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Becky Ramsey | Author & Children’s Minister
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What is Godly Play?
According to the Godly Play Foundation, Godly Play is a creative and imaginative approach to Christian nurture.
Godly Play is about understanding how each of the stories of God’s people connects with the child’s own experience and relationship with God.
Godly Play respects the innate spirituality of children and encourages curiosity and imagination in experiencing the mystery and joy of God.
Read more about Godly Play here.
How do we do Godly Play at First Baptist Greenville?
Christians of many different denominations use Godly Play and probably do it differently, even within the same denomination. In this blog, I describe Godly Play by sharing the way our church does it. That doesn’t mean that it’s the best way or the prescribed way, or the only way, of course, but it’s the way that suits us best.
What are we here for?
We meet here to talk about Godly Play, to share what it’s all about and to discuss how to do it better.
The weekly blog posts are designed to help Sunday school teachers prepare for their Godly Play lessons, and the individual pages (see the tabs at the top of this page) share information about how we do Godly Play at First Baptist Church, Greenville, SC.
We’d love to hear from teachers everywhere, not just the ones at our church! We hope you’ll join our circle and share your ideas!
What Godly Play is Not
Godly Play is quite different from the traditional model in which the teacher tells the children what they need to know. Godly Play is not about things that are that simple. It is not just about learning lessons or keeping children entertained. It is about locating each lesson in the whole system of Christian language and involving the creative process to discover the depths of meaning in them.
Paul’s Discovery
Welcome to the story of Paul’s Discovery.
What a rich story of Saul/Paul, from birth to death! You’ll find the script in the yellow (Spring) book, p.126-135. The wondering questions are listed at the end.
Idea Sparkers for our Gift to God Time:
1. Paul’s life is so exciting. It would be fun to divide up the group and have the children act out scenes. Even our youngest kids could do it!
Scenes they may choose to act out:
1. Making tents with his father (bring a sheet from home and drape it over a table or rope) Pretend to hammer down stakes.
2. Waving goodbye to his family and traveling to Jerusalem (bring a suitcase)
3. Worshiping in the temple (Gather candlesticks, make a big scroll to read)
4. Saul trying to catch people who followed Jesus to bring them back for punishment.
5. Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus. (Maybe bring a lamp for a great light. )
Act out being led to Damascus and staying in the house, where the scales fall from his eyes.
6. Saul’s telling the good news of his transformation at the synagogue and then how Jesus’ followers hid him when people grew angry.
7.Paul’s escape over the city wall in a basket. (A laundry basket and rope would be perfect for this!)
8. Paul’s traveling and writing letters.
9. Paul kept as a prisoner in his own house.
2. Let the children work in pairs or alone to illustrate their favorite scene from the story. Have an “art show” at the end to look at everyone’s work and put the works in chronological order.
3. Examine the scrolls to see which books of the Bible do we think Paul wrote. Children could make bookmarks for their Bibles illustrated with scenes from Paul’s life.
For more art response ideas, check out my Pinterest page, here.
Enjoy, everyone!