A crib service

[please bear with me as I come to grips with a new photo editor!] 

Today our congregation held a Christmas carol service. It was broadly inspired by the traditional Anglican service of lessons and carols, but having had an Advent lessons and carols service already earlier in December, Vandriver designed this one around the Christmas story itself. And I, thinking of Berryman's "Children's Liturgy for Christmas Eve" (and of English "crib" services), asked for a table at the back of the chapel to be set up with a purple underlay on it.

Earlier in the week, and again before the service, I explained to children my plan to carry Holy Family figures from "the Advent table" to the altar during our congregational carols. I said they'd be welcome to help me if they wanted.

At first nobody wanted to help. This was something entirely new to them, so I was prepared for the possibility that they might find the idea overwhelming. During our opening hymn I myself brought a sheep and the cow / ox to the altar. 

But during the second carol, after the reading of the Annunciation to Joseph, I was joined, not for the procession down the aisle but at the altar, by the oldest child present (aged 7). Together we placed Mary and Joseph on the altar.

After the reading of Mary's visit to Elizabeth I carried the donkey to the altar, and after the reading of the birth of Jesus, the same child and I brought forward the manger and infant Christ. Next I brought the second sheep and the shepherd. After the reading about the presentation of Jesus in the temple, "seethroughfaith" and I carried the Baptismal dove (in this case representing one of two doves presented as a sacrifice) and a candle (a light to lighten the Gentiles) up to the altar. 

Then it was time for the Christmas Gospel - John 1:1-14. Following this, the child was ready to carry up the figure of the Risen Christ, unbound by time or space. 

We did not have a reading about the magi, since they will arrive "late" (as Berryman has it), which is to say next week. But still, during the closing music, the child and I fetched the magi figures, the last standing on the Advent table. As we walked forward I offered one to another child, who had up until now gently declined any offers to participate. 

This time, it was accepted. 

On the other hand, the child below (aged only 4) continued to decline to join in. Which was also fine! We happened to leave church together so I was able to give this child a little hug and say, I don't really mind whether you carry things up to the front with us or not. The important thing to me is that you were here! 

After all, as I said to the child's mother as we walked along, we don't force all adult congregants to read Scripture or lead intercessions. Why should children be required to take public roles in the service? 

And as we approached the crosswalk, that child (the 4-year-old) took my hand.

"the baby was from God"

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!

"She rode and she walked"

Before we leave Christmastide for Epiphany, I wanted to post a few photos from our Response Time after the Christmas lesson. They're blurry, but I love so much what they captured that I wanted to share them anyway.

It is hard to ride on a donkey when you are about to have a baby. When she couldn't ride another step, Mary got down and walked.

 

She rode and she walked (Jerome W. Berryman, "Advent II")  

It was only after I'd snapped these pics of Mary riding and walking and riding and walking that "seethroughfaith" pointed out to me that all the figures had been turned to face Bethlehem. The shepherd is even leading the sheep!

Let's go with the prophets, the Holy Family, the shepherds, the angels, the Magi and all the rest to make the journey (Jerome W. Berryman, "Advent I")

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

materials - familiar and unfamiliar

Today three sets of story materials got used during Response Time - that's a record for us! Some children who had never worked with the church clock before wanted to have a look. But my explanations were too long-winded and they quickly lost interest!

photo by seethroughfaith (cropped by me)

One of the children chose to work with the Advent and Christmas materials instead. The other set off to draw. Meanwhile another child noticed seethroughfaith getting out the desert bag, and asked if she could look on and/or work together with her on the Great Family story. [This is the rule with story materials - you must always ask permission because the person might want to work alone.] They realized they couldn't remember certain details anymore, and turned to the Jesus Storybook Bible to remind themselves a bit.

I believe that in most GP classrooms, the expectation is that if you haven't worked with materials before, you should sit and listen to the lesson as presented by the storyteller (who will be happy to present it to you during the Response Time). I have not been as explicit or strict as that, but have always said that you should ask me or any of the children who already know the story to tell you about it or help you with it. The problem is that children don't feel that they know most stories well enough yet to present them to a peer.  Even "stf" felt more comfortable looking up some of the Abraham and Sarah story when working with another person. But on the other hand, children weren't ready to sit and listen to another whole lesson (about the Church Clock) right after having listened to today's Christmas lesson. 

I'd be interested to know what others of you do about children who show interest in unfamiliar materials. 

Merry Christmas

"La Navidad" - a gift to the public domain, by Antonio "Aguijarro" Guijarro Morales

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.)

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 :)