Family Faith Activities
- Try our Family Lent Calendar for 2020
- Traci Smith's book, Faithful Families, is wonderful and has lots of practical, simple, meaningful ideas for families to practice faith at home. Here are a couple:
- Wash Worries Away: Draw or write your worries on the driveway with chalk (you do it too!), share them aloud if you wish, then fill a bucket with water and wash away the drawings and words as you say "Holy Spirit, we give your our worries and fears. Take them away."
- Try these one minute Sabbath ideas--or make up your own. They're created by a pastor doing great work to support families in living faith together
- While you're working and spending lots of time at home, why not put on this wilderness-and-Lent-themed Spotify playlist in the background?
- Got extra time to fill on the weekend? Bake bread together and talk about the parable of the yeast (Matthew 13:33).
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Families of young children may enjoy activities like this:
- Create a chain of gratitude during the time off. Write your prayers of thanks on a piece of paper each day, add chain links and watch it grow each day!
- Create a family faith jar and choose a practice to do together each day.
- Make a card or draw a picture for someone who may be isolated.
- Sign up for Illustrated Children's Ministry's free activities during COVID-19. They send them on Fridays and they're tied to the week's Bible lessons.
- Ways to make the most of worshiping from home: check out this graphic made by a colleague on.
- If you need a day apart from the screen or your kids aren't connecting with the livestream, do your own thing and "play" worship together with this simple and fun family format.
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A family faith ritual may offer comfort and grounding for your children.
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Try a family "Ignatian examen." It's a simple way of reflecting on the day by asking each family member to share: "When was a time you felt close to God or saw God at work today? When was a time you felt farthest from or missed an opportunity to share God's love today?"
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Or try Faith 5, a simple 5-step time of sharing highs and lows, reading a Bible verse, and blessing one another?
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Or read a chapter of Harry Potter or another book aloud, then pray together.
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Or find something else that works for you!
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Making Space for Joy and Wonder
- Why not tune in as a family and watch the Home Safari live stream, posted on the Facebook page of the Cincinnati Zoo? It's at 3pm each day.
- Or explore the stars together on the Hubble Space telescope website
Resources for Parents
- Check out the Parents Take Five podcast on faithful parenting from Rev. Jen Evans. Each episode is only five minutes long!
