Members’ Chat 12 Feb 2022
These notes were taken at a Zoom call of Core Members on 12 Feb 2022. A big thank you to everyone who contributed and supported the community by sharing their experiences, making suggestions and asking questions.
Using children’s literature to look at faith stories in a new way
Telling a children’s story alongside a religious story can help children and adults to understand their religion from a new perspective. For example ‘Where the Wild things are’ by Maurice Sendak shed light on the parable of the lost son and forgiving father in a Lent group (This idea had been suggested in a course written by Margaret Pritchard Houston). Judy Yeomans shared her experience of using the OutoftheBox Wisdom story “A House for Guests’ in a post on 31 January, 2022.
“ A small group of adults found the story 'A House for Guests' a challenging and inspiring stimulus for considering some questions about what really matters in life. We even wondered about the house as bodies that are ensouled for a time. As Christians we enjoyed embracing a story from another tradition that had echoes in our own, and we wondered about the response of Zacchaeus to a similar 'invitation', and the parable of the Good Samaritan.”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/521403875749767/permalink/639072633982890/
A list of the Wisdom stories and their themes
A Member offering OutoftheBox to uniformed groups (Rainbows and Brownies) and with café style church asked for a list of the Wisdom stories and their themes to give to the leaders of these groups.
ACTION by OOTB Team A document listing all current stories and stories in development – with their themes will be put on the Members’ Page (by 21 February). This document will be updated every few weeks as more stories are added. When we have developed all 49 Wisdom stories this document can be made public on the website.
Community Play
A Member is hoping to offer OutoftheBox to work alongside a community of people living in caravans. We discussed how Community Play is a powerful way of helping a community to dialogue well with each other and to help people work together with the metaphors of the story to bring transformation.
We offer Playing in landscapes membership (with online or face to face training)
The next face-to-face training is in Sheffield in May.
Other Christian resources that have similar values and principles to OutoftheBox
We discussed other resources like Godly Play (which has inspired OutoftheBox) and Diddy Disciples (also inspired by Godly Play) which are approaches to Christian nurture. Laura Alary is an author of children’s books, liturgical books on Christmas, Easter and Pentecost and a book of Bible stories called Read, Wonder, Listen which has inclusive language – both in the verbal language and through the language of the paintings.
Kathryn is helping a church to reimagine their children’s work and alongside OutoftheBox Membership they have purchased 2 copies of Read Wonder Listen so that the pictures can be mounted and used in a similar way to how Faces of Easter are told in Godly Play. The words can also be mounted (all of them or a selection from the page) and read out loud by an adult or child.
Creation OutoftheBox and Creating new stories
A Member shared their experience of using the OutoftheBox resources for a confirmation preparation for adults. They told the Creation story using Jerome Berrryman’s beautiful verbal language from Complete Guide to Godly Play Volume 2. This storyteller is also trained in a Godly Play but doesn’t have the Godly Play materials so they used the OutoftheBox resources. We have asked this storyteller to work with us on developing Creation OutoftheBox (with a different language from that of Godly Play) so that we can add this to both the Religion and Worldviews and Shalom OutoftheBox. One of the Wisdom OutoftheBox stories that uses Creation stories from different worldviews is based on a children’s book by Laura Alary called MIra and the Big Story
There are over 40 people on our Development Team. If you wish to join the team that is developing stories in the genre of Wisdom, History, Science, Religions (non confessional) and Faith (at the moment this is just for confessional Christian nurture but we hope people from other Faith backgrounds will also want to develop Faith stories) please contact Kathryn@outoftheboxtraining.org
Script or no script whilst sharing a story?
We had another discussion – following on from our last Members’ Chat – on having a script by our side or on our lap (if sitting at a table). The recommendation from trainers is not to use a script because every glance of your eyes away from the story materials will be noticed by the participants which momentarily takes them away from the story. If we learn the movements and gestures – which speak louder than words - then it won’t matter too much if we get the words ‘wrong.’
We shared our own experiences of feeling very nervous telling a story (like OutoftheBox or Godly Play) without a script and therefore having the script to hand – but of then feeling safe to share a story without feeling the need to get everything ‘right’ – which changes everything. The scripts for OutoftheBox are intentionally short which makes them easier to learn from the heart. OutoftheBox is about creating an atmosphere for others and for ourselves in which we can feel relaxed and enjoy the process. But perhaps to try anything new we have to step outside our comfort zone and trust the process.