Tag Archives: curriculum

All We Can Do is Begin

Based on an interview with the Rev. Thomas Blackmon by Sally Thomas

The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana clergy directory lists the Rev. Thomas Blackmon as retired – but that has not stopped Tom and his wife, Molly Steele, from launching a new vision for Godly Play ministry in Honduras.

Tom Blackmon teaches children in Honduras

I wonder . . .

Tom has been a friend of Jerome Berryman and Godly Play for over thirty years; this June in Denver, he will step down from the Godly Play Foundation Board after 18 years of service. I first met Tom in Sewanee in 1997. Many of us remember with deep appreciation Tom’s phone calls as we were traveling to Core trainings beginning in 1999. They would always start, “I have been praying for you and your circle. I want you to know that.”  Tom is a visionary and dedicated partner in building Godly Play programs. Continue reading

The Mystery of Christmas, the Wonderful Impossible

A Reflection on the Story & an Interview with Jerome Berryman
by Jeannie Babb

The hymn O Come All Ye Faithful is as majestic as it is ubiquitous. For me, it evokes an early childhood memory so visceral that singing the refrain still gives me a shiver.

Wise men or magi adore baby Jesus

“They were late. Every year, they are late! They are adoring the baby.”

I’ve sung this Christmas carol in the plain white-walled space of the Southern Baptist Church in which I was raised, and beneath vaulted ceilings, and in a house church with tambourines. Yet, when I hear those words “O come let us adore him,” I am transported back to the seventies. Continue reading

The Full Curriculum: Taking Time to Wonder

The Well at Kom Ombo

“There was no hurry.”

The children’s eyes are fixed on the bucket, left in the desert like the scattered bits of golden thread.

“I wonder how we wonder?” the storyteller says.

One little boy answers, “It takes a very long time.” Continue reading

Godly Play as Spiritual Intervention presented at International Conference for Children’s Spirituality

Doug Watts and Ryan Campbell recently presented a workshop at the 15th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN’S SPIRITUALITY, convened by the International Association for Children’s Spirituality, at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln, UK.

15th International Conference on  Children's Spirituality Workshop Leaders

15th International Conference on Children’s Spirituality Workshop Leaders

The theme of this year’s conference, SPIRITUALITY AND THE WHOLE CHILD: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES, matches closely the focus of the work Watts and Campbell do at Children’s Medical Center – Dallas.  Continue reading

Cheryl Minor Named Director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood

The Rev. Cheryl V. Minor, Ph.D.

The Rev. Cheryl V. Minor, Ph.D.

“I have to learn how to do this.” That’s what the Rev. Cheryl V. Minor, Ph.D., freshly ordained, said after she watched a woman sit on the floor to tell a story. The storyteller, Laurel Mosteller, encouraged Minor to fly with her to Houston, where Dr. Jerome Berryman was serving as Canon Educator at Christ Church Cathedral. She attended a three day training that included every Liturgical Action story, plus modules on response time led by Thea Berryman.

Neither Minor’s ministry nor her personal spirituality have been the same since. Godly Play changed her work in the parish, her work as a parent, and who she is as a person. Continue reading