 Resources for Churches, Organizations, Laity and Clergy of the Diocese of California
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IN/FORMATION: The Gift of Godly Play |
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Written by PCN Print Edition Writers
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Monday, 06 December 2004 |
At the doorway of a Sunday School classroom at St. Peter's Episcopal
Church in Redwood City, I reached for the hands of a green-eyed,
brown-skinned girl. My job was to invite her inside to listen to a
story told in the Montessori style of Godly Play. The setting was a
gathering of clergy and parishioners from the four Spanish-speaking
congregations of the Diocese of California, who had come together to
consider the Godly Play curriculum as a way of teaching Biblical
stories in their mother tongue.
I had no way of knowing whether this daughter of immigrant parents
spoke Spanish at home: many first-generation children educated in the
US have limited command of their parent's mother tongue. So even though
my intention was to welcome each child in the words that were most
familiar to them, I wasn't sure whether to greet her with a "welcome"
or a "bienvenidos." Instead, I had to rely on intuition, repetition,
and the unspoken language of hospitality. Letting my hands enfold hers
and a smile settle on my face, I breathed a wordless prayer: "I'm so
glad you are here. May you meet God in this place."
In English, Spanish, and the cross-cultural language of silence, the
message of Godly Play is the same: unconditional welcome, respect for
children's experience of the sacred, and playfulness as a manifestation
of grace. Before the first greeting is offered to a child, the
classroom is organized to reflect the generosity of God and the
kindness and mutuality of the Christian community.
Godly Play national trainer Sally Mancini calls classroom management
"the unspoken lesson," and it is taught through the wordless mediums of
time, space, and relationship. In a Godly Play classroom, children are
never hurried and there is time for holy leisure. Materials are
attractive and arranged in ways that invite reverence and imaginative
play, and stories are told in a safe, consistent environment that
encourages children to succeed in their interactions with the biblical
stories and with the learning community. "Even if you use another
curriculum for church school," writes Godly Play founder Jerome
Berryman, "you can begin to incorporate aspects of Godly Play into your
practice, beginning with elements as simple as the greeting and
goodbye."
Teachers of children are not the only people in our diocese who are
reflecting on the stories we tell without words. Around the Diocese,
fourteen parishes have been involved in Partners for Sacred Places, a
project to promote and sustain the sacred places and historic religious
structures in our communities. When I caught up with Congregational
Development Officer Michael Barlowe to ask, "Why the emphasis on
preserving our buildings?," he explained, "The Anglican
understanding of the Incarnation is the starting point for everything
we do as a church and as individuals. It starts with our own creation,
which God called good, continues in the spaces we create, and finds its
fullest expression in the incarnation of Jesus Christ."
The efforts we make to create sacred space speaks volumes about our
incarnational theology. Do we treasure our built inheritance? Is the
space hospitable? Does it offer the possibility of a transformational
encounter with God, even (or perhaps especially) for those who do not
use the same language that we do? These are vital questions for
parishes in ministry with an increasingly pluralistic culture, but they
are also questions that Christian educators must ask of their
classrooms every fall. Besides lessons about God, what else is being
offered in this space?
When the answer is "experience of God" as well as "knowledge about
God," then every classroom gesture and object has the potential
to become a sacrament. And when playfulness and imagination assume an
importance equal to language in our teaching, our stories communicate
effortlessly across cultures. In the hands of a bilingual Godly Play
storyteller surrounded by a group of attentive children, a shiny-faced
Moses comes down from the mountain once again, and finds his voice in a
box of desert sand.
"The Holy Spirit was felt by me since the moment that I walked into the
sacred space," remarked Ivan Castaneda, a lay preacher at St. James
Episcopal Church in Oakland and third year student in the Academia
Teologica Latina who attended the Redwood City introductory training.
"My attitude and thoughts were holy, therefore everything was sacred.
As the narrator was telling the story, I was there, I was part of the
story. I don't care if someone would call it imagination, for me was
real."
--Julia McCray-Goldsmith
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Last Updated ( Friday, 13 January 2006 )
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