The Complete Guide to Godly Play

Volume 2, Revised and Expanded

Jerome W. Berryman, Cheryl V. Minor, Rosemary Beales

• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780819233608
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Godly Play® is an imaginative approach to working with children, an approach that supports, challenges, nourishes, and guides their spiritual quest. Revised and updated, The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2 offers new concepts, new terminology, new illustrations, and a new structure that stem from more than 10 years of using Godly Play with children across the world. 30 to 40 percent of the text is new or revised, including a new lesson, revised Introduction, and a new full Appendix.

Lesson 1

Circle of the Church Year

How the Church Tells Its Story

How to Use This Lesson

•Core Presentation

•Liturgical Action Lesson: lessons about sacraments or traditions of the church, which primarily use ritual and symbol to make meaning

•As the first lesson in Volume 2 of The Complete Guide to Godly Play, it is usually presented at the beginning of the program year, or alternative at the beginning of the liturgical year (the first Sunday in Advent).

•It is part of a comprehensive approach to Christian formation that consists of eight volumes. Together the lessons form a spiral curriculum that enables children to move into adolescence with an inner working knowledge of the classical Christian language system to sustain them all their lives.

The Material

•Location: Focal shelves

•Pieces: Circle of the Church Year Wall Hanging and Circle of the Church Year Presentation Set

•Underlay for Presentation Set: A neutral-colored three foot by two foot (about one meter by half a meter) rug or piece of felt.

Background

This lesson sets the context for the whole year. Each year, the Christian people move through a circle of memory and expectation to open themselves to the elusive presence of God. Moving through this circle is how the Church tells its story. In the Godly Play room, we pay attention to this circle of movement each week and therefore it is recommended that you begin each program year with this lesson.

This lesson uses the Circle of the Church Year Presentation Set, which includes a circular frame, fifty-two removable colored blocks, and a gold cord or ribbon.

You will also use the Circle of the Church Year Wall Hanging, which has colored cloth “blocks” for the Sundays of the year plus Christmas Day and a golden arrow that moves from Sunday to Sunday (block to block). From now on, begin each class by inviting a child to go to this wall hanging and move the golden arrow to the current Sunday (check the wall hanging before class to make sure that when the child moves the arrow to the next block, it will point to the right Sunday). This invites children to move through the Church’s special kind of time, marked not by numbers but by blocks of color. The wall hanging should be hung low enough on the wall so the children can move the arrow as suggested.

Notes on the Material

In the Circle of the Church Year Presentation Set is a circle, about one foot (about thirty centimeters) in diameter, made from wood. Colored wooden blocks fit in a ring to mark each Sunday of the liturgical year, as well as the day of Christmas. Three arrow-shaped hands of this “clock” point to the three great times of the Church year. If you buy only one ready-made material from Godly Play Resources, we recommend that it be this one. Accurately cutting out these blocks is a difficult job.

You will use the gold cord or ribbon (about three feet [or approximately one meter] long) to show how time can be “in a line.” This cord needs to be flexible and small enough to curl up inside your fist.

You will use a small neutral colored rug or piece of felt as an underlay. This helps the children focus on the lesson. In most Godly Play rooms, there is a basket of “work rugs” that the children use during response time. These can work well if they are neutral colors. If not, you should have a piece of felt cut for this purpose.

Traditions about the use of color for feast days or liturgical seasons vary greatly, even within denominations. As you order the material or prepare this lesson, please adjust as needed to match the colors actually used in your church.

Special Notes

Adapting the lesson to your setting

Godly Play stories were first written in the Northern Hemisphere. The Circle of the Church Year lesson is linked with the seasonal weather, movements of the sun, and the school year. For those who live in the Southern Hemisphere or near the Equator in tropical climates, it is necessary to adjust the script to your environment. Judyth Roberts, a Godly Play Trainer in Australia, uses these guidelines in training sessions for Godly Play Australia:

Think about where you live and what is happening at that time of the year. A sense of place is important. Are there signals in nature that can be noted? Do rains come or stop? Does it become lighter and the days get longer? Are there trees or flowers that are striking? Is it harvest time? Or summer school holidays? Using three or four sentences, summarize the changes that happen as Advent approaches.

Here is an example of how Roberts adapts the lesson:

Here are the rest of the green and growing Sundays. Winter comes and the days are shorter and colder. Then, as spring comes, the days grow longer, there is more light, and it gets warmer. The cicadas are noisy. The jacarandas drop flowers, making a purple carpet under the trees. It is holiday time, and it’s time to get ready for the mystery of Christmas.

Movements	Words
	Now watch carefully. Here is the rug we need for this lesson.
Get up from your position in the circle and carefully cross the room to get a rug or to get the felt underlay you will use for the lesson. Pick up a rug with attentive care.
Bring the rug to the circle, and roll it out just as carefully and lovingly as you would like the children to do. This is especially important for children younger than eight years old.
	Watch where I go now to get the lesson.
Get up and walk around the room in search of the lesson. Reaching back and pulling it off the shelf isn’t dramatic enough to catch the children’s attention. Help them remember where to find this story.
	Hm. It’s not where the Sacred Stories are. It’s not where the Parables are. Ah, here it is! This is the lesson about the Circle of the Church Year.
Sit down in the circle with the rug in front of you. Place the material to your side. As you do so, pick up the gold cord and enclose it in your right hand so that you can pull it out through a space between two fingers from right to left. Keep eye contact with the children as you hide the cord in your hand and begin the story.
	Time, time, time . . . there are all kinds of time. There is a time to get up in the morning. There is a time to go to bed. There is a time to go to school and a time to come home. There is a time to work, and there is a time to play. But what is time?
Until now, the gold cord has been hidden, but now you show a small end of the cord extending between your fingers, and you suddenly notice it.
	Some people say that time is in a line. But I wonder what that would look like? Ah . . . wait a minute! What is this? Time. Time in a line. This is time in a line. Look at this. Here is the beginning. It is the newest part. It is just being born. It is brand new. Now look.
Moving from right to left, pull out the cord slowly as you speak. Pull it all the way out from your fist slowly as you talk until it drops to the rug.
	Look. It is getting older. The part that was new is now getting old. I wonder how long time goes. Does it go forever? Could there ever be an ending?
The end of the cord drops. Pick up the cord and look at it.
	It ended. Look at the ending.
Hold the two ends and look at them.
	The beginning that was so new at the beginning now is old. The ending is the new part now. We have a beginning that is like an ending and an ending that is like a beginning.
Tie the two ends (beginnings) together. Then put the circle of wooden blocks on...