Make Memories that Grow Kids’ Faith during Resurrection Sunday
Holy Week is here, and I’m thinking about making memories with my kids that grow them in their faith. Of course I loved the Easter basket scavenger hunt that my mom always did. I also loved dying Easter eggs, getting a pretty new dress with a hat (A hat!) and gloves. I do those things with my kids too, though not every year. But I’m also looking for new traditions to incorporate into our family life. Traditions that grow our faith in sink with the rhythms of the church calendar.
Check out some of these ideas that I’ve been thinking about incorporating this year for creating faith building experiences with your kids. You don’t need to do all of them! (I’m sure not going to.) Pick out one or two that seem doable to you. Remember—lower your standards and you are more likely to do it. (At least that is true for me.)
The experience doesn’t have to be Instaworthy, but make it about remembering the death of our Savior and celebrating His Resurrection. After all, Resurrection Sunday is the most important day in our calendar as Christians. If there was no resurrection—Christianity wouldn’t exist.
So let’s act like Resurrection Sunday is the pivot point upon which our whole faith rests—because it is. Let’s feast and celebrate and remember. And how do you build faith memories in your kids? By incorporating sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile experiences into those memories.
I sometimes use affiliate links in my content. This won’t cost you anything, but it means if you buy through the link, I get a small commission. This helps offset the costs of running this website.
So let’s act like Resurrection Sunday is the pivot point upon which our whole faith rests—because it is. Let’s feast and celebrate and remember.
Everts & Schuapp, 45
7 Easy Family Traditions to Create Faith Building Memories in your Kids
1. Experience: Stations of the Cross
Materials:
1. Google your city & Stations of the Cross, or
2. Call different churches and see if they have a Stations of the Cross set up.
3. Your pastor might also know of some in the area.
The Stations of the Cross began as a way that pilgrims could remember and retake Jesus’s final steps in Jerusalem. Since everyone couldn’t make it to Jerusalem (obviously), pilgrims brought back this practice to where they lived and local stations were created for prayer and meditation. You can find this tradition in many churches still today. In fact, some older churches even have stained glass windows that act as Stations of the Cross.
My church did an amazing job with their Stations of the Cross this year. They had local artists from the church make pieces of art work. I love how this is using the local skills in our community and also showing it off and supporting art to build our faith. My kids could actually meet the artist of the piece we saw, they can be inspired in their own creativity, and also have a connection with someone in our church that they wouldn’t know otherwise.
Our church also had an action at each station. “Touch the thorn on the crown.” “Write your sin on this rice paper.” “Dissolve the paper in this bowl.” This was genius for kids. These actions help to embed memories and experiences into our brains in a tactile foundational way.
Tips:
As with all new activities, go at a time when your kids aren’t tired, and make sure they are well fed.
You might try and preview the Stations of the Cross or ask someone at the church what they are like. Stations of the Cross is mimicking the march to our Savior’s death, and some kids are very sensitive. This experience can be deeply impacting, and we want it impacting, not scarring. So think about how to enter into this with your particular kids’ sensitivities.
Your kids will make noise and that’s okay. Stations of the Cross is usually a quiet and contemplative space. Our kids were talking loud, asking questions and wanting to read the scripture slowly and loudly. I had to let it go. The children are coming to Jesus. I need to not hold them back or worry about it too much. I have this fear that other people will be angry, but in reality, maybe they will be deeply blessed by these young ones seeking Him so fervently. (And only slightly annoyed.)
2. Create: Make your own Stations of the Cross
Materials:
1. Whatever you have around the house
2. Bible
3. List of Stations of the Cross
Throughout Holy Week, your kids might want to make their own Stations of the Cross. What would they choose to represent the different stages of Jesus’ journey? (Blackberry bushes for a crown of thorns? A purple hoodie for the the robe?) What contemplative questions might they ask you? What scripture would they read if they are literate?
So many times we put our kids in the position of learner, it would be good to see what they teach us. Throw this idea out there and see if they bite. This might be something that the kids take over and then give you an opportunity to experience. Maybe family is coming over for Easter and they could go through it.
Tips:
Let the kids lead on this one, but help guide them if they are getting into weird unbiblical territory. Have some items in the back of your head around the house that you might suggest for different stations, and see if they get the idea and can brainstorm on their own. By guide I mean—Ask them questions, re-read the text in the Bible. Don’t just tell them what to do.
3. Live out: Re-enact the last Supper
Materials:
1. Bible
2. Costume box or sheets
3. Dinner
4. Name cards or materials for name cards
An on-line ministry we participate in called Family Teams helps your family be an “intergenerational team on mission for God.” Some of my FAVORITE activities THIS YEAR have been from this ministry. One challenge pushed out to families was to re-enact the the Last Supper.
This can be highly organized…or not. You can quickly type out a script (or find one on-line) or pass out Bible verses. Make name cards for the disciples. Better yet, if your kids are old enough, have them do that. Try the Jesus Storybook Bible if need be.
We are going to do this activity this year and invite another family to join us. My plan is to do as little prep beforehand as possible. Have the kids make the name cards and find the tape. Have the kids raid the linen closet for flat sheets and grab rope for some belts. Let’s do this quick and dirty and with laughter and not too much stress…or else I’ll get in the way of myself and not want to do it.
If you want to take it up a notch you can have the traditional food at a Seder, as Jesus and his disciples were celebrating the Passover at the Last Supper.
We are simply having soup and bread. You can invite enough people to make it 12 (or more). We are having just one other family, then going to the Good Friday service.
Tips:
Prep your kids about the seriousness of this. Have different roles to keep things flowing and organized. You can also have a narrator who makes the action happen and prompts the story along. The younger your kids are, the more I recommend a narrator. However, can an older child be a narrator? Anytime a child can do something, give them that opportunity to lead. Feel free to cut out parts of the Last Supper that your kids aren’t ready for. Are you ready to wash the feet of everyone? But maybe they are!
4. Find: Hide Lambs instead of Eggs
Materials:
1. A lamb for each child present (think dollar store, this one, thrift for them, or use paper cut outs.)
2. Found book (on Kindle unlimited right now) or Bible
3. Dinner
4. Name cards or materials for name cards
One year our incredible children’s pastor started a new tradition with the preschool kids. Instead of hiding Easter Eggs around the church lawn, she hid little lambs. She read them the story of Jesus searching for the 1 out of the 99. (This book, Found, is a nice rendition of Psalm 23, that could also be used.)Then the children all went to the lawn to search for their 1 lost lamb. Afterwards the kids gathered around tenderly holding their lambs, and we talked about what it was like to search for their lamb and what Jesus must feel like to search for us.
My kids kept their dollar store little lamb for many years after their preschool days of doing this activity.
Tips:
Remember, it doesn’t have to be about the stuff. Feel free to print out pictures of lambs and hide them around the yard. Or make little lambs out of cotton balls. Simplify and use things you have on hand.
5. See: Take Away the Light—Tenebrae
Materials:
1. Candles
2. Bible
Tenebrae means to take away the light. It means shadow or darkness. Taken from medieval Catholic practices, Protestants usually have this service on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. The church lights are slowly extinguished as Jesus is arrested, tried, beaten, nailed on the cross and dies.
See if there is a local Tenebrae service in your area to go to. If you think it is too much for your kids, consider having a family time where you take away the light and sit in darkness. This might be during dinner time. Or if it isn’t dark enough yet at that time, maybe right before bedtime you turn off all the lights, and light several candles, reading the story of Jesus’s death. After each event that leads closer to the cross, you blow out a candle. This is a visually powerful way for our family to feel the darkness, sadness, and enormity of what happened on Good Friday as the darkness closes in.
I plan on doing this Thursday night, since we are going to the Good Friday service. It’s good for us to feel that vacuum of the dark, so that we can long for the light.
Tips:
You don’t even need candles. The kids can turn off different lights as you read. Have them remembering that the light is coming on Resurrection Sunday when Jesus is resurrected. You might also then have a candle on the table at your Sunday meal as a reminder and intentionally light it as you begin your celebration feast.
6. Taste: Resurrection Rolls
Materials:
1. Crescent roll store bought dough (remade!)
2. Marshmallows
4. Butter
5. Cinnamon and sugar
6. These (easy) directions
7. Or These (incredible homemade) directions, check the ingredients list
One year, while the Easter eggs were being hidden in Grandma’s yard, I led the kids in making these pastry treats. I wanted us to pause and remember why we were all gathering, before the kids went out in the yard in a (cute) but sugar crazed egg finding frenzy.
The process of making them is quick, and each step describes a part of Jesus’s death and burial. Basically you stuff a marshmallow inside of pastry and bake it. Of course (spoiler alert!) when you bake the pastry, the marshmallow disappears! The kids are amazed by this simple and yummy trick, and they still get a sweet treat.
Tips:
These were an awesome fun process that not only taught about Jesus’s burial in a hands on way, but the kids then could contribute to dessert by making them. The ones I made were pretty sweeeeet. After all of the candy and other desserts, we didn’t really need to have these as well, so I wish we had scaled back on some of the other goodies that were available so that the adults actually wanted to eat what the kids made.
I hope you’ve found tactile experiences to incorporate into your Resurrection Sunday family traditions this year that will build the faith memories of your kids. Let me know how it goes! Check out my Pinterest board here for more ideas. Sign-up for my newsletter to get ideas delivered to your in-box.
Leave a comment; I’d LOVE to hear some of your favorite memory making tips for building faith in our kids.
Leave a Reply