Godly Play - The Aftermath

Thanks to those who asked how our Godly Play time went last night in the last posts comments and via email. Thanks also to those who prayed for us last night - I appreciate everyones interest in what we're up to.

How did it go? - Personally I felt it went really well. The group probably thought I was a little nuts when I started explaining it, but they through themselves into it.

We used Luke 15 (the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son). I read each story and then we paused for a time of 'wondering' (as outlined in the last post). I had prepared some of my own 'wonderings' to get the ball rolling, but didn't need them at all as the group took the initiative. The only rule I set at the start was that if you wanted to say something you had to phrase it as an 'I wonder...statement or question. While we played with the passage we also played with play-doh to help us get into a more playful frame of mind. (see pictures)

There were a number of things I liked about the activity.

* Its an all ages way of engaging with Scripture. Our youngest member Yol (who is 10) got into the play-doh and wondering along with the rest of us and had some good things to contribute to the conversations.

* The wondering process is actually a very freeing experience. You can wonder anything at all without having to worry about someone correcting you, without having to come up with something deeply profound. Its actually quite fun to do as a group. I also loved that it approached Scripture in a much more imaginative and dreamlike way. Not that I don't like the academic/thinking approach (we're going to do that next week) but sometimes I think we think way way too much about it all. Jesus told stories that evoke the imagination, that leave the listener questioning, that are often open ended - perhaps we need to relearn how to listen to them. Godly play is a good starting point.

* Its a truly collaborative experience. There will be periods of silence during the activity and then one person will wonder something which will often stimulate a stream of others to wonder things related but adding to the first. It was amazing how quickly we got to some quite profound insights purely though asking questions.

* In each of the three parables I felt we really explored well. I tried to write down all the 'wonderings' of the group so I could reflect back to them what they had said - as I look back over the list now I'm quite staggered by the depth we went to and by the new thoughts that came out that I'd never considered before. We ended up looking at each story from a whole heap of perspectives.

In all it was well worth the effort. In fact I think its something that could be used in all kinds of settings. I'd like to experiment with it in a larger gathering both in small groups and big ones. I think it will be very useful for me in my private reading of the bible and in sermon preparation and I also think it would be good for a worship team trying to plan a service with a particular passage.

I could talk about this for ages, but I'll leave it at that - if you want to know more about how we did it feel free to converse with me via email or in comments.