Category: Just in time

Educational designs of a timely nature

Burying the Alleluia: A Lenten Spiritual Practice

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Another Lenten practice to either think about for next year or if you are doing this already to live more deeply into this practice

faithumchurch's avatarJourney into Faith - Learning, Loving, Leading at Faith United A United Methodist Church

Burying Alleluia SanctuaryFaith’s worship and spiritual formation staff is introducing our congregation to the Lenten spiritual practice of Burying the Alleluia this Lent. While the practice of Burying the Alleluia might be new to Faith UMC, it is an ancient Christian tradition practiced in many faith traditions. Read on to learn more about this Lenten spiritual practice.

Alleluia is a word heard throughout the Christian world regardless of language. Alleluia is the Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew word Hallelujah, a word meaning praise the Lord. In the Western world, Alleluia came to be associated with the celebration of the most important season of the Church year, Easter. The association of Alleluia with Easter led to the custom of intentionally omitting it from liturgy during Lent.  It’s a kind of verbal fast, not with the intention of depressing the mood of our worship services, but instead to create a sense of anticipation…

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Holy Week Box

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This is a wonderful idea for sharing the story of Holy Week with young children. Thank you Camille LeBron Powell and Linda LeBron.

Camille LeBron Powell's avatarCamille LeBron Powell

This is an idea that my mom, Linda LeBron (a fabulous retired church educator), came up with a few years ago. We’ve used it with our moms’ Bible study group. It’s something that families could make together at home, in a class, or even as part of a worship service with interactive prayer stations.

Our family made one with my daughter when she was 3 1/2 years old. It led to some great conversations about communion and ultimately to her taking communion for the first time that Easter.

Here it is:

All of the supplies can be found at a regular craft store: cardboard box with lid (approximately  2″x2″x3″), marker, white fabric, green paper, scissors, simple wooden doll (they came in a bag of 12)

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Cut the green paper to resemble 2 or more palm branches. Shout “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!”…

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Interactive Worship Ideas

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At Faith Presbyterian (https://www.facebook.com/faithpresgso), we embrace our traditional worship style and space while making our service accessible and engaging for all. Children and their families are welcome at the front of the sanctuary with activities geared toward their age level. Our family worship guide follows the pattern of the service and offers extra enrichment ideas and activities for children and active learners of all ages.The outline of a traditional worship service centered around The Word is beautiful and quite freeing when we remember that The Word is The Living Word of God – incarnate in Christ, written in scripture, and enacted in the world.

For Lent, we are using a themed sermon series inspired by Rev. Whitney Wilkinson following the “Landscape of Lent.” Each week, we add a new visual element to represent some aspect of the scripture – ashes, wilderness, wind, water, mud, cave, palms, bread – and we will close with Easter in the garden. Continue reading →

Grief to Bear

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I am about to attend the second of two memorial services this week –people of strong faith who I’m sure are with God and who are no longer in pain. While knowing that they have moved from life into life, it is still difficult to bear their loss. Our beloved former president of Columbia Theological Seminary, Steve Hayner, will soon be lifted up in communal remembrance. He and his wife, Sharol Hayner have let us walk with them in this journey through pancreatic cancer by means of the CaringBridge website. In tribute to their incredible witness of faith, I lift up here a portion of one of Sharol’s posts from October 8, 2014 on discipleship during difficult times: Continue reading →

Digital Lenten Spiritual Discipline

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These days, one of the most popular ways to connect with others via social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) is by sharing meaningful photos. The Church has caught onto this trend with themed photo challenges. One of the most widely-known challenges is from the United Methodist Church’s rethinkchurch.org. With the rise in photo-sharing popularity, other organizations, denominations, and even individual congregations have created their own “photo challenges” for Lent and Advent. Each challenge usually assigns a word and Scripture passage to a day in the season, and tasks the participant with seeking out an image that fits the word. When shared, participants are encouraged to use the hashtags provided by the facilitating organization. When a participant clicks the hashtag (e.g. #pictureLent, #Lent2015), all hash-tagged posts appear together. Continue reading →

Black History Month Intergenerational Model

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Black History Month2Today I wanted to talk about a teaching model that my home church, Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia is using for all youth and adult classes this month. The RED (Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity) group of this multicultural congregation created a series of storytelling panels around the topic of schooling (something that both age groups share).  Each week of this month a different mixed race panel of congregation members will talk about what school was like when they were growing up in the South. Continue reading →

Lent through Easter Family Devotion Booklet

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A Garden of Devotion, Conversation and Reflection for Lent and Easter: 2015

The special seasons of preparation for the church Smit Post 2-10-15offer congregations the opportunity to support families in the developing and maintaining of good practices for faithful devotion as families at home. Parents are very clear that they believe that they ought to be the primary teachers of faith to their children, but often struggle with how they might do that. Parents want to share their faith with their children, but they often simply don’t know how to do it. Research also affirms that children learn faith best from their parents. So, the best thing that the church can do for our children is support and resource their parents in the ways and means of passing on their faith with those they love so much.

Here is one resource that congregations can give to families to help them do just that. Continue reading →