mercredi 20 février 2013

An Easter "journey" for children

Here is a summary of an Easter special that we put on for the kids in our church a few years back.  We have several small Sunday School rooms, plus a large open space, the description reflects that.

On Easter Sunday, the whole church gathered for time of all-age worship. Then we took the kids out for their Easter journey. I think that with a little adaptation, you could also use this as an all-age service.

Room 1:

Room set for a meal - low table, white cloth, real glasses, candles, red grape juice, matzoh
Leader 1 invites the children to come in and sit down. Tells the story of the last supper. The children share the grape juice and matzoh. When done, leader 1 invites children to sing an appropriate song while moving on to...

Open space:

"dressed" as garden (basically all our pot-plants and some green sheets).
Leader 2 tells story of Jesus' arrest. At end, 3 adults mime Jesus being frog-marched away between 2 soldiers, into

Room 2:

set as court room (table, chairs, rows of chairs as public benches. children sit in public benches) bowl of water and towel on table
Leader 3 tells story of trial (from memory, we may have simplified). Leader 3 washes hands at appropriate point to represent Pilate.
Children hussled from room by Leader 4 in persona of Roman soldier

Open space again (plants have swiftly been moved during previous set by non-involved adults)
2 large pieces of wood on floor, big enough to make a life-size cross is best. Nails and a hammer beside them.
Leader 4 tells about crucifixion, assembling the cross by banging in nails at appropriate time.


Room 3:
no special set - just an opportunity to sit the children down and talk quietly about what has happened to Jesus.  (We got quite a strong reaction, especially from some of the younger children, and all needed a bit of a breather). After a short reflective time we moved to...

Room 4
dressed as garden. small popup tent used to make tomb with cardboard stone leaning beside it.
leader talks about the women finding the tomb empty. Children invited to go inside tomb to check it really is empty.
Practiced shouting "Hallelujah" and "Jesus is alive" and learned new song about resurrection.

At this point, we took the children back downstairs and had them burst into the sanctuary shouting Hallelujah and Jesus is Alive (this was of course planned in advance with the pastor) and then move into singing new song which we taught to congregation.



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