Ascension & Pentecost Nature Table

Dieses Jahr haben wir Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten auf dem Jahreszeittisch zusammen getan. This year we combined the themes of  Ascension and Pentecost to set up our nature table. 

 Unten kann man Jesus mit den Jüngern sehen, 

bevor er zurück zum Vater in den Himmel fährt.

Die Flamme aus Holz stellt das Geschenk des Heiligen Geistes dar.

Here you can see Jesus speaking last comforting words to the disciples

before he returns to the Father. 

The stacking flame represents the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Schmetterlinge sind in der Waldorpädagogik traditionell zum Pfingsten. Diesmal haben wir sie mit dem Filznadel trocken gefilzt. Sie hängen vom Fensterrahmen und sehen so aus, als ob sie "fliegen", wenn der Wind weht.

Butterflies are also traditional at Pentecost, also called Whitsun. 

This year we decided to needle felt them. They are hanging from the top of the window sill and appear to be "flying" when a draft comes through the window.

Meine 7-jährige Tochter wollte auch beim Filzen mitmachen. Bis jetzt habe ich wegen dem schrecklich großen Nadel gezögert sie's probieren zu lassen. 

Aber sie überzeugte mir, dass sie vorsichtig wäre, und benutzte eine Ausstechform um die Fingern zu schützen.

My 7-year-old daughter also wanted to try her hand a needle-felting. I had been a little hesitant after having accidentally stabbed my self a few times with the needle, but I relented when I saw that she would be careful. We used a cookie cutter to make the butterflies and protect little fingers.: )

Dann filzte sie diesen wunderschönen Schmetterling und eine Tulpe.

She went on to make this lovely butterfly hovering over a tulip.

Ein wunderschönes Pfingstwochenende an euch allen!

Have a wonderful Pentecost weekend!

Linked to Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

Celebrating Pentecost / Pfingsfeier

Materials from "The Mystery of Pentecost"

We're still celebrating Pentecost here, because "Pentecost Monday" is an official holiday in Germany. Though Pentecost is one of the three great feasts of the historical church, as my on-line friend Jill points out, it gets little attention from either the church or secular society. Here it is more or less a family holiday where people spend time together in their garden. That's a shame, because what happened at Pentecost is vital to the Christian faith. Ich möchte euch gern von unserem Feier gestern erzählen! Obwohl Pfingsten zu den 3 größten christlichen Festen gehört, wissen viele Menschen nicht so rightig worum geht's. Das ist schade, weil das Geschehen beim Pfingsten zentral zu dem christlichen Glauben ist, nämlich dass Gottes Gegenwart den Heiligen Geist immer bei uns ist. 

In our children's group, I emphasize two things about this holiday: 1) that God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit and 2) that this is the birthday of the church. Each year, we bake a birthday cake and share it in children's church to remind us of the gift we've been given and this special birthday of the worldwide church. This year, I didn't get a picture of the cake, because it was gobbled up so fast! In der Kinderkirche betone ich 2 Dinge über diesen Feiertag: 1) dass Gott uns den Heilgen Geist schenkte und 2) dass dies der Geburtstag der christlichen Gemeinde ist. Jedes Jahr backen wir einen Geburtstagskuchen und essen ihn in der Kinderkirche zum Geburtstag der Kirche. Ich habe aber kein Foto von dem Kuchen, weil er schnell aufgfressen würde!

Central to our celebration was the Godly Play story, "The Mystery of Pentecost". This story is sparse in language and gives the basic facts of what happened at Ascension and Pentecost without making it seem fairy-tale like. It also gives the listener a lot of space to think through and imagine for themselves what really happened. This is important, because the whole story just sounds crazy to the modern reader! Wichtig zur Feier war die Godly Play Geschichte, "Das Geheimnis von Ostern", die  sparsam erzählt, was am Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten passiert ist, ohne dass es märchenhaft klingt. Ich schätze auch an dieser Geschichte, dass der Zuhörer viel Raum hat sich selber vorzustellen, was da geschehen ist. Das ist wichtig, weil das, was in Apostelgeschichte geschrieben ist, hört sich dem modernen Leser einfach verrückt an!

The story begins with a red box that looks like a golden parable box, except that it is red. In the German version of the story, we point out the the story must have some qualities like a parable, but that it is in fact not a parable. (This honors the historicity of the story.) Es fängt mit einer roten Schachtel an, die der goldenen Gleichnisschachtel ähnlich ist, außer das die Farbe rot ist. Als Einleitung sagt der Erzähler, dass diese Geschichte müsste so etwas wie ein Gleichnis sein, aber ist doch kein Gleichnis.

In the picture below, the 11 disciples, represented by their shields, and the other men and woman who followed Jesus, but whose names we don't know (represented by the blank shields), are gathered at the Mount of Olives. Jesus blesses them and promises to send the Holy Spirit.) Then they witness Jesus ascending into heaven, which is told through a gesture. (Gestures are also a powerful part of Godly Play that help communicate difficult ideas, leaving the listener to imagine the mystery for themselves.) Unten sieht man die 11 Jünger, von ihren Wappen dargestellt, und die anderen Jünger, deren Namen wir nicht wissen, von leeren Wappen dargestellt, auf dem Ölberg. Dort sehen sie Jesus emporgehoben in den Himmel, das durch eine Geste dargestellt wird. (Geste sind ein wichtiges Element im Godly Play um schwierige Konzepte zu kommunizieren und dem Zuhörer einladen das Geheimnisvolle für sich vorzustellen.)

The disciples return to Jerusalem and choose Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot. Fifty days after Passover, they are gathered to pray, worship and wait for God's gift of the Holy Spirit. If you are familiar with the Parable of the Good Shepherd, you will recognize the brown felt strips here that form the Upper Room as being the same ones that make up the sheep pen in the parable. Although Jesus is not physically there, the Shepherd has not left them! Die Jünger kehren wieder nach Jerusalem zurück und wählen Matthias um Judas Iskariot zu ersetzen. 50 Tage nach dem Passahfest versammeln sie sich um zu beten, Gott loben und auf das Geschenk Gottes zu warten. Wenn du das Gleichnis vom Guten Hirten schon kennst, werden die braunen Filzstreifen sofort erkennbar. In dem Gleichnis formen sie den Umriss von dem Schafenstall und hier sind sie das Haus, wo die Jünger gewartet haben. Obwohl Jesus nicht körperlich da ist, hat der gute Hirte sie gar nicht allein verlassen!

After the rushing wind, their tongues seeming to be on fire, and being filled with joy and power to love and do things beyond themselves, the disciples become "apostles" and go into all the world to tell the story of Jesus. The last configuration before the Wondering phase shows the brown felt strips being transformed into a star, remniscent of God's guidance in the Christmas story. Jetzt kommt der gewaltiger Wind und es scheint ihnen, als ob sie mitten im Feuer sind. Sie werden voll von Liebe und einer Kraft, die ihnen helfen, Dinge zu tun über ihre eigene Kräfte hinaus. Sie werden "Ausgesendete" und gehen überall in der Welt um diese Geschichte von Jesu zu erzählen. Das letze Bild vor dem Ergründungsgespräch zeigt, wie die braunen Flizstreifen in einen Stern verwandelt sind, der uns an Gottes Führung in der Weihnachtsgeschichte errinert.

An 8-year-old was immediately drawn to the symbols on the shields and wanted to know what they meant before I had finished telling the story. A 6-year-old verbally commented that she wanted real figures and not shields. So, this may be a story that older children find more interesting, but I will have to tell it in more settings to really see if my hypothesis is true. Ein 8-jähriges Kind war schon von Anfang an von den Wappen fasziniert und wollte alles über sie wissen. Ein 6-jähriges Kind aber sagte, dass es "echte" Figuren wollte und konnte mit den Wappen nicht anfangen. So, vielleicht ist diese Darbietung interessanter für ältere Kinder, aber ich müsste sie mehrmals erzählen um zu wissen, ob meine These stimmt oder nicht. 

To complement the apostles' shields, I made a control chart for the older children from the website that I used to draw the symbols. The name of each apostle is written in English and German, so that the child can match the symbols with the right person. I then told a short story about the reason for the symbols when asked. Als Ergänzung zu den Wappen habe ich eine Kontrollkarte gemacht mit den Namen von den Jüngern auf Deutsch und auf Englisch. Nach Bedarf habe ich den Grund für die Symbole der Jünger erzählt. 

Hope you had a Happy Pentecost and I wish you a wonderful start in the week! Ich hoffe, eure Feiertage waren schön und ich wünsche euch einen guten Start in die Woche!

Pentecost (Whitsun)/Pfingsten

Today we celebrated Pentecost (also called "Whitsun") at Family Brunch. On this special day, the church celebrates two things:  1) God's gift of the Holy Spirit to all believers and 2) the birthday of the worldwide church.  Our children at Haus Berlin e.V. heard two stories from Young Children and Worship that I combined for this special occasion.

The first story, entitled "Pentecost" Sonja Stewart's book, follows the account in Acts 2 of the first followers of Jesus who gathered in the upper room waiting for God's gift of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had asked of them.  This YWC story does a great job of explaining what happened, but also leaving things to the children's imagination.  After all, how exactly does one explain a rushing wind filling the room and tongues of fire appearing over people's heads?  Rather than using visual objects to tell those parts of the story, the storyteller uses specific hand motions that are faithful to the text, but also leave the children to visualize with their own imaginations.  (I feel this is very important, because the Biblical text was written by a first century author and it is difficult for us as 21st century readers to know exactly what St. Luke was describing.) And rather than emphasizing the supernatural events, the story places emphasis on the effects that this filling of the Spirit had on the followers of Jesus:  joyous love for God and other people.

As you can see here, I had a hard time getting the figures to stand up on the uneven ground.
Perhaps I need to use the art boards underneath the felt next time.: )

The second story that I told was from Stewart's second volume of stories, Following Jesus, and is called "God's Gift of the Holy Spirit". In Stewart's original story, she lists seven gifts that followers of Jesus receive and bases them on texts from Isaiah 11 and Acts 1. Because I come from a slightly different theological background than she does, I found it a bit of a stretch to say that these seven gifts were what the original believers received.  I was much more comfortable with using St. Paul's list of nine spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12.  Although I would not say that Dr. Stewart is wrong in her understanding of the seven gifts in her original story, the original text about Pentecost only infers, but does not directly state what those gifts were. Therefore, it makes more sense to me to base the story on a text that is clearer on the subject. 

"God's Gift of the Holy Spirit" materials

We had a free response time for the creative phase today. Below you can see my set-up of materials laid out in a row on trays for the children to choose from.  They had two different types of paper, paint, crayons, and oil pastels, paintbrushes, bowls for rinsing, and sponges.  I think it is important to vary the paper that the children use.  Otherwise, they get too used to one size and one way of positioning it. Varying the paper reinforces good problem-solving skills and going into new situations with confidence.

Just in case you're wondering, the Sprite bottle
 is filled with water for rinsing brushes. : )

Hard at work.

The girls loved the colored paper.

 One little girl was discussing her painting below with me.  She said that the black represented the "storm" (The YCW story describes the rushing wind in the upper room as being like wind in a storm.) and the red and yellow below were the fire. As we talked further, I realized that she had viewed the strong wind as being something negative and scary.  Hmmm . . . I might have to rethink how I describe the wind next time.

A normal part of a Godly Play worship service is the feast time, which is a snack that also prepares children for the idea of taking communion.  We usually don't do this at Family Brunch, because we eat together beforehand, but I decided to try it today.  I set the timer for 15 minutes of creative work and told the children that we would then take a break to pray and eat together, and that they could return to their work afterwards.  The prayer time actually went much better than usual this way.  In the past, I have tried the prayer time right after the story, but it has proved difficult for the children to concentrate that long.

At the very end, we put a birthday candle on our special cupcakes and the girls served them to the adults. They also picked flowers from the park to decorate the plate.

Happy Pentecost to everyone!   Happy Birthday, Church! 

And thank you, Father, for the gift of the Holy Spirit!