This revised and expanded version of Godly Play founder Jerome Berryman's 1995 handbook is for current and future users of Godly Play. With this revision, the book's original formatting has been redesigned to complement the eight volumes in The Complete Guide to Godly Play series. Illustrations have also been updated, and the text now better reflects the playful spirit of Godly Play. Up-to-date research in childhood development and instruction has also been incorporated in this comprehensive update. From "Why Play" Chapter One Jerome W. Berryman "When children learn the language of mathematics they have already experienced adding and subtracting. The language of mathematics helps them become more conscious of what they are doing when they pile things up or take things away and it gives them the power to be more flexible and orderly about such actions. Why wouldn't religious language work the same way? The problem is that religious language is so different from the language of science, which is the language mostly emphasized in schools today. Instead of the functions of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, the Christian language system has the functions of sacred story, parable, liturgical action and contemplative silence to work with. These kinds of language are especially helpful to specify, name and express the experience of God. How can one teach such a strange language? In 1960 all I had was this question! It took a decade working in churches and schools before a method was discovered. The Montessori method was chosen as the best way to connect the child's intuition of God with the language of the church so that children would be encouraged to construct their own meaning about God by the interaction of their experience with Christian language."