Godly Play® News

Godly Play with Adults: A Graceful Nurture Review

By Alyssa Pasternak Post

Graceful Nurture: Using Godly Play with Adults, by Rebecca L. McClain, New York: Church Publishing, June 2017. 128 pages.
$18.95. Paperback. ISBN-13: 9780898699678

Godly Play practitioners: Have you ever wondered how the richness and beauty experienced with children in Godly Play might be shared with adults? In Graceful Nurture: Using Godly Play with Adults, Rebecca L. McClain offers an invaluable resource in how to implement Godly Play with communities of adults. McClain presumes what many of us have sensed in our lives and ministries: that “Godly Play is an integrated and holistic model of Christian living for every age and stage of life” (xi) and that the work of passing on the Christian language system and creating meaning for one’s life from sacred stories and rituals is the work of all ages. Continue reading →

The Parable of the Good Shepherd in a Children’s Hospital

Today was a fairly typical Monday in that I darted around every unit at the hospital where I proudly serve as a pediatric chaplain. Due to a visit with a patient’s mom Friday afternoon while the patient napped, I knew one goal for the day was to tell a Godly Play story to a young girl on our Acute Care floor.  It took a few visits before she and I got some time together. She was either asleep, in the playroom, or working with Occupational Therapy each time I stopped by in the morning. After lunch, the timing was right.

I grabbed a pillow case from the cart of clean linens on my way to her room, and then we chatted while we cleared off her hospital tray. The tray was between us, and I laid the pillow case on her tray before bringing the metallic gold box out of my “Chaplain Jessica” monogrammed L.L. Bean tote. I placed it on the pillow case to keep Infectious Disease and me happy, and we began “The Parable of the Good Shepherd.” Continue reading →