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SUNDAY CLUB
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St. Faith's Church has had a
Sunday Club since July 2001 and it is going from
strength to strength. Since January 2002,
the Club has met at Church House in the Pallant.
The club starts at
9.15am and joins the congregation in time for communion.
Parents are required to either accompany the children in
the Sunday Club, (for toddlers under 3 years old it is a
must), or attend church (in order to satisfy child
protection standards). The children are brought
back to church before the end of service. There is also a monthly
Family Service, normally on the first Sunday of the month.
An organising
committee meets bi-monthly to co-ordinate the activities
each week. In addition a number of family oriented
services take place throughout the year (Mothering
Sunday, Harvest, Christmas).
Parents and members of
the Church are running this group and are finding it
rewarding and a good learning experience for themselves
and the children. We welcome anyone who would like
to help on our rota so we can both run the Sunday Club
and join the Church Services by sharing the work.
If you want to know
more please talk to Penny Britt (023 9247 2054) or just come along to Church
House at 9.15am on a Sunday to see us at work and play. |
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Sunday Club Leaders
Click on the reduced version (thumbnail) of the graphic
to see the full version, then click on the "Back" button
on your browser to get back to this page.
June, Penny, Deborah, Susan (now in
USA), Claire |
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Sunday Club
Monthly Schedule
1st Sunday 9.30am Family
Service in St. Faith's Church
2nd Sunday 9.25am Godly Play in Church
House
3rd Sunday 9.30am
Leaders choice
4th Sunday 9.25am Godly Play in Church House
5th Sunday 9.30am
Music
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Godly Play: A Way of
Religious Education
The goal of Godly Play
is to teach children the art of using the language of
the Christian tradition to encounter God and find
direction for their lives. There are six objectives that
help to meet that goal.
To model how to
wonder in religious education, so children can
'enter'
religious language rather than merely repeating
it or talking about it.
To show children how
to create meaning with the language of the Christian
tradition and how this can involve them in the
experience of the Creator.
To show children how
to choose their own work, so they can confront their
own existential limits and depth issues rather than
work on other kinds of problems dictated by others,
including adults.
To organize the
educational time to follow the pattern of worship that
the Christian tradition has found to be the best way
to be with God in the community.
To show children how
to work together as a community by supporting and
respecting each other and one another's quest.
To organize the
educational space so that the whole system of
Christian language is present in the room, so children
can literally walk into that language domain when they
enter the room and can begin to make connections among
its various parts as they work with the lesson of the
day and their responses in art or other lessons.
The activity of the
teacher might be organized around two triangles formed
from these objectives. One triangle is the
'spoken lesson'
and the other is the 'unspoken
lesson'. The spoken lesson
involves the storyteller in wonder, the creative
process, and the willingness to allow his or her
existential limits into consciousness. Existential
limits are such parts of life as our need for meaning,
our personal death, the threat of freedom, and our
fundamental aloneness. These are the boundaries that
mark us as human beings. They define our existence.
Children can sense
when wonder is in the air. When the storyteller wonders
and is involved in discovering new and fundamental
things about life, the children begin to play. Play is
the way children learn how to do things, from the use of
language to opening and closing doors. They will also
play the ultimate game of knowing when they sense that
they are in a safe place and have the appropriate tools
and both the competence and permission to use them.
The unspoken lesson
involves the structuring of time, the community of
children, and the arrangement of the room. So much of
the teaching is indirect and takes place through the
organization of time, the support of the community of
children, and the way the environment is laid out.
The time for Godly
Play is organized to follow the pattern used in worship.
The classical shape of the Holy Eucharist is to enter,
get ready, listen to God's Word, respond, prepare for
the feast, share the feast, receive a blessing, and go
out. The educational setting is not the Holy Eucharist.
It usually takes place when the larger church community
is present. What happens in a Godly Play centre is an
indirect preparation for that form of communication, but
it is still real. The reality of it rests in the
unspoken but implied lesson waiting to be discovered by
the children.
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An Invitation to Godly
Play
In Godly Play, the
invitation is given not for play in general but for play
with the language of God and God's people: our sacred
stories, parables, liturgical actions and silences.
Through this powerful language, through our wondering,
through the community of players gathered together, we
hear the deepest invitation of all: an invitation to
come play with God.
There really has to be
an invitation to play, not a directive based on power or
an argument from authority. For you to enter into Godly
Play, you must find it enjoyable. You must want to play
it for its own sake. You must choose to play it because
you want to play that game. You must be willing to let
go of the myriad mundane details of daily life and to
enter deeply into the timelessness of play.
Play is pleasurable,
enjoyable.
Play has no
extrinsic goals. It is played for itself.
Play is spontaneous
and voluntary. It is freely chosen by the player.
Play involves deep
and active engagement on the part of the players.
Play has systematic
relations to what is not play such as creativity,
problem solving, language learning, the development of
social roles and a number of other cognitive and
social phenomena.
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Godly Play The Ten Best Ways For
Parents
One Godly Play lesson tells children
about the "Ten Best Ways" to live. This is the
story of the Ten Commandments that God gave to God's
People.
Here we offer "Ten Best Ways"
for parents - not commandments, but ways we invite you,
the parent, to share more fully in your child's Godly
Play experience.
Godly Play, Jerome Berryman's
interpretation of Montessori religious education, is an
imaginative approach to working with children. This
approach supports, challenges, nourishes and helps guide
their spiritual quest.
Godly Play assumes that children have
some experience of the mystery of the presence of God in
their lives, but that they lack the language, the
permission and the understanding to express and enjoy
that spiritual experience in our secular culture. In
Godly Play, we enter into our parables, sacred stories,
silence and liturgy in order to discover God, ourselves,
one another and the world around us.
Ten Best Ways for Parents
1. Godly Play sessions take place
on the second and fourth Sundays of every month
(excluding August - summer holidays). On the second
Sunday the Godly Play session will start at 9:25am
and finish at 10:45am (the children will meet their
parents in the church hall; they will not be brought
back to the church). On the fourth Sunday, the Godly
Play session will start at 9:25 - 10:45. The
children will be escorted back to church and meet up
with their parents after communion.
2. Please help your
children be on time. They won't want to miss a
minute!
3. The Godly Play circle is
built slowly and lovingly, to welcome each child,
one at a time. When children arrive, they wait
outside the door while the teacher helps them get
ready to join the circle.
4. Please say your goodbyes
at the door, and know that the teachers are ready to
make the next hour a safe and welcoming time for
every child.
5. When you pick up your
child, keep in mind that young children will not
always be able to tell you whet they learned,
because what they learned was how to learn about the
powerful language of the Christian people.
6. Also keep in mind that
children will not always be able to show you a
physical product for their 'work' that day, because
some of what they've learned cannot be put into
works even by adults. In Godly Play, we focus on our
relationship with God and the depths of
relationships in the community of children.
7. Please don't come into
the room during the class because we want the Godly
Play room to be a special place for the community of
children. Even the teachers keep their profiles low
during a Godly Play session!
8. We would be happy to
welcome you on a visit to the Godly Play room
outside of session time. Call Deborah Creasy on 9249
8828 or Susan Gibbons on 9248 3485 to arrange a
visit or to ask any questions you might have about
the programme.
9. We welcome volunteers to
support the teachers and the community of children
by preparing the weekly 'feast', by taking care of
the classrooms and materials and by making materials
for the teachers to use.
10. We hope you will attend a
parent orientation class. This is your chance to
experience the Godly Play environment and respond
together with other parents.
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