Eastertide guest post: "Baptism"

photo by Markus

This week's guest post is in German! Fortunately, Sheila has translated it into English for us. The writer is Markus, of the Gott im Spiel - Godly Play blog. Having him as a guest blogger reminds us that there are men out there, as well as women, leading Godly Play (David Pritchard is another male writer blogging about Godly Play), and also that Godly Play crosses denominational lines (as I have said here). Markus works in the Roman Catholic church. His blog includes simply beautiful photographs, but Google's machine-translations of his posts are often tantalizingly bizarre:

• When fathoming it was a boy, the Holy Family so on and found this: Mary and Joseph standing with his back to the crib. (from the post "Jesus in der Pubertät")

• At the end of a picture ensteht with a steel end "sun" from the twelve brauenn felt strips (previously the house in Jerusalem was praying in the imaginary), at the ends and around which the shields and symbols of male and female disciples are. ("Das Geheimnis von Pfingsten")

What a relief to be able to read him in a proper translation for once! Thank you both, Markus & Sheila.

Die Vorbereitung meiner sechs Jungs (9 Jahre alt), die sich auf ihre erste heilige Kommunion vorbereiten, endete nun. Die letzte Stunde sollte sich mit der Taufe beschäftigen und so die Überleitung für ihr Fest, das sie jetzt in der Osterzeit feiern, sein. I have been preparing six 9-year-old boys for Holy Communion, and our time together has slowly come to an end. In our last class, we covered baptism and with it the transition that they will be celebrating during Eastertide. 

To read the rest, see Markus's baptism materials, and learn what "Holy Star Wars cards" are, click here. 

5 children, 5 candles

The children know that only the adults in our room use matches. And our normal practice is that at the end of a lesson using candles, it is the storyteller who changes the light by snuffing out the candles. But at the end of the Christmas lesson on Sunday, I noticed that we had five lights to be changed and five children present:

all photographs taken by seethroughfaith & cropped by me

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.

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.

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.