A while back when I was sending my plea out to the twitter-verse for ideas about helping my kids discover their worth in God, Jonathan Puddle graciously extended an invitation to talk about this and about possibly adapting his book for use with my children. It was a deeply rewarding conversation. I ended up reading his book, “You Are Enough” and doing his meditations, and found both to be an amazing experience.
Some time later, I was listening to a podcast by Jonathan . He was interviewing Julie Canlis about her book “A Theology of the Ordinary,” and she happened to mention something about Godly Play. She stated that it was invented by Jerome Berryman and it was based upon the Montessori theory of learning, of which I am a big fan.
So I “googled” it to learn a bit more about it. I found a YouTube video of a woman doing the parable of the great pearl (https://youtu.be/h-b3T7HfXYY) and I was mesmerized. The protocol involves memorizing the script which is an adaptation of the parable and use craft materials to enact the story. Afterwards the children are invited to play with the story or any other story that they have done as well as do a craft in response to the story. And at the end there is a little “feast” which would consist of water and crackers.
I decided to show the YouTube video to my oldest son to see if this would be of interest. It was met with mixed review. He didn’t seem to be thrilled with it that much but then he asked the next night to watch it again. It seemed that he would get very engaged and then lose interest. I thought that was enough.
So being me I ordered Berryman’s book and began a search of peer reviewed journal articles to see if any research had been done. I found an excellent article in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality . Kathy Frady did a study using this method with 2-year-olds in a few church settings. She did the story of how Jesus welcomed the children after his disciples tried to turn them away. Her script was short and included in the journal article, so I decided to use that one as my first Godly Play.
I set up the play room with two mats and I put together the materials for the story. I found a large book shaped box to house it and I found craft supplies (and a rock) to use for the story. It was kind of rewarding to create this visual, reusable story box.
It was a lot of work, memorizing the script and putting the “set” together. I had high expectations based upon what I had read, seen and prepared for. My expectations were way too high! In hindsight it went fine but I was greatly disappointed during it. I’m finding that doing this at home presents some challenges that are less likely in a Church setting with a teacher. I’ll talk more about this in upcoming blogs as I try and work through them. I think there may need to be some adaptations down the road but I’m going to stick with the official protocol for a bit as I learn it’s nuances. There are some deep nuances to the script that I’ll comment on in later posts as well.
Feel free to send you comments, questions or observations. If any of you have some experience with Godly Play I’d love to hear from you.
Raising Gentle Faith 