Sacred Space: What does it say to the children?

One of our topics at the Moscow Core Training was about the Godly Play Room and how to set up sacred space for children. Whether one has an actual permanent Godly Play room or not, the sacred space that we set up for children communicates non-verbally to the children. 

At one point, I asked the group to wonder together about the following questions:

What might we as the church say to the children through the room?

What might God want to say to the children through the room?



Here are a few of the things the participants thought of:

- We are waiting for you here. This space and everything in it is for you.
- We love you, and God loves you!
- This is special place for you to meet with God.
- You are valued here.
- God prepared this space for you, and he is waiting for you here. 
- You are important to God.
- God wants to talk to you and you can tell him anything. 
- You are accepted here just as you are!
- We trust you!

As a church-planter in Russia in the early 90's when children's ministry often took place in very inadequate spaces, it really did my heart a lot of good to be with such thoughtful people in Moscow who really get it when it comes to children. 

New Storytellers in Moscow!

There are 20 new Godly Players in the Moscow region!  Nineteen women and one man from four different churches attended the first-ever Core Training in the heart of Moscow. It was a privilege for me to meet and spend three very full days with such lovely people who truly carry children in their hearts and take seriously the idea of accompanying them on their journey with God! 

Ironically, the training took place in an old German church, the Lutheran Cathedral of Peter and Paul. It was amusing to me to find this very German architecture just minutes away from Red Square!

Normally, we only have 12 participants at a Core Training, so it was challenging to have such a large group. I was assisted in the training by two experienced storytellers, Asmic from Moscow and Alesya from Minsk. These two amazing women were invaluable, and the training could not have taken place without them!

On the first day, everyone came ready with notebooks and pencils expecting more of a lecture format. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the training was interactive, experiential and encouraging of critical thinking skills, and with elements of a spiritual retreat. 

As you can imagine, we wondered as a group about a great many things. In the picture below, we spent time thinking about what we, as the church, and God might want to say to the children through the sacred space/room that we create for them. 

Another particularly intense and moving Wondering involved the principles of Montessori that are inherent in Godly Play as well. Asmic introduced the principles on notecards, placing them on the floor in the middle of the circle. Each participant was asked to stand by the principle that she/he was most drawn to. As each person shared the things that attracted them, the rich love and devotion to serving children became a tangible element in the room. A truly holy moment. 

Here Alesya shares "The Faces of Easter" with the group. 

Each participant had the chance to be a storyteller and a door person. They worked hard during the practice sessions, asked great questions, and were very teachable. They were open to learning the stories in their original format, even though their traditions usually differed from the Episcopalian background out of which Godly Play originally emerged. 

Telling stories for their peers involves a lot of excitement and nerves! 

 Lyuda shares the Parable of the Mustard Seed . . .

and Sergei shares "The Good Shepherd and the Worldwide Communion". 

The participants gave us feedback at the end of the course that they had rarely encountered the level of love, support, and respect that they had experienced in this group over the last three days. 

A moment of joy - receiving a storyteller certificate and a few gifts at the end!

Asmic had a friend bake People of God gingerbread for each person!

Before we said good-bye and blessed one another, we asked each person to spend some time thinking about and write out what they felt the next steps with Godly Play were to be. Some people shared very concrete steps, such as making the materials for the Advent story and sharing it with their children. Other shared long-term dreams. One young woman even said that she wanted to become a Godly Play trainer! I'm praying that will happen. 

The seeds of an ecumenical Godly Play group have been planted. Like the Mustard Seed, we trust God that he will water it and cause it to grow, and that the children of Moscow will be blessed through it. 

Godly Play European Conference September 2016

This post is long overdue, but better late than never . . . 

In September Godly Players from all over Europe gathered in Jurmala, Latvia (near Riga) to talk, laugh, play, worship and contemplate together. 

The beautiful beach at Jurmala.

The theme of the conference was "The Best Gift"? What is our best gift to children? What is the best gift in our lives? What is the best gift that we have received through Godly Play? 

Photo credit: Alesya Asievich

As you can imagine, there was lots of Wondering. Here, David Pritchard from Spain helps us wonder about the Good Shepherd and the Worldwide Communion. 

Photo credit: Alesya Asievich

Each morning began with stories in different languages. One of my favourite things is to listen to a story in a language that I don't know. Something about the steady rhythm of the unintelligible sounds help me to focus on the gestures and experience a familiar story in a new way. 

Here Evalina from Sweden shares the Parable of the Sower. 

And Florence from Geneva shared the Great Family in French. 

Our speakers included our own Martin Steinhäuser from Germany, Rune Øystese and Henrik Syse, both from Norway. Henrik, who is a philosopher from the Peace Insitute of Oslo, spoke to us about carefully building structures where it is acceptable to question and give constructive criticism as Godly Play grows worldwide. Interestingly enough, Henrik was on the most recent Nobel Prize Committee. Although he wouldn't let us in on the Committee's decisions, I should have guessed Bob Dylan, since he quoted Dylan's songs several times during his lecture. : )

The Best Gift for me are the friendships that I have made through Godly Play. I love seeing old friends and meeting new ones!  Here I am with Tanya and Alesya from Minsk and my dear friend, Helen, with whom I have shared adventures in Belarus. 

Photo credit: Alesya Asievich

And finally, after all these years, I finally got to meet Storyteller and Vandriver from Wonderful in an Easter Kind of Way!! (By the way, she has some great posts on her site about the conference as well.) We've encouraged and been an inspiration to one other on-line for so long, and it was wonderful to find out that Storyteller is even more amazing in person. 

There were many workshops during the conference. Here, I am helping the group to wonder about the new story in "Godly Play style" about Martin Luther. We also brainstormed ideas together about a second Reformation story. 

Our time ended with a Taize service in a beautiful, old church. 

There was even enough time to see a bit of Riga. I was overwhelmed by the brightly coloured flowers and the creativity of the city!

With Ruth and Karin from Germany
at the "Dandelion Cafe" in Riga. 

Let the Children Come!

In Children's Spirituality: What it is and Why it Matters by Rebecca Nye, the author makes the case that children spend time with God differently than adults and that God also spends time with the children in a different way than with adults. But what does that look like practically?

Well, for starters, we consider the way children engage with the world in general. They play, respond to outer stimuli, explore through the 5 senses, and imagine. It's no great stretch to think that children relate to God in the same way, or that God might make himself known to the children using these same things. 

One of our volunteers in children's church told me a story about her just turned 4-year-old daughter. The little girl had recently heard the story where Jesus implores the disciples to let the children come to him without hindrances. A week or so later, she gathered up all of her marbles and put them in a small basket. She then spilled them out onto the sofa, loudly said, "Let the children come!",  and gently picked up each marble and returned it to the basket. Over the course of a week, she repeated this "game" several times. 

Though we have no way of knowing exactly what was going through this little girl's head, the story about the children coming had obviously caught her attention and she intentionally explored it further through the medium of play. And she didn't need any special, expensive toys either. Just a few simple marbles . . . 

The First Church (Acts 2: 42-47)

What was the first church like? Was it like our church? What did the people together do back then? 

To introduce our children to the early church and pick up where the story of Pentecost leaves off, I developed a "Godly Play-like" lesson based on Acts 2:42-47. (Please note that I am careful not to call this a Godly Play story, as "Godly Play" is a brand with a copyright. If you make up your own stories, please call them "Godly Play-inspired" unless you have permission from the Godly Play foundation to do otherwise.) 

Using the materials from the Pentecost story, we began with Jesus' friends receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, and moved on to Peter's sermon, which led to the very first church being birthed. 

There are a lot of great things in this passage, but honestly it can be just a boring to-do list if not communicated in an interesting way. To add a playful element into the mix, I turned the passage into a guessing game by making wooden discs with clip art that represent all of the activities of the early church listed in Acts 2. 

I put the discs into a drawstring bag and let the children one-by-one pull out a disc and guess what the picture might represent. The drawstring bag added an element of mystery (like in the GP story, "The Mystery of Easter"), and almost every child enjoys a good guessing game. 

After we had looked at every disc and talked a little about each thing that the early church did together, I asked the following Wondering questions:

- What thing about the early church do you like best?

The majority of the children liked sharing, helping, and eating together best!

- Which of these things does our church do together?

- Are there some things that that you see among the early church that you don't see at our church? 

In answering these two questions, the children replied that you could see pretty much everything in our church except for signs and wonders. It was a very hot day with no air conditioning, so unfortunately, the kids were getting too restless to wonder about why that might be. But I'd be very curious to hear their answers. : )

Door Person?

Adapting things from one culture to another can be tricky. What means one thing in one language can produce wholly different thoughts in another. For example, anything connected with a pig in English is automatically negative. But in German, that's not necessarily true. A pig is often associated with good luck, and when someone gets lucky, you tell them that they've "had a pig" ("Du hast Schwein gehabt!").  Interesting, huh?

So it is with Godly Play. I've been doing Godly Play courses in German since 2013. Each time when I explain the role of the Door Person  (the official name of the Co-Teacher in the Godly Play classroom), I get uncomprehending looks and end up having to almost apologize for the name. The term originally came to be, because this adult greets the children at the literal door to the Godly Play room, and then opens a metaphorical door for the children by helping them get ready to meet with God in community. 

When a door is understood as a symbol of opening up new possibilities, it's a great name. However, the literal translation in German,Tür-Person, has very different connotations. People think of a bouncer or a  guard - someone who keeps people out. And the word "door" itself can also been viewed as a boundary rather than an opening. (Which that may have been part of the originally reasoning for the word in English, since GP deals with existential boundaries, and a door is both an opening and a boundary.) Because of this confusion, at our last Trainers' conference, we spent a great deal of time talking about how to best describe this role in the future. 

In true Godly Play style, we set up a room on the floor with the People of God figures, and began playing with the roles. We then listed off  the characteristics of a Door Person to the side. 



We came up with these characteristics:

- he/she opens things up for the children, i.e. literal things like jars of glue, and metaphorical things like possibilities (in the sense of enabling and empowering)

- he/she cares for the children and the community

- he/she supports the children on their spiritual journey and the development of community among the children

- he/she observes the children and is aware of their needs

- he/she works to provide a safe atmosphere for the children, again both literally and emotionally

- he/she releases the children to their parents at the end of the lesson and into the world with God's blessing 

Then, we asked ourselves, what kind of word in German would also be best for the children? After brainstorming, we finally settled on the word "Begleiter", which means "one who accompanies". While that may not seem very child-friendly to English ears, it's a very common word in German. As a child here, there is always some adult accompanying you to go somewhere. And it better encompasses the qualities listed above. 

Hope you've enjoyed hearing some of our journey in cultural adaption!

A Child's Image of God

Children's images of God fascinate me. I learn so much from them. 

Below is a picture that a 5-year-old drew of Jesus in Response Time at church yesterday. Our story in children's church was about the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and not directly about Jesus. This child may have drawn a picture of Jesus, because we had talked about the Holy Spirit and how we didn't have a picture to show the children of this member of the Trinity, but rather examples from nature that tell us what the Spirit is like. 



That's one of the aspects of Godly Play that I truly cherish. The children get to choose what they want to draw or create without the pressure to do something based on the day's lesson. There is room to explore with the Spirit's leading without having to "produce" something. 

Perhaps this five-year-old was trying to work out a concrete picture for herself what God is like. In any case, she drew a picture of a very joyful Jesus dancing among the flowers and butterflies. No strict or harsh religious figures here. Someone who is approachable that she would like to play with. 

Frieder Harz, a German pastor and religious educator, writes about how faith in children often begins with a sense of security and safety. Being in a parents' arms, where she or he is safe, loved and cherished, is the early "language of faith" that babies and toddlers soak up. Being valued by the church family and taken seriously build upon these early experiences. 

I am thankful that the message this child is getting from her parents and her church family is one of a loving, grace-oriented God. May this beautiful image stay with her all of her life.