As Chuck Colson says, "Lent affords us the opportunity to search the depths of our sin and experience the heights of God's love." (Why Bother With Lent?)
We take 40 days to dwell upon the reality of a broken needy world, the sin in our own hearts, and the love of a Savior that offers the world and each of us hope.
If you're looking to get ready for Lent and purchase a few resources, here are some that we use in our home!
As with Advent, we keep a Lent/ Easter/ Passover box... Anticipation!
Inside our box you'll find...
We watch a lot of Nest animated Bible movies, and I don't think there is one that has not made me tear up; they brings the stories to life in a beautiful way! My little guy also really like the Read and Share dvds. How Can I Celebrate Passover is a very helpful teaching tool for little minds to make the connections between Passover, the Exodus, and Easter.
We've used the resurrection eggs since Caleb, our oldest, was two, and it's amazing hearing how much of the resurrection they can recount by themselves using these eggs. I bought ours at LifeWay.
Here is Caleb (7) when he was three going through the eggs! Wow, it's fun to look back!
What We Do in Lent is the primary activity book we use, and it provide a page for each day of Lent. I copy the pages, and the boys have their own Lent folder where they keep the completed pages which we refer back to sometimes.
We get a lot of books from the library which I'll post later but here are a few of our own books.
Journey to the Cross is my favorite Easter book thus far for the kids! We read from it throughout Lent and watch the story of the cross unfold.
Children's books about Passover
Here is a Passover plate that we don't actually use for our Seder meal because it isn't big enough, but it's a good teaching tool. I found this at Target one year.
The Messianic Passover Haggadah and its companion are awesome resources if you want to actually hold a Christian Seder.
So those are some of the things you'll find in our box! And if you have any suggestions, I'm always on the hunt for new fun resources to add!
One of our Lent traditions is lighting Lenten candles each Sunday of Lent; they are similar to Advent candles. Here is a picture of Kennon re-lighting all the Lenten candles on Easter morning after they had all been blown out on Good Friday, and you'll notice the tomb is empty. The light has overcome the darkness!
I'm a huge fan of Noel Piper's book Treasuring God in Our Traditions. She writes about how her family uses the candles in Holy Week at the Pipers,
The seven candles symbolize the Light of the World—the Light that was God’s glory and that illuminated God for us—the Light that, in the end, seemed to have been darkened. As we move through the season preceding Easter, the candles are snuffed out one by one, until all are dark on Good Friday, when Jesus died and the earth was covered with shadow. Darkness apparently had won. The Light of the World had been extinguished. It was finished.See the link to her article above for full details on how to use Lenten lights in your home!
But NO! Easter brings resurrection! Life! Return from death! The Light has won, and all the candles burn as we praise him—the Light of the World, the Bright Morning Star, the Glory of God.
We enjoy a lot of fun traditions during Holy Week which I look forward to sharing more about, but here are some past posts with pictures!
No comments:
Post a Comment