Godly Play Beloved Me, Beloved We Equity Audit

In June 2021, the Godly Play Foundation in partnership with the Diocese of Massachusetts was awarded a Becoming Beloved Communities Grant from the Episcopal Church for an Equity Audit Project. The funding from this grant will supported an equity audit of several of our Core Godly Play stories and the materials that go with them. The equity audit has three outcomes:

1) Produce updates to our Godly Play stories and materials to respect and honor the diversity of God’s creation and inspire children in their identity formation as part of a diverse, inclusive beloved community.

2) Provide toolkits and workshops for practitioners to holistically engage their communities with the curriculum and material changes. 

3) To hone a process (engaged in and refined by the Equity Audit Team) for using the Godly Play framework of story, wonder, and play to create brave spaces for adults to courageously engage with issues regarding white supremacy, racial identity, gender identity, inclusivity, and unity.

We are thrilled to share that we have completed 6 lessons, with several more close to being ready. In addition to the Core stories presented at a Godly Play Training, the team is focusing on Volume 8 which is currently under revision.

These toolkits are designed for practitioners to offer:

  1. Adjustments to language in stories

  2. Ideas for increasing the diversity of representation in your classroom

  3. Ideas for adjustments to make to materials

The process of auditing our materials is intensive and includes storytelling, wondering, and response time for each story. Because this is significant and intentional work, we know it will take some time before we can do this for all 90 stories. While we continue to add specific language and material changes for each story, we invite you to make general adjustments to the stories. The Equity Audit team is currently focused on the entirety of Volume 8, including the lessons below and many more. Through this process it was revealed there were more stories that needed to be added in order to learn more about the one who is Easter.

current stories under review

  • Knowing Jesus in a New Way

  • The Greatest Parable

  • Jesus and Jerusalem

  • the church

Meet our Equity Audit Team

  • Alison "Bird" Tracy

    Allison “Bird" Treacy (she/her) is the Sunday School Director at Christ Episcopal Church in Needham, MA, and the writer behind the all-ages formation newsletter Wiggles & Wonder and an advocate for both inclusive classroom practices and disabled leadership in church spaces. Though she has been leading children’s programming in church contexts for more than half her life, Bird has been teaching Godly Play in congregations along the East Coast for seven years and is a Godly Play Trainer. A recent transplant from Western Massachusetts, she lives with her wife and cats in Brighton, Mass.

  • Ebony Grisom

    Rev. Ebony Grisom (she/her) is ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA. Ebony received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in African-American/African Studies; a Master of Arts from Providence College in American History; and a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Christian Education and a certificate in Gender, Theology and Ministry from Duke Divinity School. She serves as a Godly Play Trainer supporting circles in various communities.

  • Henry Zonio

    Dr. Henry Zonio (he/him) joined the faculty at Asbury as the Director of the Center for Academic Excellence in 2021. Henry’s research interests and expertise are in the areas of social inequalities, education, curriculum development, religion, and childhood/adolescence. His dissertation research explore race/ethnicity and gender in Sunday school programs. Prior to entering academia, Henry worked for 12 years as a pastor in churches in the U.S. and Canada overseeing Family and Children’s Ministries.

  • Matthew Do

    Matthew Do (he/him) is the Children's Ministry Director of Metro Hope Church in East Harlem, New York. As a third-culture-kid (TCK), Matthew is most comfortable in spaces where cross-cultural experiences merge. Matthew first came into contact with Godly Play as a children's ministry volunteer for a Spanish-speaking church plant in San Jose, CA. What he loves most about Godly Play are the opportunities for open dialogue with children, seeing them as co-creators of the sacred space and time that is created.

  • Nancy St. John

    Nancy St. John (she/her) is a trained early childhood Montessori teacher at a Montessori school in Scituate, Massachusetts. She brings with her extensive experience with children in Montessori and Godly Play environments. She is a Godly Play storyteller and a licensed Godly Play trainer. Both these passions compliment the other, as she sits on the floor with children most Sundays at a nearby Episcopal church telling stories.

  • Rowan Larson

    Rowan Larson (they/them) is a recently ordained priest in the Diocese of Massachusetts serving at Grace Episcopal Church in Newton as Curate for Formation and Mission. They have a particular ministerial interest in the formation of children, youth, and young adults and theology of and for LGBTQ+ people of all ages. Rowan serves on the board of the United Thank Offering (Province I Representative), the board of the Province I Episcopal Church Women, and the leadership team of TransEpiscopal.