Booking for the 2019 Childhood Spirituality Conference
on  Saturday 11 May 2019 opens soon.

Enrichment Days

Friday 10 May 10.30 am – 5.30 pm
These events will take place at a variety of venues around Sheffield on the day before the conference  and are an opportunity for Godly Play practitioners to enhance their skills, extend their thinking or expand their repertoire.

 

 

Enrichment A: Godly Play Out of the Box

Led by Kathryn Lord

Godly Play is spiritually enriching for people aged 3 to 103 but what might it look like on a beach with families, at a drop in centre for homeless people, in a care home for older people, at a lunchtime club in a school, or as a fresh expression of church? What do these people really need?

Basing everything on the qualities of spiritual care in Godly Play we will think through in a practical way how we might adapt Godly Play for the specific contexts in which we are working or hope to work.

This day will involve interactive presentations and group work with opportunities to apply the principles to your real-life contexts.

Kathryn Lord is a Godly Play trainer and seeks to support spiritually-enriching practices using the method and principles of Godly Play with children and adults of all ages and needs. She is involved in the development of Godly Play amongst older people in care settings www.storiesforthesoul.org

 

Enrichment B: Revisions to Volumes, 2, 3 and 4

Led by Judy Yeomans

Heard about the new books, wondering what they contain? Come and experience a new core story, explore some of the changes to more familiar ones and spend time considering the implications of these carefully crafted revisions for your practice and classroom. This day might help us to develop as storytellers as we reflect on possible intentions behind these changes.

Judy Yeomans is a Godly Play trainer and works in the South East. She has a fledgling classroom at her church that is full on Sundays with seriously playful activity. She takes Godly Play into schools and a day care setting on a regular basis and enjoys supporting the work of other Godly Players, particularly through her local network in Sussex.

  

Enrichment C: Wrestling With the Angel of Childhood: Taking Childhood Spirituality Seriously

Led by Peter Privett and Sue North-Coombes

This will be a time to explore some of the themes from John Pridmore’s book Playing with Icons. It would be helpful to have read the book, but it is not necessary for attendance.

Moments of wonder and awe; longing for other worlds; the dark night of the soul; connection to the natural world; moments of intensity … and much more…

A time to relate these to our own experience; a time to respond through silence, journaling, painting/drawing, etc. A time reflect on how these might help our Godly Play practice.

Peter and Sue are both Godly Play trainers. Peter chairs the International Godly Play Council and Sue is a former teacher and lecturer and has a Godly Play training room just outside London.

 

 Enrichment D: Making materials: Abraham and Sarah’s stories

Led by Alison Summerskill

Have you been meaning to get around to creating resources for Enrichment stories, but need the impetus to do it? Come and spend a day in community to first hear, and then make, the stories of Abraham and Sarah from The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 6.

Materials will be provided. You will leave with a complete set of resources for each story with felt underlay and basket.

Alison Summerskill is a Godly Play trainer based in Gloucestershire. She enjoys making materials and has an (almost) complete set of Volume 6 stories.

 

 

 

What is Godly Play?

A creative and imaginative approach to Christian nurture, Godly Play

  • is based on long established, tried and tested approaches,
  • uses symbols and objects as well as words
  • values process, openness and discovery
  • and encourages people to make meaning for themselves

It invites listeners into stories and encourages them to connect the stories with personal experience.

Godly Play

  • is  a non-coercive way to encourage children to move into larger dimensions of belief and faith
  • uses wondering questions and open-ended response time
  • aims to develop a deeper understanding of stories, symbols and rites
  • a way of preparing children to join in the worship and life of their faith community.

Developed originally as a resource for children, Godly Play is now being used with a wide range of age groups in a diversity of settings.

It can be used in a variety of settings – churches, schools, care settings and hospitals, and among people with and without formal religious faith.

Godly Play is one of several variations of the Montessori tradition of religious education and was developed in the United States by Dr Jerome Berryman.

Join us on Facebook Facebook logo

The Godly Play UK Facebook page will help you to see some of what Godly Play has to offer. With well over a thousand members it offers many different experiences, opinions and testimonies. There is a chance to get advice from our 14 trainers as well as asking other users how they have done things. And you can also share your own successes, insights and findings.

Find us, Godly Play UK, and ask to join us!