Six New Things – Holy Week Supplemental
Just so they didn’t get buried in a regular Six New Things, here are some last-minute quick ideas for an engaging, eventful Holy Week and Easter!
One
Tips & How-Tos for including children – and all generations – in Holy Week abound. Three solid articles full of good suggestions:
- 6 Creative Ways to Include Children in Easter Worship (Virtually or In Person)
- How to Help Families Celebrate Holy Week at Home (Again)
- Including Children in Holy Week
Two
It’ll help if you’ve got Interactive Intergenerational Holy Week Liturgies and/or liturgical elements:
- Michel Le Gribble pairs key Holy Week texts with yoga in her Palm Sunday, The Three Holy Days, and Resurrection Sunday series.
- Rev. Elsa Cook keeps coming up with new additions to her Pandemic Prayers series. Find the latest for Holy Week and Easter – and the whole archive – in her blog.
- Illustrated Ministries offers all sorts of inserts, coloring pages, and prompts in their Illustrated Holy Week offerings.
- And The Ministry Lab’s Rev. Emily Meyer has created Go Out with Joy, including: a full Palm Sunday outdoor liturgy; Monday-thru-Wednesday activities to prepare for a Good Friday Stations of the Cross (indoor/at-home or outdoor gathered); Maundy Thursday suggestions; and full liturgies for both the Easter Vigil (outdoor in-person or online) and Easter Morning – all compiled in both a leader and family packets.
Three
We’ve found and shared several Interactive Intergenerational Great Ideas specific to Easter celebrations:
- Rev. Elsa Cook suggests this Latvian swing-hanging tradition for playful, outdoor, social-distanced fun.
- Several folks have suggested creating a local Resurrection Awe Walk: you can make it specific to finding New Life in your neighborhood.
- OR, create an Easter Egg Hunt for the whole neighborhood!
- Check out our Great Ideas archive for more!
Four
Some really creative folks are offering fantastic Easter Pageants:
- Rev. Elsa Cook’s This Year: An Easter Pageant for a Pandemic Year fits with her Pandemic Year liturgical series (see above).
- Illustrated Ministry built on their Christmas Pageant success with their Virtual Easter Pageant; sure to be a hit! And be sure to incorporate their Illustrated Resurrection Set, somewhere.
- Glenys Nellist just published her new ‘Twas the Morning of Easter children’s book – and promptly adapted it into an Easter Pageant.
Five
In case you want to share them for Children’s Time, as gifts, or suggest them to parents, some favorite Easter Children’s Books are:
- Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco (Penguin Random House)
- Jesus Is Risen!: An Easter Pop-Up Book by Agostino Traini (Sparkhouse)
- ‘Twas the Morning of Easter by Glenys Nellist (Zonderkidz)
Six
If a video or film would spark up your celebrations, check out:
- “Ms. Suzy’s” (Susan Hofflander) Easter video, posting soon on her YouTube channel; it’ll be #9 in her series spanning Christmas to Easter.
- The Work of the People have thoughtful videos spanning Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Morning (along with appropriate liturgical pieces).
- Illustrated Ministry offers Stations of the Cross worship videos with accompanying liturgical script and reflection booklets).
- And just in case you’ve never heard of it, a fun film to share with everyone is Rise of the Guardians: it’s good.
Find more Lent & Easter Faith Formation or Worship ideas in our lib guides!
These are late in arriving to you, I know. But I also know there are some folks who are still planning and feeling scrambled to get elements together. I hope these provide some last-minute inspirations and renewed energy to create meaningful and transformative experiences for your people.
Blessings of New Life, dear siblings!!
