South Presbyterian ChurchFounded 1723 |
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150 West Church Street Tel: 201.384.8932 Fax: 201.384.2376 |
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Family Date Book |
| April 2 One Great Hour of Sharing Offering will be collected during the service. Children, remember your fish banks Family Matters — 4-6 p.m. Children will be rehearsing to sing for the Palm Sunday service. |
| April 9—PALM SUNDAY NOTE: No church school. In celebration of Palm Sunday, children and parents will worship together. Children who are singing must meet at church, inside the sanctuary at 9:15 a.m. to rehearse. Family Matters 4-6 p.m. |
| April 16—EASTER Join us for an Easter egg hunt after the service! No church school. Families worship together. No Family Matters |
| April 23 Family Matters 4-6 p.m. |
| April 30 Family Matters 4-6 p.m. |
How to Talk to Children about Easter
Every Tuesday night, I meet with a small group to discuss children’s ministry—the rewards, the challenges and everything in between. During Lent, our discussions have focused specifically on how do you talk about Easter to children of various ages. Specifically, how do you talk about Jesus’ death on the cross in a way that children will understand? We can’t gloss over Jesus’ death for what happened on the cross is the very foundation of our faith. Yet what is the best way to tell children this story?
A good starting point is to realize that Easter is bigger than any of us ever fully understand. So we do not need to feel we have to know all the answers. According to Carolyn Brown in Sharing the Easter Faith With Children, the truth is we understand different aspects of Easter better at different times of our lives.
Brown offers the following suggestions that I hope you will find helpful this Easter when talking to your children about the wonderful celebration of hope and promises fulfilled.
Children have a hard time grasping the reality and the finality of death. Many times we try to get around this by focusing on new life, paying attention to eggs, flowers and butterflies as “new life” symbols. While children are vaguely interested in these symbols, “new life” strikes few of them as particularly exciting. Instead, try talking to younger children about the empty tomb as the ultimate victory of the good guys (God/Jesus) over the bad guys (Judas, the priests, the soldiers, etc.). On Good Friday the bad guys thought they had won. They killed Jesus and sealed his body into a tomb. On Easter morning Jesus blasted out of the tomb and proved once and for all that God is more powerful than the bad guys. Children’s natural response to such a victory is to shout, “Hooray for God and Jesus!”
For older children, who are focused on friendships and have clear expectations of “best friends,” the most significant resurrection story is the story of Peter’s breakfast conversation with Jesus (John 21:1-19). Peter had been Jesus’ friend and had promised to stick with Jesus no matter what. But he had denied knowing Jesus three times the night Jesus was arrested. For Peter the resurrection happened when Jesus forgave him, welcomed him back as a friend, and put him to work building God’s kingdom. For older children, Easter holds the promise that Jesus forgives.
I hope you find these suggestions helpful and that it creates some lively discussions about Easter with your family and that you discover something new about God and His promises this Easter morning!
