Newsletters

IACS Events and News

Lead a Webinar!

Do you have a favorite topic you're exploring in your spare time? A paper you've been working on? A grad school project in process or just completed? Please consider sharing your interests and work with the larger membership through a webinar.

IACS sponsors online webinars every 4-8 weeks on topics members are engaging, All that is required to sponsor a webinar is a short (2-3 page) paper introducing the topic and a willingness to lead a discussion on the issue. IACS provides the Zoom link, access to the paper, advertising, and tech support during the hour-long session.

If you have an idea and want to learn more, contact Karen-Marie Yust at karen-marie.yust@upsem.edu (cc: admin@RealKidsRealFaith.org) and we will find a date and time that works.

IACS 2024 Symposium Photo Album

The IACS 2024 Symposium was held on July 16th-18, 2024, at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK. Use this link for a look at this year’s conference: IACS 2024 Symposium Photo Album

IACS Publications Page

The IACS website contains a publications page Publications | International Association for Children's Spirituality (childrenspirituality.org). We hope researchers, teachers, or others who want to find details about books, articles, and other resources related to children’s spirituality find this useful. However, we are still adding new publications and depend on suitable ones being suggested. Please look at the page, and if you know of any publications that should be added, whether newly published ones or old favorites (including your own), suggest that they use the form on that page. Doing so is very easy and quick and will help to create a more comprehensive bank of resources. For any queries, please contact Tony Eaude on tony@edperspectives.org.uk

IACS Where Are We page

If you would like to be included on the IACS “Where are We” page, please send Erin Reibel your name, location, a brief bio, and if you would like a picture, to Erin Reibel at ereibel@gmail.com.

Member Events, News and Updates

Book Release

Nature, Spirituality, and Early Childhood Education Fostering Children’s Awareness and Responsibility through Outdoor Learning by Ruth Wills

This book, written by Dr. Ruth Wills from Liverpool Hope University, is aimed at teachers and practitioners working with young children, and seeks to encourage outdoor learning as a way of nurturing their spirituality. It explores the intersection between early childhood education and spirituality, offering tips on how practitioners (and even parents) might promote a sense of connectedness with nature which might in turn lead to a sense of social responsibility and sustainable activity. More information can be found here: Flyer_Nature, Spirituality, and Early Childhood Education (1).pdf

For further details please contact Ruth via e mail on willsr@hope.ac.uk

The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education

The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education runs year round. "The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education is dedicated to nurturing the innate spiritual capacity of educators (independent of any doctrine, ideology, or religion) through enriching activities, engaging discourse, scientific research, and contemplative practices. Teaching is an art, a science, a profession, and a practice; this year-long course will provide a space for educators to be guided, nourished, and recharged to show up authentically in their community and practice". More information may be found here: https://spiritualityineducation.org/awakened-schools/. They will be holding a conference this year on October 26th at Columbia University. More information can be found here: https://spiritualityineducation.org/national-conference-2024/

Godly Play Updates

With deep grief and gratitude, the Godly Play Foundation shares the news of the passing of Jerome W. Berryman on August 5, 2024. Jerome gave us the gift of a way of being with children, with one another, and with God, that is honest, brave, and deeply faithful. A Memorial Service is planned for Monday, October 21 at 1:00 pm at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Denver, CO. A memorial fund has been set up in Jerome's honor to continue the work he dedicated his life to. https://givebutter.com/Jerome The Foundation has also set up a virtual memory board and you are all invited to share memories and stories of Jerome there: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/a0zmtj55

The Godly Play Foundation is hosting a gathering at the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting in November to remember Jerome W. Berryman and share plans to continue his work of centering the needs of children in the church and the Academy. Join the Director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood, Cheryl Minor, at Sweet Things Frozen Yogurt from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 24. Sweet Things is located at 1 Park Boulevard, Suite 102, San Diego (located on the promenade level of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront).

Children as Participants in Theological Research (ChaPTheR)

ResearchProject at the Department of Religious Education of the University of Bonn (2023-2026)

In an era of great upheaval, people struggle with the experience of vulnerability and uncertainty, both globally and locally. The systemic challenges of the pandemic crisis, the climate crisis, the crisis of injustice and of armed conflict worldwide are causing people to feel personally and socially vulnerable. This existential vulnerability carries physical, but also psychological, moral and spiritual aspects. Children are doubly vulnerable to these developments in their identity development. The big questions that concern all human beings these days also enter their daily lives unusually hard and ambiguously. They are not spared (e.g. through social media) both the sadness and the longing that live in this world.

Read more here: http://bertroebben.blogspot.com/2023/08/chapther-2023-2026.html

Request for Resources

I'm currently writing a book about the spiritual dimensions of young children's connectedness to nature. If you have ideas or resources you'd like to share, you can contact me by phone or email. I'd love to hear from you!

Thank you!

Ruth Wilson

wilson.rutha@gmail.com

425-221-1874

Greater Good Educators Program

Explore the science of grace, love, and sense of worth to create more inclusive, compassionate, and empowering educational environments. Inspired by the beauty of visionaries like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and bell hooks, this program offers a unique approach to integrating love, grace, and a sense of worth into teaching practices. This is a donation-based program. Space will be limited. You can find more information here: Winter/Spring 2025 Cohort: Re(Rooted) to Others

Chile Collaboration

Stemming from her work on understanding early childhood educator’s conceptualizations of children’s spirituality, Jennifer Mata-McMahon was invited to conduct workshops with pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers in Valparaiso Chile and share her work on children’s spirituality with faculty from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, Chile in March 2024. The collaboration with Chile continues through data collection using the Early Childhood Educators’ Spiritual Practices in the Classroom (ECE-SPC) instrument to conduct a cross-cultural comparison of children’s spirituality understood by teachers from Chile and the U.S.

Dutch Day Of Children’s Spirituality 2024

Since 2018, the annual Dutch Dag van de Kinderspiritualiteit (Day of Children’s Spirituality) has become an event to look forward to. People from many different professional and religious or non-religious backgrounds meet to learn, share ideas and get inspired. Learn more about this year’s event here: Dutch Day Of Children’s Spirituality 2024

Upcoming Dutch Day of Children’s Spirituality

Dag van de Kinderspiritualiteit 2025 ‘Searching for Peace’ Nijmegen, 11 April 2025

For many people, these are dark times. All over the world, children live in war zones or are afraid of terrorist attacks. In Western Europe, there are many children who have fled war, and also many children who are directly affected by the rise of the far right and a growing gap between groups within their society. Children also have to deal with a climate crisis, very concretely or through what they hear in the media, and the involvement of Western countries in war elsewhere. What does that do to them? What gives them hope, and what contributes to resilience? But also: how can we help children grow into adults who contribute to healing, relaxation and peace? And can spiritual traditions help children in their search for peace? These are questions we want to explore on the Day of Children’s Spirituality 2025. There will be an opening lecture (in Dutch, translation available) two rounds of practical workshops (in Dutch or English) and also a lot of time for structured and informal discussions. For more information, please contact Rosanne or Liesbeth at info@oblimon.nl

Poem and Reflection

Prayer by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009)

For further reflection, use this resource: A Reflection on Contemplative Prayer.docx