Godly Play

This past Monday night for class we all dived into leading our respective groups of kids in Godly play. It felt like the night ran very smoothly. We all had our different stories that put kids at the center of the stories in the Bible that we presented. I feel like the main point of Godly play is to make the participants feel like they are living out the story themselves. Helping the kids try to experience the presence of God was a very enjoyable thing to do. Not only did we help them experience God, but it also felt like we all encountered God by leading them through it. Here are some questions to think about. First off, what could your group have done better in preparation for the night? Would you have changed anything from what you did? Finally, how often should Godly play be used in ministry?

At Time and Place for Fun

There is a time and a place for fun so why can't church be one of those places? As we learned in the introduction of our Les Christie book that people have been playing games since before Jesus' time. Plato even concluded that playing was a good way to teach the youth about societal rules. Christie brings up on page 11 "In some circles today, it's still thought that 'fun' and 'church' shouldn't be in the same sentence." Why would this be if play can be a good thing? The way the world has changed games have become something you do alone whereas games used to be a communal things. This makes me wonder why would some churches not like having games played in their churches during youth group, and if we got more people to play games together could this be the first steps to building community once more in our society? So my question is can we use games to help rebuild community, and have you seen this done anywhere before?