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. 

preamble to this week's guest blog-post

I wanted to introduce this week's guest post in part by referencing the blogger's denominational identity [Roman Catholic]. But I started including so many links that it was going to distract from the guest post!

You might remember that my guest blogger three weeks ago was a Methodist, and that my congregation is pastored by Lutherans and Anglicans. Did you also know that my sidebar includes blogs by Baptists, Episcopalians, and the Spanish national children's ministry co-ordinator for the Scripture Union? That the Director of Training for the Godly Play Foundation was a Quaker (Society of Friends)? That before Jerome W. Berryman was ordained an Episcopal priest he was a Presbyterian minister?

We Godly Play folk are a diverse bunch!

Who's left holding the baby?

It was about a year ago that Sheila commented to say she enjoyed hearing about local church customs which "outsiders" might not know about or even necessarily notice - like the significance in Finland of the number of candles on the altar.

Today, seeing Emily's beautiful photograph of her son being baptized in the Cathedral of St. Andrew, reminded me of another Finnish practice. Here it is not the priest, nor a parent, but one of the godparents who holds the baby.

Anglican and Lutheran priests alike accept this practice here. I've mentioned some features which distinguish our Lutheran priests' baptismal practices from the Anglican ones in another post.

The photograph below was taken the first time any of the children chose to work with our baptism materials, only a few weeks ago. An older girl chose to work with them alone first, but she finished before our Response Time was over and so this other girl was also able to use them. I didn't intend the photo to be quite so blurry, but it does a good job of obscuring her face!

prayer to the Faithful Shepherd

Today's Common Worship collect:

Risen Christ, 

faithful shepherd of your Father's sheep: 

teach us to hear your voice and to follow your command, 

that all your people may be gathered into one flock, 

to the glory of God the Father. 

Amen. 

(from "Additional Collects") 

(working with the "Good Shepherd and World Communion" Godly Play materials)

Eastertide guest post: 'Jesus the King' materials

The Eastertide guest post festival continues. This week I've written the guest post, for Sheila's Explore and Express blog, although I "cheated" a little in that I didn't write about an Eastertide subject, but Jesus' pre-crucifixion Triumphal Entry. It fits into what I think of as my "making do" series, about materials.

I've met many people who think that Godly Play is all about expensive wooden figures. It's not true. Godly Play is about treating children with dignity and creating holy space. I own a few Godly Play materials that were made by official sourcers, but others that were cobbled together from flea market finds. Some I do plan to replace eventually with something more beautiful. But some of my quirky materials I would never want to replace! My Jesus the King materials illustrate this well, I think. ...Read the rest by clicking here.

Eastertide guest post - Stations of the Resurrection

Sheila was one of my first blogger friends. We both live "abroad" and use Godly Play with children in church. She lives and works in Berlin, and blogs about Godly Play, art education, and encouraging kids to enjoy nature. The Celebrating Lent link party that we co-hosted this winter was largely her idea, and together we've decided to celebrate Eastertide with a series of guest posts. 

Her guest post here begins with a reference to the Stations of the Cross. For those who might not know, this is a way of prayerfully remembering the events of Good Friday. There are 14 stations, including "Jesus is condemned to death", "Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross", and "Jesus is nailed to the cross". The stations are often depicted visually and separated from one another in space - so you pray with your body as well as your mind as you move from one station to the next, and no reading is required. Wikipedia lists two variants of the stations, one more traditional and one more closely tied to Scripture. An excellent introduction to the traditional one is this website for children, but I also love reading about creative approaches like praying on the Chicago "L".  

You may be familiar with the Stations of the Cross, but did you know that there are Stations of the Resurrection as well? 

After several years of doing the Stations of the Cross with my children and finding them so meaningful, I thought it odd not to spend just as much time focusing on the Resurrection. I was looking for something similar for Eastertide when I found out about this awesome tool through Lacy at Catholic Icing. (If you are not familiar with Lacy's blog, it is full of wonderful ideas!) 

The Stations of the Resurrection cover all of the stories found in the four Gospels and beginning of Acts that happened after Jesus was resurrected and began appearing to different people. If you click here, you can find several versions of the Stations that Lacy has provided links for. My favorite is the downloadable Montessori-type cards found in her post. 

As you can imagine, I immediately printed out the Montessori cards (despite the fact that my printer was running out of ink!) and began to think about how to use them. So far, I have used them in these ways:

1) As a basis for good old-fashioned storytelling! (After all, we don't always have our Godly Play stuff right on hand, do we?) While on vacation in Texas last week, I sat with both children in a hammock looking up at the stars and began to tell them the story of Jesus appearing unexpected to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Both kids were mesmerized, and my son wanted to hear the story of Jesus' encounter with Thomas afterwards. Since then, I have been intentionally telling one of the Stations as a bedtime story and encouraging the kids to respond in prayer afterwards. 

2) As a game! My son loved matching the cards to the pictures and guessing the sequence. And since these cards have Roman numerals, it was also a great way for him to practice recognizing them.

3) A place to "hang out" or "revisit". In the Stations of the Cross for Children, the author explains a station as "a place to wait or one that you can come back to". I reminded my son of this and asked him, "Which Station would you like to hang out at tonight?" He wanted to go back to the first Station where Jesus is resurrected, so I told him that story all over again. Sometimes we think that children get bored easily and that they need more variety than they actually want. Many times they will simply want to hear the same story over and over again. The Stations of the Resurrection allow kids to "hang out" at the places they want to revisit and process, even if we adults may not understand exactly why.: )