so my friend Jennifer Ruggles asked for a few lenten ideas to do with children and families. so i thought i would share them here too.
Originally Lent was only the week before easter.. Holy week.
Now its 40 days, So you have lots of time don"t feel like you have to hurry....you can baby step into the season.
1.Today, clean out the fridge together. You can make leftovers and/or pancakes for shrove tuesday.
Shrove tuesday was the day for cleaning out the pantry before the fast.
If you have stuff in pantry that you can give to a food bank , do that as A part of this week's lenten prep.
2. Get Kids to Help you clean out the lint trap in your dryer.
As you/ they clean it out, talk about God cleaning out the lent, the junk, that gets stuck on us, and ask jesus to clean out your heart as u clean the Lint trap! a Linten confessional
3. Have kids write down or draw their sins... What they are sorry about,
Stuff they know they do wrong(age appropriate) and parents do this too.
We used small pieces of paper and burned them in a glass dish at dinner!
Then we used the ashes from this to make crosses on our foreheads symbolic of ash wednesday.
And since im not a literalist, we did this during
The first week of lent not on the actual day .
4. We used a piece of purple cloth on the table ( create a centerpiece or you can create an altar space) and keep the dish of ashes on the table during lent as a reminder.
5. We also had a lint brush on the table..
Pass around the lint brush as a tool for confession. As You roll the lint Brush on your clothes ask god to remove the junk/lint of the day and Ask his forgiveness.
( they might want to do this to each other : ))
6. Another center piece idea is to buy planted bulbs that are ready to grow, or plant seeds in a pot and watch them grow during lent. New life coming from the earth, the death of a seed brings life.
7. Along with this idea, get a garden hoe and put it in the corner of The room, by the door or fireplace, somewhere you will see it everyday.
Use it as a visual reminder of God tilling the soil of your hearts and getting
Ready to plant and grow new things in your life.
I also used seed
Packets in the centerpiece for a visual reminder.
8. As a family save change for an organization. As a church,
Our kids saved change and at easter we bought baby chicks and ducks through the
Heifer project international ( world vision has a similar thing) .
Hope these help get you started! and thanks jen for getting me started on my blogging practice for Lent!
and BTW pancakes at IHOP are always a good idea if you don't have time or space to cook!!!!