decorating the paschal candle by hand

Last year, I heard one priest from the Diocese in Europe comment that his church budget would not stretch to a paschal candle with the year on it, and that even the purchase of the paschal candle he did have was something he'd had to defend.

store display of paschal candles
(licensed photo by Gagorski, cropped by Storyteller)

Just a few days later, I came across a lovely blog post, also from the Diocese in Europe, and I thought, Here is a possible solution to those financial concerns. Bishop David Hamid wrote that in St Margaret's Anglican Episcopal Church in Budapest, they have a tradition of buying a large, plain candle and having the children decorate it.

Eurobishop: Children of St Margaret's Budapest prepare the paschal candle: Krisztus feltámadt! ... These photos show them hard at work in Sunday School on Palm Sunday and presenting the finished product to the congregation.

Decorating actual candles, or doing paper-crafts of gluing bits of paper to reflect the way a paschal candle is decorated - this kind of work is often found in a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium. Leslie Swaim-Fox is one of a number of bloggers who have posted about this:

Thoughts from the Sheepfold: The Paschal Candle: The paschal candle is a symbol of the Risen Christ which speaks very powerfully to children. ... I love the words that we say with the children while they press the wax pieces onto the candle.

Leslie explains in the comments to another post that she uses thin sheets of colored wax, cutting out the shapes they will need with a craft knife. Jessica, at the Shower of Roses blog, made a more elaborate candle by using not only colored wax but also acrylic gems and gold metallic cord. Jessica has also listed several other ways of decorating a plain candle here (scroll down to "Easter Paschal Candle"). If you're not up to doing this craft but would like a paschal candle for the home, you can simply print out a design and wrap it around a candle (Jennifer at Family in Feast and Feria offers a free printable every year).

Depending on the age of the children who do this, your candle may not be as "perfect" as a store-bought one, but you will have saved money AND involved the children in a useful and meaningful way in the liturgical life of your church.

(public domain photo by Rabanus Flavus, cropped by Storyteller)

two children and Our Story

I'm a little nervous about sharing this first story. I don't want to shame anyone, but perhaps to criticize the way Facebook chooses what stories to prioritize for us...

      *     *     *     *     *

licensed photo by williac

On Sunday one of my Facebook friends posted a montage of four photographs with an Easter greeting written across the whole. Two pictures were family groupings, one showed their Easter eggs, and one showed the oldest son reading. Alas, what Facebook showed his grandmother was his mother's teasing comments about the boy's father "boozing" it up, beside a photograph of the Bloody Mary the man had ordered with his Easter brunch.

But, I said, did you see the photograph of N? 

--I saw the picture of him posing with his uncle and the Easter Bunny after brunch ...

No. The picture of him reading, in his father's Easter montage. The reflective finish on the top edges of the pages, the black leather binding, the two-column layout, and the glimpse of a marker ribbon all signal - this is a Bible. Even just a second glance reveals that he is reading the end of a book within this Bible. The resolution of the picture won't permit me to see which the following book's title is, but I can see that he's about three-quarters of the way through the Bible. As if I hadn't already surmised that he was reading the Resurrection narrative from one of the Gospels!

It's a story important to his father, important to his grandmother, important to the holiday. And the boy read it out to his family before brunch.

     *     *     *     *     *

Our godson's little sister knows that I am pleased to see children enjoying spiritual things, so when we dropped by their house on Easter Day to deliver an Easter basket (really a small gift bag) to her big brother, she ran and met me at the door with the Jesus Storybook Bible.

She opened it to show me the page with Jesus carrying the cross.

from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones & Jago

I said, That looks like a Good Friday picture! What's today? And she excitedly flipped forward a few pages until she found the first page of the Resurrection story, with a picture of three women carrying jars and cloths towards tomb, which we see in the distance with the stone already rolled away. 

I don't really know whether she showed me these pictures because they are important to her, or because she knows they are important to me. In one sense it doesn't matter, because I think for her what "church" is - is interaction with the family of God. In showing me the book she was maintaining our relationship as much as she was affirming our shared faith. Maybe for her the two are inseparable: the relationships within the body of Christ and the relationship of all those parts with the head. 

Easter followup (part 2)

This continues my followup post about retelling the Easter story straight from the Gospel of Luke, illustrated with a slide show, and then asking Wondering questions of the congregation. I did this in two churches (one earlier in the morning and one later). The second congregation in particular tends to be wary of discussion, often complaining about being put on the spot if the priest asks them any questions.

For this reason, I started my sermons from the pulpit. I explained that one characteristic of family celebrations was to gather together and listen to stories, and talk together. Therefore the way I wanted to celebrate Easter was to re-tell the Easter story the way Luke told it, and to give people a chance to talk and listen to each other. Nobody HAS to say anything! I clarified straightaway, almost interrupting my previous sentence to assure people that nobody was going to be "put on the spot". All they had to do, I said, was to listen to one another. Not laugh, not argue, but listen.

licensed photo by Andreas Praefcke

I told the story, with the slides, and then asked the Sacred Story wondering questions. With hindsight, those questions weren't ideal for this situation. It's too hard, especially for people not used to Godly Play Wondering, to break out of the expectation that the empty tomb should be everyone's favorite part, as well as the most important part. And that there's nothing that should left out from Holy Scripture!

But even so, more people made comments than I had feared. And on the whole I got very good feedback afterwards. Two things surprised me. One was that some people were unwilling to speak into the microphone but not unwilling to speak. I asked if I could repeat their comments to the whole congregation and they said yes. They just were unwilling to have their own voice amplified. The other was that one woman thanked me and said how much she had enjoyed this twice, despite the fact that she hadn't chosen to say anything.

In fact, she apologized for being unwilling or unable to speak in front of others. I could easily have believed that such a person would dislike this style of "sermon". But she told me twice, once right at the end of the service and then again at coffee time, that she had really appreciated it.

It's good to remember that someone who is unwilling to participate in the way we expect isn't necessarily irritated, bored, or disappointed. They might even be appreciating our work.

Easter followup (part 1)

Featherglen asked how my Easter presentation had gone. (Thanks, FG, for the query!)

As I explained earlier, I made a slide show to illustrate the Easter story, line by line. I used the day's lectionary reading, Luke 24:1-12, but also included some background from the previous chapter to set the scene. The pictures below illustrate these lines:

• Darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

• Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

• With these words, he breathed his last.

• All his friends stood at a distance; so also did the women who had accompanied him from Galilee and saw all this happen.

• The women took note of the tomb and how his body had been laid. 

• Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.

• On the Sabbath day they rested, as the Law required.

In the telling, each slide contained just a single picture, but during the Wondering I showed a "review" slide to help jog people's memories. I started the Wondering with a slide showing all the images from the Resurrection part of the story (the lectionary reading), but I also prepared this review slide of the Crucifixion part of the story, and switched to this when anybody mentioned this part of the story.

And how did it go? Well there were a few minor mishaps. At the second church, even though we had tested all the equipment in advance, the projector and laptop refused to talk to one another when we started setting up for the service. Fortunately, the problem resolved itself after about ten minutes of sweating ... and rebooting things over and over again. 

Other than little snags like that it went well! I did learn something useful about the Wondering... and I'll make that a separate post.

preparation through celebration

The Godly Play lesson of the Circle of the Church Year presents a concept which I had never heard before - that just as Advent helps us get ready for Christmas and Lent for Easter, so Eastertide helps us get ready for Pentecost. Eastertide is simultaneously a time of celebration and a time of preparation.


Preparation through celebration - what a gorgeous thought.


I have heard people puzzle or even fret over the fact that Advent is not a season of fasting nowadays. But the folks at Busted Halo revel in the richness of the differences between Advent and Lent: Advent is about Hope, not Repentance, they say. And how delicious it is to think that we prepare for Pentecost with celebration.

Sheila (of Explore and Express) and I have celebrated Eastertide this year with a series of guest posts. Our final one is coming soon, but in the meantime I'd like to share a photograph from my friend, "see-through faith". In addition to her regular blog she has a photo blog, where her goal is to post a photo a day and to "find God" in it. One recent photo was of a seasonal table display, which instantly made me think of  seasonal displays that my blogging friends have created - including Sheila's nature tables and Emily's displays marking the church year (such as this wonderful Ordinary Time collection of everyday green objects). Can you guess what the difference is between their displays and this one?

photo by see-through faith - a larger version can be seen here

This one wasn't in a private home but in a church building! Isn't it sweet? It's "homely" in the British sense ("homey" for Americans). Charming! It's from the Bakewell Methodist Church, home to  Matthew Loader, who wrote a series of guest posts for me last month.

My friends, whether your Eastertide celebration has been simple and sweet, solemn and grand, or felt cursory, dry, or difficult, I pray for you a joyful Pentecost.

Here's Busted Halo's Pentecost in two minutes video. 

[I posted about their Advent one here and their Lenten one here.]

Eastertide guest post - Beulah Land Bible Stories

This post's author is Margaret Pritchard Houston, Families Pastor for St. George's Church, Campden Hill (in Kensington, in London). As well as writing about children's ministry for the Church of England and Diocese of London, she maintains a blog about her work at St. George's: For All the Saints. If you follow that blog already, you'll have seen her photo of the St. George's Play and Pray area on Easter Sunday this year (I've reproduced it here, on the right.)

Is your eye, like mine, immediately drawn to that Easter image of Christ victorious standing before Martha at the empty tomb?

These are not the flannel-graph materials from the Sunday School of my childhood. So I asked Margaret to introduce them and give us a feel for what it's like to work with them.

I need to begin with a confession.  This is not an entirely objective review – my mother developed the Beulah Land storytelling materials, and I grew up using them, travelling with her to workshops and handing her the pieces she needed to tell the stories.

But this post is based not on childhood memories but on my own experiences using them in my own ministry at St. George’s Church, Campden Hill, in London.

What is Beulah Land?

Beulah Land are storytelling kits made out of felt pieces.  They are similar to the “Fuzzy Felt” toys popular in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  The full Beulah Land range consists of five different sets, which together contain everything you need for the Old and New Testament stories.  Our church owns sets 1 and 2 – these have, with the addition of a few pieces I made myself, been sufficient for a full year’s worth of storytelling, both Old Testament and New, but not as good as if I had all five sets.  I hope to buy sets 3 and 4 in the next few years.

The sets require self-assembly.  They come with all the pieces marked out on felt, and assembly instructions.  They also come with storytelling scripts and extensive notes on children’s understanding of Bible stories, which helps in guiding lesson planning.  The patterns of the pieces are also sent with your kit, so that if you lose a piece, you can remake it.

There is a full Beulah Land Curriculum handbook available, which contains worship outlines and activities for each story.  This is available separately.

What are the pros of using Beulah Land?

The first, and most important, positive aspect of Beulah Land is that the children respond to it with depth and imagination.  I leave the Beulah Land feltboard up after I finish telling the story each week, and the children have the option of playing with it.  I’ve seen children from toddlers to early teenagers engage with it, using the pieces to create their own landscapes and narratives, engaging with Biblical symbolism and imagery in a hands-on, child-led way.  Also, it provides a powerful visual vocabulary of Bible stories, which the children then use in their own artwork.  The library of images is broader and richer than the standard trinity of “heart, cross, Christmas scene” which is the limit of much of the popular imagination of Christian imagery.  Beulah contains a two-dimensional, easily replicated series of symbols for children to draw on in expressing their own spirituality and their own understanding of the Bible – altar and flame, dove, fruit trees, river, snake, desert, mountain, city, stars, moon, boats, pillar of cloud, storm clouds and lightning, fish, birds, water, and much more.  This is not to say that children slavishly copy the pictures they have been presented with – rather, Beulah Land gives them a wealth of Biblical imagery to play with in developing their own understanding of the stories, and it gives them ideas on how to portray these images in their own work.  How often has a child in your group come to you and said “I want to draw X but I don’t know how”?  Beulah Land gives them a starting point, freeing them to express their own creativity.  When I use Beulah Land with a group of ten children, I still have ten individual artistic styles.  What I don’t have are ten children coming to me saying “help me draw X, Y or Z.”  (I may still have one or two, but only occasionally – many fewer than I did two years ago when I began.)

Crossing of the Red Sea banner (made independently by a group of children)

Secondly, the scripts accompanying the materials are wonderfully written.  They contain Biblical language that is full of awe and wonder but not inaccessible even to young children.  They are easy to use, with the words and the actions (which pieces to put up and where) next to each other, so there is no flipping between pages while telling the stories.  (Of course, it is best if you memorise the scripts, but that’s not always possible.)  Each script contains a recap of what went before – often starting with “do you remember ...” before filling in the context in which the story occurs.  This can be helpful for children who may have missed the previous week or two, and grounds the story firmly as part of a whole.  The concept of Beulah Land is one of “metanarrative” – the Bible is not a collection of disjointed anecdotes, but a unified whole that begins with “once upon a time” and ends, after great trials and danger, with “happily ever after.”   The stories do not leave out the painful and difficult parts of the Bible, but nor do they linger (as is the unfortunate trend among some Fundamentalist materials, most notably the hideous “Left Behind” books) on gruesomeness for gruesomeness’s sake.

The pieces provide great openings for theological discussions with children.  “Why is God made of two hands and a heart, when nobody really knows what God looks like?” is one question I’ve been asked – leading to a discussion of what God might look like, why hands and a heart might be symbols of the nature of God, the nature of the Incarnation (this started when I said “when God became human in Jesus, he did look a particular way”), and so on.  My mother has reported children wrestling with the concepts of good and evil insisting on the Satan figure staying up through all of Jesus’ ministry – “because he never really went all the way away.”  I’ve overheard children playing with the figures independently placing the prison piece over Adam and Eve, and then Jacob’s ladder above them, explaining “they’re in prison because they’ve been bad, but they’re climbing to heaven.”

Beulah Land can be incorporated with some elements of Godly Play.  The stories leave themselves open for wondering questions, and are told with language that is rich and liturgical.  The storytelling materials are child-friendly.

Beulah Land materials are durable.  Occasionally the glue holding a tree trunk and tree top will fail and you’ll need to make minor repairs, but generally, once you have them, you have them for life.  They are not bulky to store, and they are lightweight.

What are the cons of using Beulah Land?

Unfortunately, at the moment, Beulah Land is only available from the US.  This means that you will need to pay a value-based import tax on them, which necessitates dealing with Parcelforce’s labyrinthine telephone system and spending a few days with your materials held hostage by HMRC before they can be delivered to you.  However, the extra cost is balanced out by the fact that since the dollar to pound exchange rate is favourable at the moment, you’ll make a substantial savings on the materials themselves.

Also, because for some reason, the US and UK use different standard paper sizes, and different numbers of holes in their binders, the storytelling scripts and assembly instructions do not easily fit inside a two-ring binder.  This can be got around by photocopying the materials onto A4 paper and then punching holes in the photocopied sheets.

The pieces do take quite a while, and occasionally some frustration, to assemble.  You can get around this by having a “Beulah Assembly Party” with your Sunday School volunteers, if they’re amenable, or if you have helpful children of your own, you can use unpaid child labour to help you assemble them.

Some of the pieces are quite small, and can get lost.

You have to provide your own feltboard.  These can just be ordinary felt display boards available from any office supply store.  Ours cost approximately £30. 

Cleaning up after a session in which children have played freely with the materials can be time-consuming.  Each tiny fish, every star, each small person, has to be individually taken off the feltboard and put back in its correct place.

What should I do if I want to try it out? 

You can start with the Starter Set, which is $175 (approximately £105).  This will give you four stories – Creation, Noah, Christmas and Easter.  See whether the assembly is easy enough, try out storytelling, and see how your children respond, both in their artwork and in independent play.  If you live in London, you’re welcome to come by St. George’s and visit our Sunday School to see Beulah Land in action.  You can also get in touch if you’re interested in having me come and do a training session with your staff and volunteers.

Thank you so much, Margaret. I had no idea when I suggested this topic what a close connection you had with these materials!   

Eastertide Guest Post: on the Emmaus Road

Featherglen came up trumps for our (Sheila's and my) Eastertide Guest Post series with not one but two blog posts. I introduced her in yesterday's post, about her Eastertide garden. Today she shares several ways of telling and remembering the story of the Emmaus Road. I appreciate how sensitive she is to the context of worship - the community, the physical location, the resources available. It's wonderful that she's included so many photos (please honor her request, "If you want to use any of them, please be lovely enough to ask me first."). I took the liberty of re-arranging them slightly, dividing the post into an introduction and then three sections.

Although all the accounts of the Resurrection are amazing, one that I particularly love is the appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yes, it is strange that they don't recognise Him - but then they aren't expecting him either - somehow He is the same but different - that's certainly what I'm hoping for myself anyway! What I love is that He doesn't just jump in and shock them and say 'I'm back!' but takes the time to walk with two grieving, wondering men. He walks alongside them, listens to them and then starts to help them put the pieces together. It is only in the breaking of the bread that finally they see Him. It certainly reminds me of my own encounters with Jesus.



For us in L'Arche, it has been a powerful theme, that God walks with us. We have used it on L'Arche retreats, with large wooden figures. When I encountered Godly Play, it seemed like a natural extension of what we do in many ways already.

Also, in L'Arche, every Easter Sunday, we read the story and it is mimed by our core members ( the adults with learning disabilities that form the centre of our Community). We use our long driveway and over the years we have even made a quite permanent looking signpost. I enjoy seeing it when I arrive at L'Arche in the morning, it reminds me of my continuing walk with Christ. I think it could be a great story to do with children, outdoors, along a quiet road.

Earlier this year I also got hold of the book 'Young Children and Worship' by Sonja M. Stewart and Jerome Berryman. It is the forerunner to Godly Play. I was thrilled to discover it has an Emmaus Road story in it. However, being too busy I haven't had the time to really learn it - but after a quick look and drawing on elements of the story I have heard and participated in in so many ways each year - I told it to our family. We just did it after dinner one evening, at the table, which felt appropriate. We did  a quick raid of my son's wooden castle blocks, then used some wooden figures, a bit of bread and a candle (our Christ candle). At the end of the story, instead of wondering, we broke and shared some bread together. And in that simple moment, Jesus walked among us anew. Amen...

Eastertide guest post - An Eastertide Garden

This week's guest is "Featherglen", one of the early participants in our Lenten link-up. She and her husband both work as members of the L'Arche community in Inverness. Her sidebar list of topics shows her major concerns to be her faith, her family, handicrafts, and the L'Arche Community. Featherglen's life sounds very romantic - living in the Scottish Highlands, married to a French jeweller and gardener, members of an international movement building faith-based communities with people with learning disabilities, supporting them to reach their full potential... yet her writing is honest and down-to-earth.

As a mother, member of a L'Arche Community and a church, Lent can, ironically, turn into a very full time. Although this is usually in a good way, by the time Easter has arrived and been celebrated in various ways, I'm ready for a break. However, despite not growing up in a liturgical tradition, I have grown to appreciate many aspects of such a way of worship, Bible reading, and the sense of celebrations in their appropriate times. This is sometimes also very helpful for the adults with learning disabilities that  are at the heart of L'Arche. Advent and Lent are two very important times of the year for us and we take time to deepen our relationship with God during them. I came across Godly Play when looking for ways to share the biblical story creatively, and it seemed to be instinctively right for us. One story I love in Godly Play is the Circle of the Church Year and as a family we have been very struck that 'You can't keep Easter to just one Sunday, so it keeps on for six more weeks'. I find it very liberating knowing that there's no hurry to celebrate Easter - we have all the time we need!

all photos by Featherglen, please do not re-use without her permission

 In our family we made a 'Lent garden' - a large plate filled with sand and a bare branch, along with a wooden figure of Jesus, representing his time in the wilderness. It sat on our kitchen table and we added a stone each day at dinner time. By Palm Sunday we lifted out the stones, added some soil, then replaced the stones into a path to the bare branch. We sowed some wheatgrass seeds and made a tomb from clay, giving it time to dry out. A cross was added on Good Friday.


On Easter Saturday we added in a another tray of soil for the tomb to sit on, along with a big rock (the wooden figure was placed inside). We sowed some more seeds and added jars and vases of green branches and flowers, as well as Easter candles and some animal figures.

It was all ready and beautiful for Easter Sunday breakfast, with the stone rolled away, the candles lit and Jesus was once more in the beauty of the garden, now transformed from rock and soil, a living image that 'a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies'.

But this year, instead of keeping it for a week or so as usual, I decided we should try keeping it for the whole of Eastertide. It seems like a simple focus, without too much extra effort, to remind us of the Resurrection. We moved onto a table in our living room, covered with oilcloth. Each week we water it, snip the grass (my son likes this bit) - and feed it to the guinea pig (who is very appreciative!). We gather fresh flowers and leaves. It has been lovely to see a whole range of spring flowers this way and I have been surprised by how well my two boys arrange them. I have a book ( The story of Jesus by Andrea Skevington - I recommend it!) with some good artwork, propped up behind it. From time to time we read the stories of the resurrection, and we have added another figure to the garden - perhaps it is Mary?

I have made Easter gardens before, but this year, having one that stretches all the way from Lent through to the end of Eastertide, is a new expression of our journey with Jesus, that has a nod to Godly Play and a connection with the spring world around us.


Featherglen's written a second post for Sheila and me as well, which will be posted tomorrow. This next post is about the Road to Emmaus.  

Eastertide guest post - Stations of the Resurrection

Sheila was one of my first blogger friends. We both live "abroad" and use Godly Play with children in church. She lives and works in Berlin, and blogs about Godly Play, art education, and encouraging kids to enjoy nature. The Celebrating Lent link party that we co-hosted this winter was largely her idea, and together we've decided to celebrate Eastertide with a series of guest posts. 

Her guest post here begins with a reference to the Stations of the Cross. For those who might not know, this is a way of prayerfully remembering the events of Good Friday. There are 14 stations, including "Jesus is condemned to death", "Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross", and "Jesus is nailed to the cross". The stations are often depicted visually and separated from one another in space - so you pray with your body as well as your mind as you move from one station to the next, and no reading is required. Wikipedia lists two variants of the stations, one more traditional and one more closely tied to Scripture. An excellent introduction to the traditional one is this website for children, but I also love reading about creative approaches like praying on the Chicago "L".  

You may be familiar with the Stations of the Cross, but did you know that there are Stations of the Resurrection as well? 

After several years of doing the Stations of the Cross with my children and finding them so meaningful, I thought it odd not to spend just as much time focusing on the Resurrection. I was looking for something similar for Eastertide when I found out about this awesome tool through Lacy at Catholic Icing. (If you are not familiar with Lacy's blog, it is full of wonderful ideas!) 

The Stations of the Resurrection cover all of the stories found in the four Gospels and beginning of Acts that happened after Jesus was resurrected and began appearing to different people. If you click here, you can find several versions of the Stations that Lacy has provided links for. My favorite is the downloadable Montessori-type cards found in her post. 

As you can imagine, I immediately printed out the Montessori cards (despite the fact that my printer was running out of ink!) and began to think about how to use them. So far, I have used them in these ways:

1) As a basis for good old-fashioned storytelling! (After all, we don't always have our Godly Play stuff right on hand, do we?) While on vacation in Texas last week, I sat with both children in a hammock looking up at the stars and began to tell them the story of Jesus appearing unexpected to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Both kids were mesmerized, and my son wanted to hear the story of Jesus' encounter with Thomas afterwards. Since then, I have been intentionally telling one of the Stations as a bedtime story and encouraging the kids to respond in prayer afterwards. 

2) As a game! My son loved matching the cards to the pictures and guessing the sequence. And since these cards have Roman numerals, it was also a great way for him to practice recognizing them.

3) A place to "hang out" or "revisit". In the Stations of the Cross for Children, the author explains a station as "a place to wait or one that you can come back to". I reminded my son of this and asked him, "Which Station would you like to hang out at tonight?" He wanted to go back to the first Station where Jesus is resurrected, so I told him that story all over again. Sometimes we think that children get bored easily and that they need more variety than they actually want. Many times they will simply want to hear the same story over and over again. The Stations of the Resurrection allow kids to "hang out" at the places they want to revisit and process, even if we adults may not understand exactly why.: )

from Lent into Eastertide

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the Lenten link-up, Celebrating Lent, co-hosted by Sheila from Explore and Express and me. I enjoyed reading about so many ideas for preparing for Easter, with crafts and artwork and nature...

using Montessori methods...

(Tired, Need Sleep)

and Waldorf....

(Frontier Dreams)

taking children to interact with the elderly...

(Explore and Express)

and including children in local community worship:

(Featherglen)

In addition to the variety, I've enjoyed spotting overlaps and similarities. We had photos of Lenten spirals from both The Diary of a Sower and Frontier Dreams; of Cenacles from Thoughts from the Sheepfold and My Domestic Monastery. To my post about Lenten displays I might have added the dinner table displays by Featherglen and Watkins Every Flavor Beans.

And now, whether we did all that we hoped to in preparing for it or not, another Easter has dawned. As St. John Chrysostom said,  You who have kept the fast, and you who have not, Rejoice, this day, for the table is bountifully spread! 

And Easter isn't over on Easter Monday or even tomorrow but continues for a full six weeks! Sheila proposed that, having observed Lent for all six weeks with our link-up, we should do something for the six weeks of Eastertide as well. I suggested that I'd like us to organize some guest posts now that we've connected with so many different bloggers. I've written a column for Sheila's blog and she's written one for mine, and we're also inviting others to join us. So I hope you'll continue to drop by during the next six weeks as we celebrate Easter and community with a series of guest posts.

Lenten link party

What are you doing with children for Lent this year?

How do you prepare for Easter in your family?

Will you be telling the Faces of Easter story, 
about the One who was (and is) Easter?

Sheila, from Explore and Express, and I are co-hosting a Lenten Link Party, and we would love you to be a part of it! Now if you already know all about link parties, skip to the next paragraph, but since this is all very new to me I figure it might be new to some of you as well. The idea is this: if you write a blog post that fits our theme (or if you've written one in the past), we will link to it with a little thumbnail image here (and on Sheila's blog, too). In exchange, we ask you to add a link back to both of our blogs. It's all in aid of sharing ideas, discovering new blogs, and finding new readers. 


We'd like to use this theme of Preparing for Easter to link up those who work with:

• art projects,
• nature projects,
• Montessori methods, &/or
• story-based religious education

All during Lent (from Feb 22 through Apr 7), you can click on the link at the bottom of this post (the blue, Add your link button) to create a link from our party to your blog post. You should then be prompted to give the URL of the specific post you want to include (not the URL for your blog's front page), the title of your entry, and your email address. Then please do add links within your own post to me and to Sheila. Every Wednesday, Sheila and I will each post a party update. Welcome aboard!

"I wonder about that, too"

Upper Room Ministries published an article about 

Sharing Lent and Easter with Your Children

Here's an excerpt:

How in the world do we explain to our children that Jesus was dead and in the grave for three days, then lived? Younger children may not ask the questions of “how” and “why” expecting detailed answers from adults. Older children do want to know how and why. Can you explain the resurrection? Probably not. It is a mystery and a wonder—and a statement of faith.

Saying “I believe” does not always mean understanding fully and event or happening. In talking about this with children, it may be helpful to say, “I wonder about that, too.” You may want to share other things that happen in the world that you do not fully understand. Invite your child then to reflect on times when they might not have factually understood an event but felt it to be real.

What really caught my attention was the response, I wonder about that, too. What a useful Godly Play phrase, not just for Good Friday and Easter but all year round.

Library of Congress photo

[You might also be interested in my post from last year, Telling Children about the Crucifixion]

Faces of Easter (Easter Day)

For our congregation, the last Sunday of the month is "family service" - a communion service abridged for children, with a sermon aimed especially at them (or sometimes a craft in place of a sermon). The goal is that the whole congregation (not just young families) should attend. This year, Easter fell on the last Sunday of the month, and the pastor asked if I'd like to present the sermon to keep continuity with what we'd been doing in Junior Church. Another congregant then suggested I should organize the whole service as a Godly Play session. And that's what I did.

ready to begin (with the Lenten purple under the Holy Family)

I was really grateful to our pastor for being so flexible about this. Not least for carrying on with aplomb when one child finally decided he was ready to examine the Holy Family figures... in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer! Given that I'd placed all our focal shelf materials on the altar, you can see how some priests might have found this unnerving.

at the end of the service (Easter white)

For Finnish Lutherans, just as important as the liturgical color is the number of candles to be placed on the altar. Easter is a six-candle festival, so I needed to negotiate with the vaktmästare [caretaker] to make sure that those candles looked clearly different from the Christ Candle. I think the result was clear: six candles for Easter plus the Christ Candle for Godly Play.

thank you, Pastor, for this photo

Some things didn't work so well. Seethroughfaith warned me near the beginning that I needed to speak up, but as soon as I began to tell the story I forgot. (After all, my focus was on the materials, not on my audience!) Some of the time I was "competing" with a baby who was at that squeal-y stage of exploring its voice, as well as two tots who just could not stay still and quiet. Perhaps I should have asked if I could have a lapel microphone.

And I regret not cutting the summary of the earlier plaques right down to First we heard about how Jesus was born, and a story from when he was a boy, and then about when he was baptized... Since there were a number of children there completely new to this lesson, I gave slightly longer summaries, and walked around the circle showing everyone the plaques (mine are only 4x6 inches / 10x15 cm). But with Vandriver interpreting into Finnish for me, this meant that this already rather long story became twice as long. Too long.

Yet even those whose focus had been lost were startled back to attention when I suddenly cried out that the story shouldn't stay in a line and re-arranged it, and there was good response at the wondering. Then I handed out Easter cards, blank on the inside, and asked everyone to decide what it was important for them to do - draw a picture inside, write a poem, make it a card for someone else or a card for themselves... And folks of all ages really seemed to enjoy that.

thanks, seethroughfaith, for the Response Time photos