Godly Play
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PUMC Sunday School

Sunday School begins with a Children's Moment in church during the 9 a.m. Sunday service, a special time for the children and pastors. Here Pastor Nancy is talking about rainbows, comparing a plain blue one (ugh) with real ones having lots of colors (pretty). Then Pastor George leads everyone (adults included) in a song about rainbows. A rainbow with many colors is like a church with many different types of people; in other words, it's BEAUTIFUL.

What is Godly Play?

Godly Play is a method of Christian Formation and spiritual direction for children ages 3-12. The goal of Godly Play is to teach children the art of using religious language—parable, sacred story, silence, and liturgical action— to help them become more fully aware of the closeness of God’s presence in their lives.

Godly Play was developed and tested with children for more than 20 years by Episcopal priest, author, and teacher Jerome Berryman. The Godly Play method is currently being used in churches of many denominations throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and spreading into Africa, South America, and Mexico.

What does Godly Play look like?

After beginning worship with their families in the main sanctuary and the Children’s Moment (about 15 minutes into the service), the children are led to the Godly Play rooms. We treat the Godly Play worship-formation center as “sacred space”. A greeter waits at the door to help each child become ready to enter the room quietly. Everyone re-gathers in a circle and a storyteller shares a Bible story using all the child’s senses. The stories include wooden or laminated figures that allow the child to see as well as hear the story. Later, he or she can touch the story, while retelling it to him/herself. After a Bible story is told to the children, the storyteller and children use “wondering questions” to reflect on the story together. Most days the child will share a feast (a snack.) On a regular basis each child is invited to choose whether to respond to the story with art materials or play. Every child has a personal folder that serves as a spiritual journey. The folders stay in the room to hold students’ paintings, sketches, poetry, and other writings because often students will choose to work on a project many weeks before they feel it is finished. At the end of the year, each student will take their folder home.

The Godly Play centers hold a variety of art supplies for the children to use as they respond to the stories they hear. Because each child may be wrestling with different life issues, each student will bring a different perspective and a different response to the Bible stories told in class. Some students may want to work with one Bible story for a number of weeks. For this reason, we do not assign crafts or give out take-home sheets as parts of the Godly Play program.

Godly Play is an effort to focus clearly and deeply on the child’s spirituality.

Prescott UMC currently has two 9:00 a.m. Sunday Godly Play sessions -- one for young children age 3 thru 2nd grade and the other for older elementary children 3rd thru 6th grade. We hope to expand this offering to other services in the future. Middle school and high school youth have their own Sunday School curriculums.