Happy Easter Monday! We hope you had a wonderful Easter and that you were able to celebrate our Savior, His death, burial, and resurrection.
Easter has always held a special place in my life and in my faith journey. I remember sunrise services growing up and then leading them at the first church at which I was employed. The Easter brunches and dinners with family and friends were always a celebration. Hunting for Easter eggs at my godparents’ house and then reading the Easter story together while we scarfed down as many jelly beans as humanly possible. (Trust me, I could put away a couple of bags!)
But do you know what I didn’t have a lot of? In youth group I barely remember talking about Easter, let alone engaging with it. For some reason the holidays that the church celebrated weren’t really engage with at a student level. As Elise and I have grown in our ministry careers, we have taken opportunities to help our students engage with these important moments in our faith. And we’re also sought to engage in creative avenues to help students understand them at a deeper level.
Today our hope is to provide some creative ways to help your students engage with Easter (next year of course), and to give you ideas to begin considering as you build out your calendar for the next school year.
Incorporate students for a reading of the Easter story.
Bringing in a variety of voices–especially students’ voices–when reading the Easter story allows for the story to be heard in new and vibrant ways. It brings in different aspects that perhaps may not have been noticed before, and it also allows students to hear the story in voices that are similar to their own. When we allow ourselves to be transported into the story we have a deeper appreciation and new perspective from which we are able to better hear and understand God’s Word.
Allow students to creatively retell the story.
Give your student groups an opportunity to retell the story creatively and allow them the freedom (within reason) to retell it in their own unique ways. Allowing students to immerse themselves in the story and to take ownership of it will help them to have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Easter story.
Provide a Bible study for your small groups.
Our Home Group for April immediately follows Easter and provides a unique opportunity for our small groups to dig deep into Scripture. Providing a variety of passages from the Gospels that journey through the Easter narrative gives students a unique perspective and helps to highlight the beauty of the Easter story from different vantage points. Typically when we do something like this we write out the material for our groups rather than using a pre-made study. This allows us to shape the questions and applications to specifically relate to our groups.
Engage in character studies.
In the Easter story there are many different individuals with whom you can engage. You could assign a character or group (the religious leaders, a disciple, one of the women at the cross, the women at the tomb, the centurion, Pilate, etc.) to each student or to a small group. Have them think critically about the character, their interactions, their emotions and responses, and about their relationship with Jesus. Stepping into the story in this unique way helps us to grow our connection with Jesus as we understand the relationships that He had with various individuals.
Provide artistic opportunities.
I am not very artistic (I still struggle to color in the lines), but many of my students and leaders are. Providing them with an opportunity to draw, write, or illustrate in various ways the Easter story will allow for them to have a unique engagement with it that will provide a deeper understanding. They could engage in this way with a reading of the story, watching a video of the Easter story, or even through a song.
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