Godly Play Religion
I’ve worked in the children’s ministry known as Kids Church at Urban Village Church – Andersonville on and off for about three years now. Last year we launched Godly Play as our curriculum for Kids Church but took a break from utilizing this curriculum over the summer. This month we have picked the Godly Play curriculum back up. I decided to interview the children on their first day of Kids Church. I thought, as a teacher, it would be good to ask the children ‘What is God?’ at the beginning of the year and then again at the end of the year. This will allow me and my fellow volunteer teachers to see what our children’s embedded theology is and how it evolves through the next year.
During our “feast” time I asked the four children that were …show more content…
in attendance the question, ‘What is God?’ and the follow up question, ‘How do you feel when you think about God?’ They ranged from the ages of four to six years old. Two out of the four responses that I received related God to parental figures, both male and female. They did not describe age or race in their answers. This response is not surprising coming from two of the younger children.
Educating Christians says that “Meanings are always made in the context of our experiences, our histories, our commitments, and the cultures in which we live.” Both of these children come from loving, family centered homes and their parents are active within the church. The context of their lives is within their families. The familial structure is the basis for the children’s meaning-perspective. It makes logical sense that they would relate the love of God with the love received from mother or father. Thus their response of feeling happy and loved when they think about God also fell into their
The other answers I got were much unexpected. One child told me that he thought God is a giant cookie. At first I categorized his response as one of just acting silly to try to receive attention from the others. After some processing, on my part, I think I understand why he may have said God is a giant cookie. On Saturday, the day before I asked the children ‘What is God?’ I babysat for this boy’s family. He, his little sister, and I made cookies together while their parents were away. While we were making the cookies he made sure his little sister didn’t eat the cookie dough so there would be cookies to share with their parents when they came home. I think, while he was having fun with the idea of God being a giant cookie, he was also subconsciously relating the act of making cookies together with his sister and I for his parents to God.
I think this subconscious idea comes from what our church preaches on a larger scale.
Our values as a church are that we are bold, inclusive, and relevant with our mission statement being “To create Jesus loving, inclusive communities that ignite the city.” This child’s family has been attending our church for the past two years, so this is a message he has heard over and over every single Sunday at the beginning of church. Over the summer in Kids Church we also had the children work through the mission statement word by word to see what that meant, and how we live it all out in church. In addition, his parents are very welcoming and justice oriented. They want to make our society a place where no one is disenfranchised and want to raise their children with this …show more content…
mindset.
We talk about how God makes space for everyone, that God loves everyone, and because God loves everyone we welcome everyone; that there is always room at the table. Sharing cookies is a way of making room at the table. This idea of inclusivity has become part of this child’s embedded theology.
Another response that I received that I did not anticipate was that God is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not something that we’ve discussed in depth with the children during Kids Church. I asked where she heard the term and she said in church. We do discuss the Holy Spirit in church quite frequently so that makes sense.
The idea of the Holy Spirit is such a large concept, especially for a six year old. To me her thought of God as the Holy Spirit means that she is relating to God on a different level than the children who thought of God as their mama or dada. A spirit is not corporal, is not something you can easily define. This shows me that God is larger concept for her possibly. I wished I had asked her what the Holy Spirit is to have a better idea of her thought process.
The final response I received was that God was large, both male and female, was everywhere, in everything and everyone.
The girl who told me this likened God to Voldemort in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone who lived in Professor Quirrell’s head. She thought the concept of God being everywhere was “creepy”, but that she wasn’t afraid of God. This girl has been steadily working her way through the first Harry Potter book and is using this help shape her meaning-perspective. “Meaning-perspectives, frames of reference, are the structures through which experience is focused.” She has learned and heard that God is powerful enough to be everywhere and with everyone. She equates that kind of power with magic. Harry Potter allows her a frame of reference for that fantastic, magical concept. “For every Chrstian, correlating is at its base the task of relating theology to the circumstances of their lives, and vice versa.”
I must admit that as one of the Christian educators for all of these children I was very excited to hear the variety of answers I received. In the spring of 2015 one of our interns asked the children this same question and the responses were very different. The answers then were along the lines of God being an old man up in the clouds far away. In just six months their impression of God has changed drastically! All of their answers illustrate that we are making a concentrated effort to ensure that God is not envisioned racially or a specific
gender and that God’s love is always present for all.
Based on all of the children’s responses I think that as an educator I need to focus more on how Jesus fits into the larger picture of God as a whole. Within our summer curriculum and some of the Godly Play stories we talk about Jesus being a man and haven’t necessarily introduced the notion of Jesus as God. This belief will be difficult for the children to understand and as Educating Christians states they will have to reconstruct their meanings. I think the best route for this is to ask them questions and continue conversations started within the context of the Godly Play stories. Sometimes they don’t remember things, like what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. When asked if they know, they’ll admit that they don’t remember and ask to learn what did happen. Additionally, I think the repetition of the stories which we tell on a yearly cycle (some multiple times throughout the year) will allow them to slowly build them into their embedded theologies. “Theological reflection cannot flourish unless it is valued and practiced in the church itself.” Active reflection throughout the year will allow their perception of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to evolve. On the last day of Kids Church in June 2016 I plan to ask all the children again, ‘What is God?’ to see how it changes in response to not just our curriculum but our honest and probing hard work.
During our “feast” time I asked the four children that were …show more content…
in attendance the question, ‘What is God?’ and the follow up question, ‘How do you feel when you think about God?’ They ranged from the ages of four to six years old. Two out of the four responses that I received related God to parental figures, both male and female. They did not describe age or race in their answers. This response is not surprising coming from two of the younger children.
Educating Christians says that “Meanings are always made in the context of our experiences, our histories, our commitments, and the cultures in which we live.” Both of these children come from loving, family centered homes and their parents are active within the church. The context of their lives is within their families. The familial structure is the basis for the children’s meaning-perspective. It makes logical sense that they would relate the love of God with the love received from mother or father. Thus their response of feeling happy and loved when they think about God also fell into their
The other answers I got were much unexpected. One child told me that he thought God is a giant cookie. At first I categorized his response as one of just acting silly to try to receive attention from the others. After some processing, on my part, I think I understand why he may have said God is a giant cookie. On Saturday, the day before I asked the children ‘What is God?’ I babysat for this boy’s family. He, his little sister, and I made cookies together while their parents were away. While we were making the cookies he made sure his little sister didn’t eat the cookie dough so there would be cookies to share with their parents when they came home. I think, while he was having fun with the idea of God being a giant cookie, he was also subconsciously relating the act of making cookies together with his sister and I for his parents to God.
I think this subconscious idea comes from what our church preaches on a larger scale.
Our values as a church are that we are bold, inclusive, and relevant with our mission statement being “To create Jesus loving, inclusive communities that ignite the city.” This child’s family has been attending our church for the past two years, so this is a message he has heard over and over every single Sunday at the beginning of church. Over the summer in Kids Church we also had the children work through the mission statement word by word to see what that meant, and how we live it all out in church. In addition, his parents are very welcoming and justice oriented. They want to make our society a place where no one is disenfranchised and want to raise their children with this …show more content…
mindset.
We talk about how God makes space for everyone, that God loves everyone, and because God loves everyone we welcome everyone; that there is always room at the table. Sharing cookies is a way of making room at the table. This idea of inclusivity has become part of this child’s embedded theology.
Another response that I received that I did not anticipate was that God is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not something that we’ve discussed in depth with the children during Kids Church. I asked where she heard the term and she said in church. We do discuss the Holy Spirit in church quite frequently so that makes sense.
The idea of the Holy Spirit is such a large concept, especially for a six year old. To me her thought of God as the Holy Spirit means that she is relating to God on a different level than the children who thought of God as their mama or dada. A spirit is not corporal, is not something you can easily define. This shows me that God is larger concept for her possibly. I wished I had asked her what the Holy Spirit is to have a better idea of her thought process.
The final response I received was that God was large, both male and female, was everywhere, in everything and everyone.
The girl who told me this likened God to Voldemort in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone who lived in Professor Quirrell’s head. She thought the concept of God being everywhere was “creepy”, but that she wasn’t afraid of God. This girl has been steadily working her way through the first Harry Potter book and is using this help shape her meaning-perspective. “Meaning-perspectives, frames of reference, are the structures through which experience is focused.” She has learned and heard that God is powerful enough to be everywhere and with everyone. She equates that kind of power with magic. Harry Potter allows her a frame of reference for that fantastic, magical concept. “For every Chrstian, correlating is at its base the task of relating theology to the circumstances of their lives, and vice versa.”
I must admit that as one of the Christian educators for all of these children I was very excited to hear the variety of answers I received. In the spring of 2015 one of our interns asked the children this same question and the responses were very different. The answers then were along the lines of God being an old man up in the clouds far away. In just six months their impression of God has changed drastically! All of their answers illustrate that we are making a concentrated effort to ensure that God is not envisioned racially or a specific
gender and that God’s love is always present for all.
Based on all of the children’s responses I think that as an educator I need to focus more on how Jesus fits into the larger picture of God as a whole. Within our summer curriculum and some of the Godly Play stories we talk about Jesus being a man and haven’t necessarily introduced the notion of Jesus as God. This belief will be difficult for the children to understand and as Educating Christians states they will have to reconstruct their meanings. I think the best route for this is to ask them questions and continue conversations started within the context of the Godly Play stories. Sometimes they don’t remember things, like what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. When asked if they know, they’ll admit that they don’t remember and ask to learn what did happen. Additionally, I think the repetition of the stories which we tell on a yearly cycle (some multiple times throughout the year) will allow them to slowly build them into their embedded theologies. “Theological reflection cannot flourish unless it is valued and practiced in the church itself.” Active reflection throughout the year will allow their perception of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to evolve. On the last day of Kids Church in June 2016 I plan to ask all the children again, ‘What is God?’ to see how it changes in response to not just our curriculum but our honest and probing hard work.