Playing Joseph

Our church as recently had an all age service. The whole Children's Church team was involved in leading the service. This blog will only speak about the Godly Play message that Peter was responsible for. The picture above shows Peter and the children and Jacob and his camera. Without that camera's picture on the big screen the rest of the church would not have been able to appreciate what was happening.

The Godly Play method of teaching more often requires three dimensional models as story props. Even after a story is shared, children are then encouraged to "play" their own 'remembering' of the story with the same props. Thus much effort was given to construct what was needed for the wonderful story of Joseph from Genesis 37 to 50.

This required many dolly pegs on stands to represent the many people in the story. Even in the commencing scene there was needed a Jacob and his twelve sons. Egyptians had to be added to this number, and later, wives and children. The following were also needed: two carts, ten donkeys with saddlebags, one horse with its chariot, and cardboard pyramids and tents... a mini stage production.

The dressing up of the dolls required a variety of coloured felts and a hot glue gun to hurry things along. Peter admits that it was fun seeing it all come together. The following are just some of the "practice scenes" taken before the day.

Here we have Jacob, with the white beard, beside Joseph wearing his special coat, and his brothers there jealously watching.

In this scene, all eleven brothers are bowing before the governor of Egypt. They don't realise that the person lording it over them is their brother who they sold into slavery.

This was one of the concluding scenes, when almost the whole cast was on the story sheet. The brothers returned with donkeys laden with food and gifts, along with wagons to help the family move to Egypt, so that they can all survive the famine under Joseph's care. It is one of the best constructed stories in all the Bible and we of Children's Church presented it for the first time in the Godly Play manner.