Spirit Play Cart

I've been thinking lately about capacity as it pertains to RE programs, in the sense of having the resources and ability to function to our fullest. Different factors affect that, right? How many and how skilled the volunteers, the size and other particulars of the space, the quality of the partnership with the minister (if there is a minister) and other church leaders, the attitude and presence of the parents, funding, training, the degree of buy-in and support of the congregation at large, the nature of the community where we're situated, etc.

And I think capacity is often in flux. A longtime board member and once-RE chair described it as the "biorhythm of RE" when I approached her for insight into plummeting numbers.

So, rather than feel bad about our low capacity at present, I'm trying to find ways to work with it. Adaptive change.

In that spirit, I created this set-up on a rolling cart today around the Seven Promises lesson to present on Sunday. It's an attempt to scale down our Sunday offering to something that could be managed by one person (me, with another there for safety policy compliance) in any location that was fit to hold children. It's not technically Spirit Play. With no prepared classroom, and no second trained adult, there is not the opportunity for ritualized arrivals and leave-takings; nor the guarantee of tidy, well-thought-out spaces to occupy; and no way to offer past story and lesson baskets to engage with after their told. But, it is one of many examples where my Spirit Play training and short experience has allowed me to put together something that I hope will be meaningful and enjoyable for the children, and that might be useful as an example of ways to do RE without fixed spaces or even a regular crowd of children to count on coming.

"Who Speaks for Wolf?" puppet

The Spirit Play class heard and saw the "Who Speaks for Wolf?" story a couple of Sundays ago. It was a hit. At this congregation, environmental issues are felt very powerfully, and I have found that what the "Big Church" makes its priority and passion, so too will be felt by the young folks.

I got the template for this wolf at a French primary school's website that Google translates--preciously--to "a small corner of shares." With the particular puppet, we tried three different art media: markers (on the face), colored pencils (tail), and watercolors. We had two choices of brads--large gold ones, seen here, and small silver ones.

One special work choice that we had for this story was the making of wolf puppets. Two of the six children chose to work on these together. One nice thing about these particular puppets was that the pieces were moveable, so we could open up a discussion about how wolves--and dogs and coyotes and foxes--use their tails to communicate with each other; we could move the tail up and down to illustrate the idea. The story focused on the idea that caring humans need to take it upon themselves to speak for wildlife in matters of human affairs that will have an impact on the earth. But through this work choice we also could broaden the conversation to bring in the idea that animals often have sophisticated and nuanced ways of talking to each other.

Our second special work choice that, again, two of the six children chose, was working on a coloring page that had a stained-glass style picture of a wolf. It occurred to me that with themed coloring pages, and with our RE hour being just before service, it might be nice to have a few clipboards set up with these to color during service itself. 

Inventory night!

Heading into the second half of the year, I sat down with all our story baskets and did a good, thorough inventory. Lots of stories needed to be reunited with their texts. Some story pieces had broken pieces. Some needed refills of used materials. But all in all, we were in pretty good shape.

But you know, I'd almost have rather they be worn right out! I guess it's possible that the stories were played with everso gently by nimble-fingered children in dainty and unobtrusive ways. But my guess is they weren't taken off the shelves much. Next year, I want some serious smudges, nicks, bumps, and tears!