easter 2015

Well, the weekly update is an easy one this week, because there've been no new contributions since my last update. But I've put a few feelers out on Pinterest (such as this one ), and we'll be accepting links right through Easter Saturday. We welcome any posts, old or new, about Preparing for Easter ( Celebrating Lent )   in a Montessori way and/or using nature, art, or story-based religious education. Please add a link back, both to me and to my co-host,  Sheila , in your post and bear in mind that we may use your photos to blog about this (only ever with appropriate credit and links back to you, of course).

"Jesus calls Levi" (William Hole, public domain ) The incarnation implies that the 'communication of Christian truth is relational and not propositional '.  David Lyall, The integrity of pastoral care, 2001, p.96, cited by Ballard & Holmes, The Bible in pastoral practice, 2006, p.207.

photo source This is somewhat off-topic, and I'm late in responding to a news story from late Jan / early Feb, but I just feel that I have to type this out! Skip over this rant if you've heard it all before and just find it too depressing or infuriating. I recently read this in a comment  on an American blog: I once heard a woman being interviewed on TV. She had been a teacher in the public schools, but as a second career had become a financial advisor. When the host asked about her career change, she said, �they�ll pay you to take care of their money, but they won�t pay you to take care of their children .� And then today I came across this  from an Alabama state senator:  "It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.  To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life....

I want to thank Sheila at Explore and Express for the idea of this Lenten link-up for Celebrating Lent and Preparing for Easter. It's enabled us to connect with various different bloggers, many of whom were new to me. Last week I showed photographs of different responses to the Faces of Easter story, all from bloggers participating in our link-up. This week I thought I'd like do something related - to show connections that I see between different bloggers who are doing similar things but in different ways. For some of you it's probably easy to translate an idea you've come across on-line into something that will work in your home or your church tradition, with your children and the resources you have available. But for others of us it's difficult to see how to adapt an idea. I hope these comparisons will help you to think outside the box (or "outside the photograph"). These are the photographs that got me thinking about this. The first is Holly's ph...

I'm a little late posting this week's update but we're now into the fifth week of Lent.   Our theme is   Preparing for Easter  using art projects, nature projects, Montessori methods, &/or story-based religious education. If you would like to share your words and photos with us, just  link your blog account and photo below. Please don't worry if "your idea" has already been done by somebody else. As I'll say in my next post , it can be very helpful to see how two different people do "the same thing" (or even two different but related things).  Edit: I should have added this phrasing that Sheila's using (if it isn't already implied by this week's and last week's posts).  By participating you allow us permission to use your photos to share highlights. We will be re-posting each week!

This is the first time I've been in Junior Church since Lent began. I told five plaques' worth of the Faces of Easter and we created a wonderful assemblage to help tell more of the story. The items brought to the circle were: the baptismal doll ( because it's a baby and Jesus was a baby ), the church clock, the desert bag, the Holy Family figures of the Christ Child, the Mother Mary and the Father Joseph, the Risen Christ cross, two parable boxes, flowers ( like Easter lilies ), the ark ( not representing the ark, but either the boats that the disciples left when they followed Jesus or maybe the boat that Jesus taught from ), and the Advent materials. This really encouraged children to use story materials during our Response time. They got out the Baptism materials, the World Communion materials, the Great Flood materials, and the Great Family materials.  On a more disappointing note, I should not have tried to show off to the visiting priest. I assured him that "we...

It's an exciting feature of the Faces of Easter lessons that instead of opening up a time of verbal wondering or discussion at the close of each story, the storyteller says, I wonder what there is in this room that can help us tell more of the story. Look around and see if you can bring something to show more about this part of the story. That's all. There are no more rules than that. Some in the circle may be thrown by this and have no idea how to respond. As Berryman says, that is okay. Many children learn by watching as well as by doing.   Since most of us will present portions of this lesson at least twice during Lent, participants will have another chance on another occasion... and after all, this is an opportunity but it is  never  a requirement. If you don't feel like getting something, that's okay. Just enjoy what we make together. [All the Berryman quotes in this post are from  The Complete Guide to Godly Play,  volume 4.] The first person I ever ...

It's the third week of Lent, and the pace of new contributions to the Lenten link-up ( Celebrating Lent ) that I'm doing with  Sheila  has slowed down quite a bit. But we'll still accept contributions all the way up to Easter.  Our theme is   Preparing for Easter using : art projects, nature projects, Montessori methods, &/or story-based religious education We ask that you  do include a link both to Sheila's blog and to my own (or you can use the button Sheila made, found top right in my sidebar), in exchange for us hosting this link to your own post. More details are in my original post . All contributions will be linked every week. We've had some posts about the Lenten series of Godly Play lessons - The Faces of Easter, which I think merits a summary post of its own. I hope to get that written and published within the next day or so. [Update: you can find that here .] I'd love it if you'd be willing to share any photos showing some of the object...

I've never gotten around to writing about our "library" (which is a mere book basket). But this weekend it had a new acquisition... from the Free (second-hand) Books table at my residential weekend training course! It's a small, colorful book called Share this feast : reflecting on Holy Communion. It's less than 50 pages long, and perfect for dipping into. source The book was published by the Methodist Church, but emphasizes the shared ground between all the Churches that celebrate Holy Communion . It's suitable for a wide age-range, and is an excellent jumping off point for anyone to meditate upon Communion ( The meaning of Communion for you will build up in layers over the course of your life as a disciple , p. 3) or to encourage discussion. The themes of the openings include "pour out your Spirit", "the sacrament of care", and "confession" as well as more obvious ones like "do this in remembrance of me" and "a fo...

Sheila  and I are up to twenty contributions on our Lenten link-up . We'll continue accepting contributions all the way through Lent.  Our theme is   Preparing for Easter , and we welcome posts (old or new) about : art projects, nature projects, Montessori methods, &/or story-based religious education Please, though, do include a link both to Sheila's blog and to my own, in exchange for us hosting this link to your own post. More details about how to join can be found in my original post . All contributions will be linked to that original post and  to all these updates. This week's contributions included two craft projects which caught my eye:  Leslie's (Thoughts from the Sheepfold) prayer beads and  Featherglen's finger labyrinth . (The photos below are used by kind permission of the bloggers in question.) The prayer beads have an interesting twist - you can move the beads and thus keep track of how far along the sequence you are. Leslie suggests this...

[The authority of scripture was] exercised by priest and people praying the words of scripture in psalm and canticle, and reading, hearing and pondering the whole sweep of the Bible�s story year by year ... so that they might learn the way of repentance, conversion of life, and holiness. The key thought of �the authority of scripture� was the power the story had to inform prayer and shape imagination, to provide exemplar and encouragement, and to help put their lives� journey into the context of the journey of God�s people from creation to final fulfilment by way of the cross.   The authority of a story (and most of scripture is story) is often subtle, frequently a long-term project, and nurtured by repetition and slow digestion. It is about the reshaping of how we see ourselves and our lives by forming our mental world, and populating it with the images, examples and friends who open new possibilities to us, as well as warning us away from bad ideas and foolish practices (...