supper. I did what I had proposed after last time, and invited members of the circle to bring things twice, once after each story. We are supposed to say that you don't have to bring anything, and I do. But the honest truth is that while I mean it when I say that that's ok, I'm even more pleased when they do bring something. I love the participation of it, and the unexpectedness of seeing what they will choose.

Today for the first time, everyone brought something! Some people declined in one round or the other, but in the end everyone had brought up at least one thing to help to tell more of this story. Here is what we made together:

Clockwise from top right, we have the image of the Risen Christ, our holding (prayer) cross, the Advent materials, the Palm Sunday materials ("Jesus the King"), the control card for the story of the Presentation in the Temple (Candlemas), and a parable box. (In the very top right of the picture is the control card for putting away the Faces of Easter materials.)

Telling these two stories together made it easy to change where one ended and the next began. The first of today's stories, by the script, is very short, and the second is very long. Instead of sticking to that, I extended the first plaque's story right up through Jesus teaching in the temple on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week (on the grounds that it tied in thematically with his work as a teller of parables). And then the second plaque was devoted to the events of Maundy Thursday. I left out altogether the tale of the widow's mite, since I needed to keep things a bit shorter for my young audience (something which Berryman himself recommends).

This hints at a very long post which I keep intending to write about how true to the text Godly Play stories are supposed to be. Already in my head it's growing into a whole series of posts. I'm daunted both by how much I want to say, and how adamant some people seem to get about it. I guess we can consider this a preface, or maybe a taster.

Candlemas

Yesterday was our first official Godly Play Junior Church, in new premises (although not the room we will usually use, as that had already been booked by someone else), and with a new extra-long time slot (parents drop off their children before the adult church service starts, and we do not join them again until their coffee time afterwards). Also new: the celebrant joins us as soon as the adult service is over, to administer communion or blessings to everyone at junior church. Wonderful!

Our congregation is served by both Anglican and Lutheran clergy, following the Porvoo Agreement. The Anglicans celebrated Candlemas the Sunday before, but the Lutherans have it on the Sunday after, and both last week and this week the adults were following the Lutheran lectionary. So yesterday I began by putting all of our candles (including a brand new Christ candle) in the middle of our circle and praying for God's blessing on them and on us as we use them. Our lesson was the Baptism lesson. During the feast, I also told a short story of Christ's presentation in the Temple.

I made a control card, with the reference to the story in Luke on the back, and a series of small photographs on the front:

the Christ Child (who was not baptized as a baby...)

his mother Mary, who stayed at home with the baby Jesus for 40 days after he was born

his father Joseph, who, with Mary, took him to the Temple, to dedicate him to the Lord

the prophet Anna, who recognized Jesus as the child who would change everything

Simeon... who prayed a poem which we still sing at Evensong today 

Simeon's poem said that Jesus would be a light, not just for those who knew they were the People of God, but for everyone. And that's why we bless candles on Candlemas.