Bibliographic record
Abstract
A qualitative investigation of theologies, theories and practices of play with a group of United Church of Canada clergy, this study explores how a play-full understanding of God can transform table fellowship from the “work of the people” to the “play of the people” and provide resources for liturgy in general and the eucharist in particular. Using a methodology of Appreciative Inquiry, an exploration of play from theological, scientific and vocational perspectives strengthened knowledge and provided rich resources for including play practices in their vocational and personal lives. The study shows how a play-full theology and more play-full eucharistic practices can be nurtured and developed. By inviting minsters to engage in play practices, with Deus ludens as their image for God and a robust understanding of United Church “ordered liberty” in worship, eucharistic liturgies can be more deeply connected to play-fullness and practices of eucharist become more deeply holistic, incarnational, creative and celebrative. While the sacrament of Holy Communion is often referred to as feast and celebration, the experience of eucharistic liturgies for many in The United Church of Canada seldom resembles these descriptors. Many congregants and clergy express dissatisfaction with eucharistic practice. Some ministers do not feel adequately prepared or educated to craft more life-giving communion liturgies. Participants explored diverse perspectives on play, making connections between theology and liturgy, eucharist and ritual, vocational well-being and practices of play in our lives. A play-full approach to Christian theology, worship and practice was identified as an essential component to healthy and faithful living—often missing in congregational life and in human behaviour generally. The project supported the development of theological perspectives, educational tools, spiritual practices and liturgical skills in support of a play-full theology of ministry and eucharist. Participants expanded their language and images for God as Deus ludens, and (re)discovered the importance of play and were encouraged to adopt play as a spiritual practice.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.050 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".