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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.
The Story of Samuel
Welcome to the story of Samuel, based on 1 Samuel 1-28:3. You can find the script for the story in the pink Enrichment Presentations for Fall book, p.72-77.
This week’s story is another one (like Ruth) that fits nicely after the story of the ark and the tent. And it follows right into the next story on our schedule: the story of David.
The story of Samuel is also very interesting to children because they relate to the idea of a child growing physically and in relationship with God and because they think about how God communicates- and might wish that God would call their names in an audible voice.
Themes you might want to help the children think about:
1.God answers prayer
2. You can serve God even as a child.
3.God plans to take care of you. (If you want to use a memory verse, you could use Jeremiah 29:11)
4.God asks us to stand up for what is right, as Samuel did.
5.Obedience (Samuel obeyed God even though he was not happy that the people wanted a king.)
Ideas for the Make a Gift for God time:
Remember that one of the most important parts of Godly Play is that it gives the child options in how she responds to the story. We want to give children as many chances to have say so in what they do as possible.
- Of course one way to respond is to play with the story pieces, retelling it to oneself or to a friend.
2. Reproduce the story in some way- make pieces, such as the ark, a Baby Samuel, robes of different sizes, 
(showing how Samuel grew during his service in the temple), a sleeping mat, a crown
2. Children could make a life size drawing of themselves and caption it: I can serve God right now! This could be done by having another child trace around their body on butcher paper. They could draw clothes on their body or use fabric from the resource room. Maybe they could hold something in the drawing that gives a hint to how they can serve God right now.
3. A collage or drawing of how children can serve God right now. Children could make these individually and then put them together as a class project. (Ways include how they treat others, through prayer, in worship at church, helping others…)
4. Children could think about how they might like to serve God in the future. How does a doctor or teacher or engineer or scientist serve God? They could explore this in a drawing or make a model with play clay.
5. Children could act out the story of Samuel hearing God’s call and going to Eli–and the rest of the story as well.
6. Hannah makes Samuel a new robe each year and brings it to him in the temple. Children could make a “robe” from a paper grocery bag as we often do with Joseph, as shown here. (Scroll down and see the child modeling hers!)
I can’t wait to see how the children think about this story!
For more art response ideas, see my Pinterest page, here.
Love, Becky