The collaborative Creative process in the development of the Creation story
When does the creative process begin and end? This is the story of the creative process of a team of three storytellers in Australia - along with a worldwide community of storytellers - which resulted in the OutoftheBox Creation story. Shannon, Gillian and Merawyn are all members of Soul Circle - a group of storytellers who meet fortnightly to share both Godly Play and OutoftheBox stories for encouragement and practice. They set to work in February 2022 but the playful work had begun many years earlier and was to be informed by their experiences of early childhood learning, children’s ministry in churches, Godly Play, worship and personal reading. In July 2022 the story was added to the Faith genre of OutoftheBox, but the script will always be open to being changed. Storytellers will themselves adapt the script to meet the needs of the people they are working with and through feedback that results from the reflective practice of our members we will make updates. The creative process keeps on circling.
Shannon Schuster telling the Creation story to her playgroup class in 1999
Shannon Schuster
In my work with children I have always put play and relationship first. I coordinated various playgroups between 1997-2010 in Australia and ensured that everything was grounded in play. I developed a telling of the Creation story with laminated pieces that the children could play with as loose parts. Adam and Eve were cut out from a tissue box! I thought about Creation the moment I discovered OutoftheBox as I could see Creation using the loose parts as I had done with playgroup.
I discovered Godly Play through a google search whilst researching, planning and praying for the Early Learning Centre at my children’s school. I believes that God answered my prayer of “How can we help four year olds know you are a God who wants us to be in relationship and not just know about God” After training in Deep Talk in July 2021, I went on to join the OutoftheBox movement.
The Godly Play story of Creation is told by laying out plaques of the seven days on a strip of black felt.
Gillian Powis
I consider that the ministry to which I am called is that of biblical storyteller. I felt this call around 20 years ago and I originally told the biblical text as traditioned to us. This is the style of telling which I still use most often. Around 10 years ago I discovered Godly Play and have used this method when the opportunity arises. Last year I was introduced to Out of the Box. I told the Out of the Box nativity story and was amazed at how so few words could encapsulate the whole story in a simple yet powerful way. It was this sense which I hoped to engender about a story when I agreed to join the team developing the Creation Story for Out of the Box. My aim is to share Bible stories in a way which helps listeners engage with the stories in a fresh way and allows them to be curious and wonder about them. All forms of telling do this but Godly Play and Out of the Box have the added element that the wondering is enriched by being done as a group.
Merawyn Percy
I am a trained lay preacher and Bible Study leader and run the Godly Play program in our little congregation. I am passionate to bring people into relationship with our Heavenly Father. I was captured by Godly Play when introduced to it in 2017. I also love OutoftheBox because of its adaptability to many scenarios - I am always on the lookout for new opportunities.
We met in a café and brainstormed on a napkin – this was when we realised it would not be an easy task.
Considerations and Questions
Can this story fit the OutoftheBox format?
Whilst it is part of our story it is not our story which demands a greater level of respect.
This is a story which is pivotal to many people’s faith.
This story will be unfamiliar to some but familiar from other formats for others.
The need to combine the poetry of the words with a visual poem bringing the poetry to life particularly for visual thinkers.
To spark a desire to explore the story more or to think more deeply about it
The need to not deliberately provoke controversy leaving this to emerge in conversation afterwards if it is relevant to the participants.
The Process
The whole process was surrounded with prayerfulness and playfulness (can the letting go in both prayer and play mean they can be the same thing?) and was carried out through the process of action and reflection (and repeat!) It was also a collaborative process with different voices included at different stages. Initially two then three, then a small group of trusted peers, then the worldwide OutoftheBox community. Finally, It was given to the OutoftheBox development team to make the ultimate decisions.
All of us had strong Christian beliefs but coming from different traditions meant that we sometimes had to make compromises. We didn’t always agree with the comments of the collaborators and carefully considered and experimented with each to decide whether to make changes based on them, realising that we were producing a basic form of the story for others to make their own.
This was not a linear process, it circled around and sometimes an idea which had been discarded earlier in the process re-emerged and remained until the end.
The Words
We began with the words and when some preliminary work had been done the process of words and images developed side by side. We shared experiences of telling and hearing the story. We studied other people’s words, particularly Jerome Berryman (Godly Play) and Eugene Peterson (The Message) as they are also trying to make the story more accessible to a wider audience. We even went back to the Hebrew on occasions. We soon realised that we could not just condense every word and concept. We determined the thread of the story to be followed. But we had to be true to the story, whilst using a minimum of words.
The Visuals
Deciding which image best convey the words was relatively easy for most of this story, but we struggled with the concept of the firmament. We needed to interpret it for ourselves and then convey it with an image. So, we thought ourselves back to the scientific level of the first hearers and used clouds as an example of water that came from above and the waves as water below. Overall, we tried to narrow down the images to the minimum that would convey the concept but still leave space for the imagination.
Conclusion
We first had to connect personally with the story before seeing ourselves as weavers of the story. Bringing the threads of our experience of the story, together with the truth of that story, and the responses of others to the story to produce a fabric which would be tight enough to convey that story but loose enough for those listening to engage with the story themselves.