Pre Easter Activities for Kids

From Elizabeth:
As a Baptist, we don't celebrate a church calendar and often we hit Easter with a quick-Jesus died and rose again, okay now bunnies, eggs, flowers! While Christmas has a big lead in (we can't escape it) Easter doesn't. In college I had an Episcopal roommate (and friend) so I began celebrating Lent and I LOVE it-how it prepares us for Easter. Here are some Lent activities for children I found on the web, we are going to try the Pot one and save the jelly beans for next year (I kinda edited the meanings of the pot one but might work on the jelly bean's wording).
Let me know if you do anything special (and you don't have to call it Lent).

Prayer Pot Instructions
On Ash Wednesday: Place the prayer pot (little clay pot-can be made or bought) in a special place where it can't be missed, perhaps the center of the family table. It reminds everyone that Lent is here, but remains empty for the next few days.
On the First Sunday of Lent: A small heart cut from construction paper is placed in the pot during the main meal, to remind everyone of God's love and that they should show their love for, and be kind to, others.
On the Second Sunday of Lent: A small seed is placed in the pot to remind everyone that God's love for them constantly grows and that they should show love and compassion for other people.
On the Third Sunday of Lent: Place a rubber band in the pot as a reminder that God always stretches His patience and everyone should do the same for others, even when it isn't easy.
On the Fourth Sunday of Lent: A marble is placed in the pot to remind everyone of all that God has given to us and the importance of taking turns and sharing with others in all that they do.
On the Fifth Sunday of Lent: Add a Band-Aid to the pot to remind everyone that God ‘binds up the broken-hearted’ and we should help other people when they are sad or hurt.
On Palm Sunday: Place a tiny piece of a palm, to remind everyone that Jesus is their King and they should remember to say their prayers to Him.
On Easter Sunday: The last item is a tiny piece of eggshell to remind everyone that Jesus rose from the grave and will always be with them and is always ready to hear their prayers.

Last year our kids were 3,4 and 6 and we felt 40 days to give up one thing was a bit long for them. We came up with this idea instead to go along with the jellybean prayer and it was a hit at our house. The kids are excited to do it again this year.

On Ash Wednesday we set out a glass jar for each child with a small copy of the jellybean prayer taped to it. We determined a behavior to go with each jellybean color (corresponding with the prayer). Each day the kids could earn a jellybean of any color they followed through on. They could not eat the jellybeans until Easter. The kids could not earn white jellybeans, these represented the Grace of Christ, which is a gift not earned ourselves. On Easter morning, the kids woke to find their jars filled up where they were still empty (lacking) with white jellybeans (Christ's grace)

This is how we interpreted each color. You can make your own ideas based on ages and needs of your children.

• Red is for the blood Christ gave (each morning we chose something to sacrifice that day to earn the red jellybean. It had to be something they would have had the opportunity to have or do on that day)

• Green is for the palm's cool shade (green jellybeans were earned for good deeds. It was a good dead to provide shade for Jesus with the palm)

• Yellow is for God's light so bright (yellow jellybeans were earned for sharing God's light through kindness to others)

• Orange is for prayers at twilight (orange jellybeans were earned for attentive behavior during bedtime prayer time and night time bible story)

• Black is for sweet rest at night (these were earned for going to bed good. we used blue though, as our kids are not fans of black jellybeans)

• White is for the Grace of Christ (these we could not earn as mentioned above)

• Purple is for His days of sorrow (we earned these through apologizing to anyone we hurt with our words or deeds that day)

• Pink is for each new tomorrow (pink jellybeans were earned when we forgave those who apologized to us for hurtful behavior)

During the course of 40 days the kids did not tire of this activity and have talked about how fun it was throughout the year.
Of course, the Easter bunny might not want to bring any more jellybeans for the baskets!!

More on Movies and Theology

I found a really cool video today of some "captial T" theologians from Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY, including seminary president Albert Moehler, discussing theology and the movie Avatar...and using it to discuss how Christians should engage movies generally and the culture at large. Some really interesting stuff is said that parallels some of our recent discussions in class.

Enjoy.

How to Watch Movies

The last couple of weeks we've been challenged to know what we believe and why...and to be aware of outside influences on us through entertainment and media that could challenge and undermine the truth. Though we Americans are probably over saturated with entertainment and could stand to dial it down, we are still going to view a LOT over the next few years. So instead of being passive receptors of whatever values and worldview (what I call little 't' theology) those storytellers have, we as Christians should consciously interact with it to 1) strengthen and fill out our own beliefs, 2) resist untruthful messages and influences, and 3) be discerning about what we subject ourselves and our family to.

I've compiled a list of suggestions and questions to ask below to help us in this endeavor. your homework is to run a movie/book/TV show through these things this week to try to flesh out the theology of a given story. I've suggested we could all do it with Star Wars (any of the episodes, but especially 4, 5 and 6 since I'm a geezer) and discuss in class this Sunday. I have since thought of a better idea...The Matrix! Either way, the goal is just to interact with the story and have some good discussion about either set of movies (or anything you want to apply it to).

‘Theology’, in the context of a story (movies, books, TV, etc.), is best understood in a more general sense as a philosophy, set of values, or particular perspective on reality rather than a proper Christian belief system. But we want to compare the theology in these stories with our (hopefully) orthodox Christian theology.

Look for explicit as well as implicit theology in a story. This will be necessarily subjective to some degree (different people might see different things, and we are many times guessing the author’s intention).

Look for intentional and unintentional parallels with orthodox Christian theology, in addition to contrasts and contradictions. Unintentional parallels are a result of the fact that the Christian view is the one based in reality, and since it is a reality and common to everyone including unbelievers, parts of it will show up in competing theologies sometimes unintentionally.

Here are the questions I suggest asking as a starter to try to figure out what the theology of a particular story might be. Of course there can be many more based on the individual story you are interacting with. Additionally, some of these questions might not make much sense in one story, but give you a lot to think about in another story.

· How does the story portray God (or its version of God)? If the story does not portray God at all that is still very significant. Does it assume God does not exist, or if He does that He is just not important or relevant? How does that impact the story?
· What is the significance or meaning of any supernatural events in the story…or lack of them?
· How does the story portray human nature, purpose and destiny?
· Compare and contrast the hero/heroine with Christ…stories love messiahs. Values, actions, words, etc. If there is not a clear hero, are there implications of that?
· Analyze the values and characteristics of the ‘bad guy(s)’. What makes them ‘bad’ from the viewpoint of the story teller?
· What in or about the story are you supposed to find funny (if anything)?
· What is it that you are supposed to really like about the story overall? (Some common things in movies are good looking people, cool/hip style, violence, etc.) What is the Christian view of those things?
· How does the story address the following themes: sin, forgiveness, evil, death and afterlife, religion, suffering, rebirth, etc?
· Overall, what characteristics or concepts does the story celebrate versus condemn? (Perhaps none are being either celebrated or condemned…what does this say? A very commonly celebrated concept is ‘romantic love’, for example. Though not necessarily bad and even good in some contexts, our culture tends to idolize it and props it up as the ideal or source of happiness...a position that only God should have.)

Often times, many of the celebrated and condemned values will line up in accordance with Christian belief due to a common understanding of morality (love is good, greed is bad, etc.).
However a very subtle, yet crucial, departure from Christian belief will be present in how the story portrays human nature, potential, and morality.

Train yourself to see life (and stories) through the glasses of the gospel…the understanding of which is based in theology!!!

Easter!!

The Easter Season is soon upon us!
We will be having our second annual Easter Egg hunt at the UT graduate student housing Breckenridge. This will be an awesome social event, as well as an outreach.
Please mark your calendars for Saturday, March 27 10:30-1 (the hunt will be at noon, we will hand out fliers, set up and have lunch before).
Also please start buying eggs and candy which we will be collecting in Sunday school and stuffing at an upcoming playgroup.
Great crowd from last year!