- Use plastic Easter eggs to share the love of Jesus. Inside each egg, place the name and address of one shut-in, grieving, or hospitalized member of your congregation. Place prepared eggs in a basket or hang eggs on a tree branch. Several weeks before Easter, invite everyone to choose an egg. Suggest that each person or family send cards and treats and/or make personal visits to cheer those who are homebound or too ill to join in Easter worship services this year.
- Consider a twist to your usual Easter egg hunt. In addition to hiding eggs for children to find, include a special activity—a treasure hunt! Here’s how:
- First, decide on a way to distinguish the treasure hunt eggs from other eggs in the hunt (e.g., declare all green eggs as “treasure eggs”; mark “treasure eggs” with a cross).
- Stuff each “treasure egg” with a clue that leads from that egg to the next, with the final egg’s clue leading to a Resurrection Cross. (Make this in 3-D from real wood or decorate it on a bulletin board somewhere in your building.)
- When everyone has found the final egg and gathered near the cross, use the opportunity to share the Gospel message—the treasure of God’s love in Christ.
(Note: This activity will work best with small groups of children, one group at a time—perhaps while others enjoy a snack or games.)
- Invite families to join in decorating the church for Easter this year. With adult supervision, even young children can help set lilies in place, string white mini-lights on the altar, or assist in hanging white crepe paper and other decorations. After decorating the church, invite everyone to an Easter egg party, where participants will decorate hard-boiled eggs with Easter egg dyes, Christian stickers, and more.
- Does your church celebrate Easter with a sunrise service? This year you might invite worshipers to gather outside the church to begin. Lead the congregation into a darkened or dimly lit sanctuary, and as the Easter account is read from Scripture, slowly turn on the lights one by one or turn up the intensity of the sanctuary lights. (This works best if they are on a rheostat.) Rejoice in your resurrected Lord Jesus, the true and only Light of the World!
- Enlist the help of your family or your church’s youth and service groups to share the Good News of Easter with neighbors and friends this year. Prepare Friendship Baskets that include a few of CTA’s Gospel Easter Eggs™, an “He Is Risen” Easter greeting card, some Christian stickers, and edible homemade treats. Deliver the baskets by hand to neighbors, along with the personal invitations to join you in worship on Easter morning.
- Get every family member involved in making a gigantic Easter card outside your building this year. Use sidewalk chalk to transform your driveway, steps, or sidewalks into a surface for sharing the risen Jesus. Adults or older children can outline an open tomb, empty cross, and flowers. Little children can fill in the outlines with bright chalk colors. As you work together, remind each other of the eternal importance of sharing the Gospel message of Christ’s resurrection with the world. Jesus lives! Rejoice!
- Ask congregation families to help decorate an Easter tree (any small tree on your church property). Before Easter Sunday, give each participating family a plastic egg. Suggest families use the egg as an object lesson as they teach their children about the empty tomb on that first Easter when Jesus arose from the dead. Children can use permanent markers to decorate the egg. On Easter morning, invite families to hang their eggs on the designated tree so all who see it will hear that Jesus lives!
- Usually by Easter time, students in first grade are able to read quite well on their own. A great Easter gift might include a “child friendly” Bible story book. Parents and Sunday school teachers can, in this way, encourage little ones to read the exciting Easter story for themselves. Check out CTA’s new children’s items.
- During an expanded Easter egg hunt (see idea below) or in your children’s Sunday school worship in the six weeks before Easter, use the Easter Activity Puzzle Magnet. Each piece tells a different part of the story leading up to Jesus’ resurrection. Also included is a set of six free reproducible devotions, one devotion for each piece of the cross, one set of devotions per order. Since the devotions are reproducible, you also can send one copy home with each child for review/use there. The magnet pieces, displayed on the refrigerator, will become a reminder of the true meaning of Easter and a witnessing opportunity when friends and neighbors visit the family.
- Why not expand your usual Easter egg hunt this year? You can create an entire morning of egg-citing learning activities for the children in your community. Well before the egg hunt begins, invite youngsters into your facility. Set up activity stations at which the children paint cookies (see below), decorate and dye hard-boiled eggs, run spoon races with hard-boiled eggs, or engage in other egg-related activities. As they do so, adults can tell why eggs are an appropriate symbol for the true message of Easter; the empty shells remind us of Jesus’ empty tomb. Afterward, lead children outside for the egg hunt—a culminating event that will undoubtedly hold greater meaning for all participants. As a closing devotion, show how the Easter Activity Puzzle Magnet pieces go together, condense the free devotional material to explain the meaning of the cross, and send each child home with a copy of the six devotions and an Easter Activity Puzzle Magnet so families can together recall Jesus’ death and resurrection.
- Here’s an idea to print in this month’s newsletter to help families talk about the meaning of Easter.
Prepare your favorite sugar cookie recipe. While it chills, let children help you prepare egg-yolk paint. You’ll need one egg for each paint color you want to use. Separate the egg white from the yolk and discard the egg white. Whisk the yolk until smooth, and then add 5 to 6 drops of food coloring. Whisk again until the color is thoroughly mixed. Repeat with addition yolks for additional colors. When the cookie dough is chilled, use new (!) watercolor paintbrushes to add crosses, flowers, or other Easter symbols on each unbaked cookie. Return the painted cookies to the refrigerator to chill until firm. Bake as directed and enjoy! (Warning: Do not taste the unbaked egg yolk “paints”! Food poisoning is a possibility!)
- Invite the children to use window markers to decorate church patio doors and other large windows for Easter. Window markers are formulated to wash off easily, but your church family may want to enjoy the art for several weeks.
- Help little ones connect with the real meaning of Easter – new life, eternal life through Jesus! Save the colored egg shells from hard-boiled Easter eggs. Draw a cross on stiff paper or cardboard. Let children glue the bits of colored shells to fill in the cross. As your class works together on this project, talk about the excitement and joy that Jesus’ victory brings.
- Help shut-ins and hospitalized members join in your church family’s Easter celebration, too! Take or send each person a bookmark, magnet, or other Easter gift that you plan to distribute to worshipers on Easter Sunday. Include a note with words like: We will miss worshiping with you on Easter Sunday, but pray that this (bookmark) will be a reminder of our love for you in Jesus.
- Let your Easter joy bubble over! Make this easy bubble recipe and watch for smiles from young and old alike: In a large plastic container, gently stir together 1 cup liquid dish soap, 2 cups warm water, 4 tablespoons glycerine (check at your local drugstore), and 1 teaspoon sugar. Use egg dipping wires, funnels, straws, rubber bands, and other household items to make bubbles—just dip the devices into the bubble mixture and blow through them or wave them in the air!
