EASTER SUNDAY
Luke 24:1–27
Easter Sunday is a great day of celebration and is another opportunity for adults and children to worship and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection together. You might like to have most of the service together and have some special bags for the children to engage with during the sermon section or you could have most of the service together and then have the children go out for just a short time (choosing one of the suggested activities below) and come back together at the end of the service.
Interactive Message
‘The other day my friend dropped around to my house unexpectedly and bought me a great big bunch of flowers, this was a great surprise.
Ø I wonder what sort of surprises you like.
Ø What is the best surprise you have ever received? (Turn and tell the person sitting next to you.)
‘I wonder if you have ever watched a show where there is an audience, a little like us having a congregation here at church, and the person hosting the show has surprised them with some free gifts, e.g. a new television, the CD of the band that just played, a copy of the book that they just heard about, a gift card to a department store etc.
‘Sometimes on these shows it is not always the whole audience that receives a surprise but, rather, just one specific person, e.g. they give a family a new car or a special holiday trip. Well, imagine if I said to you today that if you all looked under your seats right now you would find the keys to a new car! I wonder how you would react.
· Show me what your face would look like if you were surprised by something exciting like this.
· I wonder if that look on your face would change if you were surprised by something that you were not expecting. For example, if I told you to reach under your chair for the keys to your new car and, instead, I’d put a mouldy old banana there! Now how would your face look?
‘Surprises can cover a whole range of emotions and whacky facial expressions: exciting, confusing, scary etc. Sometimes when it is something we weren’t expecting (and maybe didn’t want to happen) we might not like that particular surprise. It may be finding out that someone you care about has been hurt or is unwell, having a good friend come to you and tell you that they are moving and have to change schools, finding out that your favourite TV show has been cancelled or finding out that you favourite toy, game or book has been left at the airport when you boarded the plane for a holiday.
‘When the disciples found out that Jesus was going to be put to death, it was a horrible surprise: it was not what they expected. Jesus was not the king they had been thinking about and he was not being treated the way they expected a king to be treated.
Ø I wonder what sort of surprised faces the disciples might have had when they knew that Jesus was going to be put to death on a cross. (Get the congregation to show what they think the disciples facial expressions might have looked like).
‘Sometimes, though, we can get good surprises, some—you might even say—are fantastic. Finding out that we are going to be in the same class as our best friend, getting the best birthday present you could have ever hoped for, or maybe even getting a special present when it’s not even your birthday are all very exciting surprises. Well, the disciples and lots of other people received a fantastic surprise on Easter Sunday.
‘On Easter Sunday morning Jesus gave the most fantastic surprise—he had been put to death on the cross and then buried in a tomb that had a huge boulder covering the entry. BUT he did not stay dead! Three days after dying on the cross and placed in the tomb, Jesus was alive again and his followers were very happy and excited by this surprise.
Ø I wonder what sort of surprised faces the disciples might have made when they first saw Jesus alive. (Get the congregation to show what they think the disciples facial expressions might have looked like).
‘By not staying dead, Jesus surprised everyone and showed that while he was not the king they expected, he was a much, much better sort of king. Jesus was a unique king who will live forever and who has more power than anyone here on Earth; a king of HUGE love and acceptance for everyone.
‘So, on Easter Sunday, Jesus gave a double-whammy surprise: he was alive again and he showed himself to be greater than any mere king. Jesus was truly amazing!’
Activity Suggestions
These activities can be used in a variety of settings as you explore the Easter theme with your kids, e.g. kids church, kids club during the week, on some tables during church or as the kids go out just for a short time during the message. Some of the activities in this section and the children’s activities bag section will be the same; you can choose if you’d prefer to run some activities or make up a bag for the children while they stay in for the service.
Twister: Play the game Twister with your group. If you find that you have a group that is too big for the game, you might like to try a variation were you put each colour in a different corner and children need to run to it. Then, call out actions they need to do when they get to the colour, e.g. touch your elbow on your knee.
Link: ‘We have just had some fun playing a game of Twister together. Something unexpected—that we didn’t see coming—can also be known as a ‘twist’. If you think about movies or a story that you have read, there is often something that happens that you or the characters do not see coming, a ‘twist’ in the story.
‘When Jesus was put to death on the cross and then placed in a sealed tomb, the disciples and lots of other people would not have expected him to come back to life after three days. This was a massive twist they were not expecting but it proved to be an unexpected surprise that was fantastic because now we have Jesus with us every day to help us with things that might be unexpected, our own ‘twists’ in life.’
Face Twist: For this activity each child will need two small paper plates (snack size), icy pole sticks and some sticky tape or glue.
Ask the children to show/act out a range of different facial expressions, e.g. you might ask them to be surprised, angry, sad, joyful etc.
‘I wonder which emotion or facial expressions you think the disciples would have felt when Jesus was put to death on the cross—draw that face on the first paper plate. (Give them a few minutes to do this.)’
‘I wonder which emotion or facial expression the disciples might have felt when they saw that Jesus did not stay dead and that he was alive—draw that on the other paper plate. (Give them a few minutes to do this.)’
Place the icy pole stick in between the two paper plates with both the faces facing out and glue or stick them in place (i.e. it will end up looking like a big lollypop). Get the children to use their faces to act out Jesus’ return.
Link: ‘I think that the disciples would have been feeling many different things on Easter Sunday when they found out that Jesus did not stay dead and that he was alive, especially when they saw him with their own eyes.
Ø I wonder what they might have been thinking or feeling after he had died and been buried.
Ø If you were there I wonder what you would have been thinking or feeling.
Ø I wonder what they might have been thinking or feeling after they saw that Jesus with their own eyes.
Ø If you were there I wonder what you would have been thinking or feeling.
‘How exciting that Jesus can turn people’s feelings upside down from sad to happy (use the faces on the plates to illustrate this) by just having him there. Because Jesus did not stay dead and came back to life, he will live forever and we can, too, if we love Jesus. I don’t know about you but knowing that Jesus is with me all the time—when unexpected things happen or things that make me happy or sad—makes me pretty happy and this is the face that I use to show this (show a very cheesy smiling face to show how happy you are that you have Jesus).’
Get the children to show, using their facial expressions, how this makes them feel by knowing this.
Children’s activity bag suggestions
Below are some suggestions for you to use in creating a children’s activity bag for use during the second half of the service. It would be good to hand these out to the children after the interactive message.
· Emoticon stickers: You will need a sheet of emoticon stickers per child with a range of facial expressions or you can use some sheets of eye stickers (ww.edex.com.au), some sheets of blank A4 paper and drawing implements that are age appropriate. Encourage them to use the face stickers or the eye stickers (and add the rest of the facial expressions) and create a scene of surprise. You might like to give them two pieces of paper to use one to create any scene of surprise and one to create a scene that includes how the disciples might have looked like before and after Jesus came back to life.
· Paper plate face: For this activity each child will need a small paper plate (snack size or large for the littlies if you like) some eye stickers (as above) and some drawing implements. Encourage the children to think about ‘how God makes them feel’ and to create their face on the plate. For older children it would be good to encourage the children to write why God makes them feel that way on the back of the plate, or to write a prayer.
· Paper magiclay reminder: For this activity you will need to provide each child with a small bag or tub of playdough or paper magiclay. Encourage the children to create a model of Jesus that they can take home and keep in their rooms to remind them that Jesus did not stay dead and that he is with us every day. He is with us through things that are expected and unexpected and the good and not so good surprises. Place all the items that the children will need, plus some instructions, into a small snap lock bag and place it into the activity bags.
· Other items to include:
o Themed Kidzone for Easter Sunday (this will include puzzles and stories etc. for today’s theme).
o Complete all puzzles in Kidzone and bring it to ……….. at the end of the service for a lucky dip.
o ‘Home & Beyond’ card or swing tag for the family to continue the conversation at home.
o Lollypop, sweets, shapes or something to eat depending on the children that you have, allergies and eating in church policies etc. This could also be done by having a container where the children can choose something to put into their bag when they collect it or making up the bags individually with names on them, thus catering for those with special needs, as well as having spares for visitors.
o Invitations or fliers for the families for the next family-focused activity.
Home & Beyond
It is vitally important, as leaders within our churches, that we help to equip parents with suggestions, activities and language as they help their children to navigate on their spiritual journey. A ‘Home & Beyond’ card placed in the activity bag or used as a swing tag on the activity bag is a great way to help them take the key message home and continue the conversation in the rhythm of their daily lives. Below you will see some suggestions you might like to put on a tag to support, challenge and equip your families.
You will need to provide families with a set of faces with different emotions. Make sure to include a range of different feelings that they might have during the week.
Feelings:
· Take time this week to read together as a family Luke 24:1–27.
· Make sure that everyone has a piece of paper and some pencils or textas.
· As you listen to or read through the story slowly, think about all the different feelings that people felt.
· Draw some faces with expressions on them that show what the people from the reading had felt.
· You might like to read the passage again so that there is more time to add detail to your pictures.
· Take some time to reflect together on the range of emotions that people felt when they found out the news that they were not expecting: Jesus was alive! Pray together as a family to finish.