This Christ-centered Easter family idea is the perfect way to prepare your heart for Holy Week!
Two weeks before Easter, I’m hurriedly scouring the campus library at my college looking for a book focused on the passion week. I was looking for a book to help me meditate on the cross and His sacrifice.
Finally, I find a book and I walk away ready to dive into a few weeks of preparing my heart for Easter.
I’m not sure how this desire came about but I haven’t stopped since my college years.
Are you Easter People?
I confess I’m an Easter person!
I love all that this season reminds us of, like growing, starting again, new life, the cross, His love…
No, I don’t practice Lent, religiously giving up things. Not that I am against Lent but many times we enter with a project mindset instead of using it as a means to draw closer to Him. I have come to realize that polite fasts alone don’t truly prepare me to be awed by His resurrection.
So, I rather spend days and sometimes weeks before Easter marinating, pondering and meditating on His love and sacrifice me. As I begin this preparation, I ask God to help me see his sacrifice, work, and love with a fresh perspective.
I don’t want to lose the awe and wonder for His Love for me at the cross in this week or throughout the year. Unfortunately, this happens to a lot of us who have grown up hearing those familiar Bible stories every year.
We are Easter people and Halleluajah is our song! ~ Pope John Paul 11
Christ Centered Family Easter Idea: Prayer Station
So now my heart’s desire is to be an Easter family. I want my little people to be Easter people!
We prepare our hearts a few weeks before Easter with a morning Prayer Station. I start this Easter Prayer Station family activity two weeks before Easter. Then on Easter week, we enjoy our simple and Christ focused Easter Advent for Busy Families which we do at dinner. You can use this advent for little kids and tweak it for older children.
related link: Easter Advent for the Busy Family with a free printable!
I created an area near our dining room for our prayer station. On a small table, set a candle and a jar full of verses. Every morning each child comes downstairs and lights the candle, picks a verse from the jar and prays the verse. I have a 5 step praying scripture process that I use but for the kids, I have condensed it.
I’m all about Easter egg hunts and baskets but I decided a few years back that I was going to lay spiritual foundations in all of our holidays. So we enjoy Easter bunny but we focus on the Cross.
related link: Fun Easter Food–Carrot Shaped Calzone
Praying Scripture for Kids
- Pick a verse from the jar. It can be any verse. Start with prayer and ask God to “Open my eyes to see wonderful things in your Word.” (psalms 119:18)
- Read the verse you picked out loud. Then personalize the verse by adding your name to the verse.
- Open your bible and write the verse out in your journal. Then, write the answer to the following question in a prayer — How will I live differently today if I lived out this truth?
We all participate in this activity and we only do steps 1 & 2 when we first wake up. Then we go get ready for the day. When we come down for breakfast we get our Bibles look up the verse and do step #3. Here we write out a prayer in our journal. If they have more time they can answer the question in the “ponder” section.
My favorite part is after we are all done each of us takes a turn sharing what we read and what the Lord showed us through it.
Remember you can do this anytime of the day. Try it right after dinner or before they go to bed. For our family, it works best to do it in the morning.
There is no special meaning to lighting a candle. The candle lighting creates an ambiance of reflection and quietness for our minds. Though my husband reminded me the smoke of the candle goes up which can be symbolic of what happens with our prayers. Our kids love lighting the candle so it works out great!
Free Printables
I created this Praying Scripture for Kids printable to set at the table to guide our children. Feel free to use it year round! Download your FREE printable here: prayingscriptureforkids. I explained to our kids #3 is a prayer we write out.
And this free printable– Easter prayer Station Verses! Feel free to come up with your own verses for your Easter prayer station. I made this printable with the verses to help facilitate the process. Download your FREE printable here: EasterprayingstationVerses (1) then cut out each strip out after the dashed section. Each strip includes a section with: verse, personalize verse (the red print is what was changed to personalize the verse), pray and a ponder section.
Bring it up a notch
I enjoy Easter egg hunts, dying eggs, and the chocolate Easter bunnies, but let’s go beyond that and take our Easter family traditions to another level!
Let’s be Easter people and set meaningful traditions for our children to build on as they grow older.
Guess what? This year I decided to make a printable kit for you all– Easter Advent Kit for the Busy Family! The kit is simple and fun and has Christ-centered activities, scripture readings & more!
Just join our subscriber list below and you can get the Easter Advent Kit for the Busy Family printable to download immediately!
Here are some of the books I have used since college to help me prepare my heart. Some books I have not read but they are on my list to read. I am currently reading and loving 40 Days of Decrease!
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