She said: A prayer tool

I am an awful pray-er. Truly awful, at least in the way that I expect prayer should be. I think, though, that this is the way many of us feel in our society. We're programmed to do, do, do. Our minds jump from one thing to the next. Sitting still without some kind of screen in front of us is just not gonna happen. I suspect that I am not the only one who secretly shrieks in dismay at the idea of quiet meditation, even as I intellectually accept the value of it.  Good grief, sitting still in silence with only my own words to fill my head sounds like the first level of hell to me.

It's no wonder I'm a bad pray-er.

Except...I know that prayer doesn't have to be sitting still in a quiet space with either my own words or no words. I know that it can take different forms. I have dabbled with different forms. I have tried walking prayer. I have tried prayer books. I have tried prayer journalling. I have tried praying while I do yoga (the sound of my loud breathing and crackling joints distracts me, however).

I have not been consistent with any of it, though.
The only consistent prayer time I have is my prayer time with my children.

Every night, I say a prayer with each of my kids. They are often fumbling, grasping for words prayers. I'm sure I leave a lot out that could be said. I definitely repeat a lot of the same phrases over and over. But I pray with them. For a moment each night, I am focused on the Presence of God-With-Us. For a moment my heart cries out to the Mysterious One. For a moment, I put aside the to-do lists and the i-don't-know-what-to-says and I just pray, whether I feel like it or not.

It's because of my kids that I have any real prayer life at all.

Let me be clear...This is not good that I rely on my kids for a prayer life; it just is. And though I have a lot of work to do on the prayer front, today I am thankful for one daily spiritual practice that is consistent and that we do together.

Even that consistency, though, needs evaluating. It's easy for me to pray for my kids each night. It's easy to pray for our little family. They are the most constant source of joy and fear in my life, so of course I'll pray for them, and I want my kids to hear me pray for them. But I also want to pray for people beyond our little family, and that's harder for me to do with consistency and with a specificity that my young kids will understand.

Enter...the prayer book.

I got the idea from a friend's Pinterest pin. It's just a small photo journal with photos of people we want to pray for. At the link, you will see a beautiful prayer book made with a scrapbooking kit. Mine are much simpler, as scrapbooking is no love of mine, but we are still loving our not-as-beautiful books. I made one book for each kid out of cheap $1 photo books from Walmart. On each page of the book, I put a small picture (printed on cardstock) of either a person or organization we'd like to pray for, and there's space on each page to add a small sticky note with particular prayer requests if we want, though we haven't done that yet.

I find these little prayer books helpful because they remind me to pray beyond the usual words, and they give us all an image to see as we pray. In addition to our regular prayers, we pray for one picture a day, and the kids enjoy checking to see who/what it will be today. The organization pages (which includes our church and school) also give me a chance to explain to them about some organizations that are doing important work, and they help us remember people we don't necessarily see. I've left some pages at the back of the photo book blank so we can add new faces/logos as we wish, and of course all of the pages can easily be switched out or around.

This is just one small but helpful tool in our prayer lives right now.

It's not the end of my quest for a better prayer life, though. I'm pretty sure that'll be a lifelong quest. Sometimes the quest feels a bit like drudgery. Like exercise or washing dishes ... something that really should be done even though I just don't feel like it. Sometimes I feel like it; sometimes I don't. But relationships are never about doing only what we feel like doing, and so I will try to join with my family in the quest for a more authentic relationship with our Creator, even when I just want to sleep.

He Said: Divine Imagination and Godly Play

I think one of the biggest issues facing the Church is that it has lost the ability to inhabit God’s Divine Imagination. At the CYNKC conference I attended in May, several of the presenters lamented about how good our churches have gotten at building programs and education events at the expense of cultivating our imaginations. It seems that we have ended up in a place where the adults in our churches can no longer imagine what our world would look like if God’s Kingdom is truly at hand as Jesus told the disciples over and over in the Gospels.  Our lack of cultivating Divine Imagination seems to be one of the main reasons Millennials (ie. young people) are leaving the church despite the fact that churches have given them so much attention over the last few decades.  

Ivy Beckwith, a long time children’s minister and author of Formational Children’s Ministry, 

says in the Church we do things with lack of imagination so we have not captured the imaginations of young people in order to change the world.   She told a story from her own experience about meeting with church leaders at her church who were having a fear-filled conversation about money at the time of the 2008 financial crisis.  After listening to lots of in-the-box, woe-is-me talk, Ivy told them the story of George Mueller.  Mueller was a British reformer who ran an orphanage in Bristol, England in the 1800s. Mueller never asked for money to support the ministry, but, instead, always prayed for God to provide. Ivy chose to tell the leaders about the time when he and the children had sat down and given thanks for their breakfast even though there was no food left in the pantry.  Before they knew it, there was a knock at the door and the baker delivered them a load of fresh bread, telling Mueller that God had sent a dream to him in the night telling the baker to make an extra batch of bread for the orphanage.  Shortly after the bread delivery, there was another knock at the door and the milkman stood before them.  The milkman explained that he needed to give his milk away before it spoiled because his cart had broken down right outside of the orphanage as he headed to the market.  When Ivy was done telling this story to the church leaders, they just stared at her, not knowing how to respond.  These responsible adults who were dedicated to the ministry of the church couldn’t imagine that God would work in this way. They demonstrated a lack of imagination.


What a disturbing story!  How are we, the Church, going to fully participate in the Kingdom of God and envision a new way in our world, if we can't participate in God's Imagination?  More simply put, how can we change the world if we can't imagine what it would look like?  I think we are losing young people at an alarming rate because we can't engage their imaginations.  I don't want my kids to abandon their lives of faith because all of us older Christians can't give them any sense of hope for the world.  Those of us who are parents and influencers of children need to work harder at cultivating our own imaginations.  We need to work harder at getting inside God's Imagination.  Do we really believe what God has promised us?  Do we take Jesus at his word?  Jesus told his disciples over and over, "The Kingdom of God is at hand!"  Jesus said, "The Lord’s Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to announce freedom
for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’” (Luke 4:18-19).  What would our world look like if all of us could imagine the Kingdom of God being real?  This is the year the Lord has chosen because every year the Kingdom is at hand!


I know how hard it is for adults to change their patterns once they are developed.  A colleague of mine in seminary once said that we all have "brain grooves" that we develop as we grow and some people's are way deeper than others!  That's why I feel so compelled to help kids develop Divine Imagination as early as possible.  We need to give them space and opportunities to develop Divine Imagination-oriented brain grooves while they are growing and developing.  That's why Susan and I have talked so much about Godly Play (see her two intro to Godly Play posts here: Part 1 and Part 2).  


For me, the power of Godly Play lies in choice.  Unfortunately, our kids live in a world where most of their lives are dictated to them.  They are being taught how to think at school, how to feel and consume by various kinds of media, and how to overfill their schedules by their over committed parents.  We are wringing the imagination out of our kids!  Our responsibility as the Church and as parents of faith is to create places for them to explore.  When we give our kids room to explore, we're acknowledging that children and God have a relationship we can nurture and not control.  Catherine Maresca, the founder of The Center for Children and Theology, said something amazing at CYNKC: "To help children be with Jesus, we need to learn to get out of the way."   We need to give them independence and respect as they interact with God on their own.  This is how we create the fertile ground where their Divine Imaginations can develop.  


The great weakness of our Christian Education efforts over the last four to five decades is our over-emphasis on giving kids all the answers.  We tell them the Great Story of faith, but then instead of allowing them to find their place in that Story, we tell them exactly what it means and how they should live in response.  Godly Play has the opposite intent.   Godly Play respects the innate spirituality of children and encourages curiosity and imagination in experiencing the mystery and joy of God (from the Godly Play Foundation website).  Godly Play is open-ended.  Instead of telling the kids what to think or asking specific discussion questions where answers are expected to be given, a Godly Play lesson ends with questions that begin with "I wonder..." and the leader expects no concrete answers in response.  Godly Play offers choice.  Instead of doing pre-packaged crafts that illustrate the lesson, Godly Play offers children the opportunity to work with natural materials that they choose. 
Why is choice so important for children?  Choice of materials give children an opportunity to meet their need of the day (are they sad? Shy? Bouncy? Etc.) Choice also emphasizes that there are so many ways to meet God and should celebrate them all.  When kids are in crisis they can choose what is comforting to them at that moment. Also, Children are best served by their hands, so when you give them choices you give them things to touch.  


Susan and I will continue to get into the nuts and bolts of using Godly Play with our kids at home and at church.  But for now, I am convinced that Godly Play is the best way to help our kids meet and develop a relationship God on their own terms and foster the Divine Imagination that they will need their entire lives!

A foray into Godly Play, part two

Yesterday I explained a little bit about what Godly Play is, particularly as it's conceived for a faith education classroom in a church. We, however, use Godly Play at home rather than in a church setting (though there has been some discussion about introducing Godly Play elements at our church).

Our Godly-Play-at-home experience is a bit more relaxed (maybe sometimes too relaxed), less formal and structured than in a classroom setting. We typically tell the stories at our dining table, often in the evening after baths but before bedtime routines. This seems to be the best time for us to practice storytelling together, a time when we're all together and not pulled in different directions, but we're still working on establishing a consistent pattern, particularly as extracurricular activites often make our evenings late.

Though I would like to work up to adding a creative work time to our Godly Play experience, at this point we're mainly playing with the stories and haven't established a creative response time. It's been fun, though to see our kids respond to the stories. We often give them a chance to tell the stories after we have introduced them, which allows the kids a time to process and manipulate the story elements.

There are only a few resources we need for at-home Godly Play. The most important resource is a storybook, of course! Though the church curriculum involves quite a number of script books, we're using the book Young Children and Worship, by Sonja Stewart and Jerome Berryman, which contains all of the basic stories for the church year. We also have its later companion book Following Jesus, which contains a lot of the Gospel stories that aren't in the first book. These two books are great for at-home use because not only do they have the story scripts, they also have directions, diagrams, and patterns for making story elements at home.

The most daunting aspect of Godly Play to me, initially, was the need to gather and make story elements. Though you can buy beautiful wooden sets for the stories, they're expensive and not a good option for us. But the most important part of Godly Play is experiencing the story, not having beautifully hand-crafted elements, and there are a number of ways to collect at-home story sets with minimal prep work and items that you may already have on hand. I have done such things as:

• create posterboard figures using the patterns in Young Children and Worship
• build cityscapes and tables using cardboard or foam board
• create buildings using regular wood play blocks
• use peg people or Lego people or Fisher Price Little People for story characters
• pull out fabric scraps or felt pieces for story underlays

My storyscapes are not beautiful, but they serve the purpose of making a story come to life (though I'm trying not to use the Lego or Fisher Price people too much just because they can be a distraction!). We also don't have the space or the baskets to have separate boxes for every story, so instead we just use a couple photo boxes in which we collect all of our story pieces. I try to keep one story basket on the table that contains the story items for our most recent story.

There are a number of other blogs that are great to explore if you're thinking about starting Godly Play at home. Here are a couple of my favorites:

• Watkins Every Flavor Beans has a great series of posts about getting started with Godly Play at home, including ways to use what you already have.
• My favorite blog for doable Godly Play inspiration is Explore and Express, written by an American expat living in Germany, so her blog is in both German and English! She shares some of what they do at home, at church (a small church plant) and in the schools (because German schools teach religion).  I could spend hours searching there.
• YouTube also has videos of info about Godly Play and of trained leaders telling many of the stories, which is a great help to those of us who haven't seen it done in person.

And here are a few pictures of some stories we've played with at home:


One of my first attempts, for the parable of the Great Banquet.



Palm Sunday - that's a posterboard Jesus on donkey



Creation - making and laminating the individual cards was
more labor intensive than most of the stories we have done

For a few weeks in the spring I tried to correspond our at-home stories with the stories the kids were learning about in Sunday School, but in the end I decided to give that up because it was hard to plan for it, and I like sticking to the timeline of Young Children and Worship. Now we have started back at the beginning - Creation - and are going to work our way through the Young Children and Worship book.

This week while I was out running errands one evening, I asked Brian to have the kids tell him the Creation story (because he hadn't been home when we introduced this story). He told me later that our 4-year-old took the first story card (which is supposed to depict "God made light") and said, "God made us a big present." Well, yes, exactly! God made us a big present. And how wonderful that we can explore it together!

A foray into Godly Play, part one

I mentioned last week that we've been experimenting with an open-ended story-based curriculum called Godly Play at our home. I found out about Godly Play in a break-out session at a conference a number of years ago, back when I was a Children's Minister. Something about it captured my imagination. It's unlike any other curriculum I had experienced, and I loved it.

Godly Play was developed by Jerome Berryman, who uses a Montessori approach to spiritual development. Here's how the Godly Play Foundation describes this methodology:

Godly Play teaches children the art of using Christian language - parable, sacred story, silence and liturgical action - helping them become more fully aware of the mystery of God’s presence in their lives.

When Christian language is learned by the Godly Play approach, it is learned as a means to know God and to make meaning of our lives. This approach 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. It’s 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.

It "encourages curiosity and imagination in experiencing the mystery and joy of God."
Yes! That's what I want for my children!

But what does that mean in practical terms? How does that work? (I was a science major and a math teacher...can you tell?)

A full-fledged Godly Play session in a church setting is arranged in a worship-like manner that includes welcome, prayer, story, creative work/expression, music - like a worship service with a creative bent. Each story, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, is told by a trained leader, on the floor, with beautiful wooden figures and other natural elements like wool felt or cotton fabric or sand. This is no workbook page activity, but a visual and physical experience of the story. Each story is followed by "wondering" statements that children may respond to (i.e. "I wonder how Moses felt about this..."). The wondering is intended to help the children further imagine themselves into the story, helping them to see or feel it in new ways, but not giving them right or wrong answers.

Each story has its own basket or box for the story elements. A Godly Play room is arranged with shelves full of these story baskets and other faith symbols so that during the creative work time, children may work with both the current story or other stories they've already experienced. Connections between stories are encouraged, drawing a Big Story together.

After the story is told, children have a creative work time in which to respond to the story. This could include playing with the story figures or making art that responds to the story experience. For some groups, this can be very open-ended, while for others (particularly younger ages) there may be a more directed expression type ... but not a specific end product. The goal is not to create a prescribed craft but to involve a child's imagination and experience in creative expression of the spiritual story. There's no right or wrong expression, though there is still an emphasis on respectful behavior!

Though the church where my kids attend Art Camp every summer uses Godly Play (and I'm sure there are other churches around that do as well), I've never actually seen it done in a church. It's more common in the Episcopalian and other mainline traditions, I think, but it's rare in mine (Baptist, of the moderate ilk), so most of my limited knowledge comes from books and blogs. The Wonder Circle is a great blog showing in detail how it is being done in a church during the Sunday School hour. If you use Godly Play at your church, I'd love to hear about your experience of it!

Godly Play is such a different way of doing faith education that to switch to Godly Play from a more traditional Sunday School curriculum would require a concerted effort and buy-in by a lot of people in a church that's never done it that way before. The story-telling is different. The art is different. The supplies are different. The room set-up is different. The theory of education is different. It's daunting. Some churches, then, use it during a time other than Sunday morning. Some churches even use it with adults (and I'll say from my own limited experience that I could see how it would be wonderful in an adult spiritual formation setting as well).

We, however, use it at home. Or, I should say, we're trying. We're new at this and are still experimenting with how to best incorporate Godly Play into our home. We've still got a lot to learn, but tomorrow we'll share some of what we've been trying and the resources we use ... in Part two ...

She said: The power of story...

If you grew up in the evangelical church, you may have heard the joke that preachers learned to preach "3 points and a poem," and though that's an exaggeration, it's not too far from the truth. When I think of sermons from my childhood, I think of the preacher taking a few Bible verses, gleaning a few theological truths or life applications from those verses (or imposing such truths on the verses), and gussying it up with a few cute stories (and maybe a poem). And for added pizzazz, the three points will all begin with the same letter!

But what I remember from my childhood church-going is not the theological truth points imparted to me, but the stories I heard. Not sermon illustration stories, but the stories I heard over and over and over again. The stories of Old Testament heroes, the stories of Jesus' parables, the stories of God's amazing miracles, the stories of people living out their faith (or not). And though each of these stories could teach me some certain theological truth or life application, and probably my teachers told me such things, I don't remember those. What I remember is the wonder I felt at three friends dancing in a fire...how much fun would that be! What I remember is the long, winding journey of Joseph the Dreamer's life. What I remember is the young girl who said yes to an angel. What I remember is fish and bread, a son who ran away, a woman at a well, a man on a cross.

What I remember can't be summed up in bullet points. It can hardly even be spoken of with words. What I remember is a lifetime of learning a Big, Beautiful Story that is now such a part of me, I wouldn't know how to get it out even if I wanted to. It's a Story that shapes me. It's not a Story I completely understand, but it's a story that whispers to me of purpose and hope, sadness and joy, struggle and peace, life and love. It's a Story that speaks to me in all of life's moments when I'm quiet enough to listen.

This Story is the One I want to pass on to my children, only the Story for them will whisper in different ways and lead them different places. That's the beauty of Story...there is no one right answer or direction. No set of definitive bullet points. It is not hard and fast, unchangeable. Story is powerful because it breathes and has life. It weaves in and out in a back and forth relationship with the hearer. It speaks in different ways to different people. While the story of Joseph the Dreamer might speak to me about strength of character and integrity, it might speak to you of the consistency of God's presence in the midst of treachery. The story is not the same for both of us, but it still speaks to both of us, as we engage with it and live into in where we are.

Much of our Christian education, however, often boils down to a set of behavioral prescriptors or theological beliefs we wish for our children to follow/believe.

We tell our children what the point of the story is.

Jesus fed the 5000...that means Jesus provides for our needs, children.
Jesus healed the 10 lepers...that means we need to thank God for our healing, children.
Jesus washed the disciples' feet...that means we need to serve others, children.
Jesus died on the cross...that means our sins are covered over, children.

None of these lessons is bad, but when we tell our children what the story means, they have no need to enter into the story themselves. When we tell them what it means, they hear only what we tell them. But these stories can mean so many things.

I believe that the stories are better teachers than me.
I believe The Story is The Teacher, and my job is as facilitator.

My job is to help my children see themselves in The Story. My job is to help them ask questions of The Story. My job is to help them embrace the mystery of The Story. My job is to to help them interact with The Story so that they will learn to do it without my prompting. And my job is to continue to engage with The Story myself, learning with them rather than for them.

This is harder than it sounds, though. Sometimes I really, really want to give them the right answer, my right answer!

At home, we are currently experimenting with an open-ended, story-based faith curriculum called Godly Play. It's teaching me about how much I want to impose my own understanding onto theirs, but it's also helping me to live into The Story with my children and let go of my desire to control their experience.

We will share more about our new experience with Godly Play in the upcoming days, but for now...

What are your favorite stories? What stories do you share over and over and over with your children? And what stories do you seek over and over and over yourself?

She said...

A couple years ago I read this Dave Csino blog post, "Educating out of Spirituality," in which Csino states, "spirituality isn’t something that we achieve - it’s a gift from God that is woven into the very fabric of our innermost being....Spirituality is something that can change, grow, and form. But it can also wither and fade away.....We can be educated out of our spiritual capacities."

"We can be educated out of our spiritual capacities."

That line haunts me. And inspires me. It overwhelms me. And it challenges me. In some spiritual core of my being, this line points me away from the comfortable pattern of making-it-through into a new practice of cultivating life.

I have two children, ages 4 and 7. They are fiery, burning lights in my life. Precious gifts. And with great gift comes great responsibility (modified Uncle Ben/Spiderman). It is my heart's desire that they know God, but not in the way that I know God. I want them to know God in the way that God speaks to them. In the way God reveals life and love and purpose to them. I want them to hear God's voice, whether it's a still, small whisper or a loud, booming roar. And I don't want to get in their way.

I don't want to hinder them.

By either action or inaction.

My tendency is to be stymied by this fear of getting in wrong, and so it's easy to fall back into the way-it's-always-been. And the-way-it's-always-been isn't all bad. In some ways, it's very, very good. There is tradition (family, church, global) that is valuable. But it is also moldable, and that is my wish - that we intentionally mold our family life into a constantly bending, constantly squishing life of faith.

This life of faith is a sometimes scary thing. We don't know how it will look or where it will take us. But it is our belief that the Kingdom of God has come and is coming, both in our family and in the world, so there's no greater gift and purpose than to see and hear and feel and do in the Way-of-New-Life. And we have the added gift of walking in this Way together.

This blog, then, is a small attempt at sharing this journey of faith. Sharing the Ways-we-try at home and in the community. Sharing the resources we find that inspire us. Sharing what speaks to our family, and what doesn't. But we hope most of all that this blog will be a conversation, that you will share your journey as well.

Jesus said, "Permit the children to come to Me. Do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." I can easily picture Jesus stretching out his arms to my children, welcoming them in to his embrace. How could he not, with their crooked grins and their exuberant hearts? But I, too, am one of these children. I am one of the "them." And so are you. Together, hand-in-hand, let's run to Jesus.

He said...

At the beginning of May, I attended the Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity conference in Washington, DC.  It was overwhelming in so many ways.  We were presented with so much information - more than forty presentations - that made my brain feel crammed to overflowing with all of it.  But, everything was so full of meaning, hope, and purpose.  So, I want to use this blog to give myself space to process all that I have learned and need to reflect on.  I don't want anything that I experienced over those four days to fade into obscurity, so I want to be intentional about continuing to chew on it, wrestle with it, and implement what I can.  

CYNKC also renewed my passion for formational practices.  I want to empower families (especially my own) to practice faith with their children.  I'm tired of participating in the notion that we send our children to church so that the ministers,teachers, and volunteers can dispense the religious knowledge, goods, and services that our kids need to grow up to be good Christians.  Church is part of the formational process, but FAMILY is the real catalyst for children's faith development.  

In addition to my reflections on children's ministry and formational practices, I plan to share with whoever will read my blog (I'm hoping a lot of the parents from my church will read!) specific practices that I think we can use in our homes to raise our children in faith.  I plan to explore things like Godly Play, developing our Divine Imaginations, missions as a way of life, connecting children with worship, faith development for children with special needs, etc...


I hope that this will be a worthwhile practice for myself as I reflect on being a better faith-developing parent and children's minister and for others who are looking for ideas to keep their children engaged with God and their faith.  The best part is that this blog is not just for sharing my own voice on the subject.  I am sharing this blog with my wife, Susan, who is way better at being intentional and doing reflection than I am and she is more eloquent too!  Here's hoping we keep each other and all of you motivated!


Just for housekeeping's sake, we are going to do this in a "He said..." or "She said..." format, so you know who's talking.  Thanks!