Family Faith Formation Resources | Lent

This article is part of the Family Faith Formation Toolkit - a collection of resources for equipping ministry leaders, parents, and caregivers with family faith practices and resources, brought to you by Faith Formation Ministries.

In the following links you’ll find creative resources and practices for Lent to use both in community and at home. These ideas can be seamlessly woven into existing church programs and into family life.

Lent: In Community

Use the following ideas as you think about how you might engage all ages in observing Lent.

• Some churches distribute small bags or boxes filled with symbols of the season, activity suggestions, readings, and reflections to help families observe Lent at home. Check out Lent in a Bag (one church included a box of God’s Big Story cards in their version of this idea), Lent Reading Bags, and Lent in a Box devotions. How might you adapt these ideas to create something for all ages and stages at your church? Whose help might you enlist to put them together?

• Check out how FFM team members put their own spin on the "Lent in a Bag" idea to come up with a "Pathway to Easter." 

• Houses for Change: Lenten Boxes to Help the Homeless is an idea that combines giving things up at Lent with giving to others.

Lent: At Home

• Check out these prayer bottles to make with kids from the awesome people at Building Faith.

• The author of My first-grade daughter is “an Easter girl." Together, we’re learning about resurrection wondered whether “all the Bible stories read to her child were really sinking in.” (Parents/caregivers of the children you teach may wonder the same.) Share her post with families prior to Lent.

• Try This at Home: Four Resources for Lent contains easy ideas for families with children of all ages.

• This printable booklet by Nina Munns contains easy Lenten ideas for families with young children.

• Coloring one of these free Lenten Calendar Templates from Sybil Macbeth is a helpful way for older kids and adults to keep a daily discipline during Lent.

QUESTIONS?

If you’re part of the Christian Reformed Church in North America and you have questions about how to equip ministry leaders, parents, and caregivers with family faith practices and resources, one of Faith Formation Ministries’ Regional Catalyzers would love to talk with you about ideas and strategies.