Easter 7

One of the main features of our church life is the Godly Play philosophy in sharing faith with others. Many of you ask what is Godly play? Last week I shared that Godly play is a discovery method using story to communicate. Godly Play is not knowing about God; it is about knowing God: the difference is extreme. If our aim is to help people know about God, we might view them as empty vessels that we fill with the correct information about God. If our invitation is for people to know God for themselves, we have already decided that they are mystics and wisdom bearers.

The heart of Godly play is creating or recreating sacred space. Each aspect of our liturgical set up is deliberately staged with meaning. The sacred space in which story is experienced allows the learning of religious language and allows space for using religious language and ritual to make meaning. Thus Godly play is less a curriculum and more a spiritual practice; a spiritual practice where God invites us and pursues us in the midst of scripture, authentic ritual and life experience.

 John 17: 20-26

20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”