Use this activity on the VibrantFaith@Home website. Giving It Up
Lent is a season of prayer, self-examination, and service. It’s a common Christian practice to sacrifice something during Lent — to deny yourself something you like. But why?
Use this activity on the VibrantFaith@Home website. Giving It Up
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Lent is a time to take a hard look at ourselves and our relationships with others. Before his passion, Jesus reminded his followers that ultimate love means laying down one’s life for one’s friends. For whom are you willing to give of the essence of your life?
Use this activity with your family at home this week. Lay Down Your Life At church, we change the colors of the paraments (the cloths that are used in the worship space) to reflect the seasons of the church year. Maybe some home decorating during Lent could help you get ready for celebrating Easter. See the Vibrant Faith @ Home activity called Purpling Your Home.
Vibrant Faith has made some digital resources available for use during Lent. Each week on Wednesdays and Sundays, I'll be sharing a new post with links to the activities, and I'll put a reminder on our Facebook page to alert everyone to the new posts. I hope you enjoy these activities as you prepare for Easter this year. They include scripture, video clips, quizzes, readings, music and things to do together with your friends or family. Here's the first one!
The Meaning of Lent How long does Lent last? What colors are associated with Lent? Where do the ashes come from that are used on Ash Wednesday? As Christians, we participate in the season of Lent in varying ways. But, to get the most out of our Lenten season, it sometimes helps to go back to the beginning. Check out the Vibrant Faith @ Home activity called The Meaning of Lent. School's been in session for a month now. What kind of answers are you getting when you ask your children, "How was school today?" or "What did you learn at school today?" or "How was your day?"
Don't you wish your kids would open up and tell you everything about it? Maybe it's all in the questions we ask. Here's a link to an interesting article with twenty-five suggestions for how to ask your kids about their day so they might actually provide some real information! Try a couple and let us know what happens. *At the end of that article is another link to one targeted to parents of teens! Are you at that stage where you're sending a teenager off to college for the first time? Here's a poignant story from a Missouri dad packing his son's car for that cross country trip. It may speak to you and remind you of the sweet moments mixed with the sad. Click the link below for the NPR story - you can listen or just read it yourself.
This I Believe Scientists have been studying the value of play in children's physical, social, and brain development. What they've discovered may surprise you!
I wonder what this may mean for schools who are reducing or cutting playground time in favor of more class time? Click the button below to listen to this story from NPR. Last week to celebrate its tenth anniversary, Facebook created videos for everyone of your history as a Facebook user. Did you see yours? I decided to watch every single one that any of my friends posted. It was actually a lot of fun seeing little 60 second flashbacks of the past few years - very few of us had been using it since the very beginning.
When I was attending a gathering with other church educators, someone suggested that those little clips might be an indicator of what is most important to us. Facebook "chose" to include the things that got the most "Likes" or that you posted about most often. So what does your video say about you and what you value? Do you like the message it sends? How would you want it to change? You might talk about it with your friends and see where the conversation leads. ~Shirley I was reading the latest issue of Lifelong Faith Journal, and found an article titled "Why Children Need Ignatian Spirituality." Yeah. Really. We can dig into the definition later if you want, but what caught my eye was a way of having a conversation with your children about their day.
Have you ever asked your child "What did you do at school today?" only to get an indifferent "Nothing." in response? This article's authors (Tim and Sue Muldoon), propose a different set of questions. -What was something that made you happy today? -What was something that made you feel sad? -What are you looking forward to tomorrow? Following a conversation around these questions, you might then thank God for what made them happy, ask for God's help for the things that caused sadness, and ask God to be with them in what comes the next day. I'm going to try it with my grandson the next time I see him. If you try it with your family, let me know how it goes. I'll be waiting to hear all about it! (If you'd like to peruse the whole article you may find it here: Lifelong Faith Journal Have you considered your family's Nativity story books and their underlying messages? Here's an article that may prompt some musings of your own. If you're interested, I have some Nativity story books on my shelves that I would be happy to show you sometime!
Click here for link to article! |
Shirley WeyrauchI am the Christian Education Coordinator at Christ Church, UCC. Archives
September 2015
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