What is Godly Play?
To help understand what Godly Play is, we have to know what it’s not. First, Godly Play is not merely another children's Sunday School program. Godly Play employs the art of knowing how to use the language of Christians to explain the mysteries of our life in God.
Godly Play is based upon the recognition that children have an innate sense of the presence of God. All they lack is the appropriate language to help them identify and express it so it can be explored and strengthened. The Godly Play approach teaches classical Christian language in a way that enhances the child's authentic experience of God so it can contribute to the creative life of the child and the world.
Godly Play, is rooted in the Montessori method of religious education. It is an imaginative approach to working with children, an approach that supports, challenges, nourishes and guides their spiritual quest–in other words, a form of spiritual formation. Godly Play uses play to teach children, who have some experience of the mystery of the presence of God in their lives, how to use language and understanding to express it. In Godly Play, children learn through parables and sacred stories to discover God and one another in the world around them.
Typically, one of our teachers acts as the storyteller and sits at the top of a circle waiting for the children to enter. A second teacher helps children get settled within the circle. The storyteller relates a spiritual story using props such as a sandbox and wooden models of buildings and people. After telling the story and eliciting responses from the children, the other teacher helps the children break away to work on expressive art work or other projects.
Godly Play is based upon the recognition that children have an innate sense of the presence of God. All they lack is the appropriate language to help them identify and express it so it can be explored and strengthened. The Godly Play approach teaches classical Christian language in a way that enhances the child's authentic experience of God so it can contribute to the creative life of the child and the world.
Godly Play, is rooted in the Montessori method of religious education. It is an imaginative approach to working with children, an approach that supports, challenges, nourishes and guides their spiritual quest–in other words, a form of spiritual formation. Godly Play uses play to teach children, who have some experience of the mystery of the presence of God in their lives, how to use language and understanding to express it. In Godly Play, children learn through parables and sacred stories to discover God and one another in the world around them.
Typically, one of our teachers acts as the storyteller and sits at the top of a circle waiting for the children to enter. A second teacher helps children get settled within the circle. The storyteller relates a spiritual story using props such as a sandbox and wooden models of buildings and people. After telling the story and eliciting responses from the children, the other teacher helps the children break away to work on expressive art work or other projects.
Want to know more?
Watch the video below for an introduction
to the work of Godly Play by its creator, Fr. Jerome Berryman.
Watch the video below for an introduction
to the work of Godly Play by its creator, Fr. Jerome Berryman.
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As part of its response to the needs of the wider Church, St. Luke's periodically sponsors and hosts Godly Play Training. For more information about Godly Play at St. Luke's Contact The Rev. Mary Kisner at youth@stlukeslebanon.org |