Easter school service idea with Plastic Easter Eggs

 

Brand new resource for kids homework questions about the Christian faith

If you have kids in school and want to find out about the Christian faith, there’s not a lot of information around.  Some of it is old fashioned and boring.  So we thought we would try to put it right.  Tell us if we got it right! The site is new but expanding rapidly.  We are aiming to have a complete Easter resource including history, stories and pictures by Easter. http://kids.splatontheweb.org/

Easter eggs sermon ideas!

This is an assembly or event with a difference which I quite liked.  It’s a good opportunity to get your school involved with the process too.

If you are having an Easter service which involves the whole primary school coming to your church then this is just one of a host of ideas that you could link in with.   I particularly like it because it also involves using one of my all time favourate resources: plastic easter eggs!

To get the schools invovled, I would suggest giving part of the story (points below) to each class to think about before the service.  Don’t tell them all the story of Easter, some may know it already.  Instead, let them concentrate on just the one part of it that you give them.  The class teacher can help them to consider how they might create a ‘station’ that would represent that part of the story.

A ready made suggestion can be found at the Gloucester Diocese website (Manchester have now bought into this too) – look about halfway down the page for ‘Experience Easter’.  Pictures! >>>>

Going on from this, you could also create an Easter egg hunt with a difference.

You will need some plastic craft Easter eggs which are very cheap.  One for each child

• Some foil covered miniature Easter eggs
• A piece of bread
• A coin – a penny will do
• Purple cloth
• Thorn – I will outline a ‘rose’ idea in a moment too for a sermon, but if you can’t get a thorn from some roses, or off a local hawthorn bush, then a triangle of brown card will suffice
• Thick string
• A small cross – you can make these out of fimo and then bake in the oven.
• A nail
• A spear – you could get some of those very small pencils, or better, sharpen (carefully) matches
• Rock

You need to put each of these items into the eggs.  The chocolate eggs can either be left at the back of the church, handed around when the collection goes around, or even hidden in the eggs along with the items.  Personally, I like the last idea!

As each egg is opened one person gets the chocolate.  Make sure therefore there are enough eggs for everyone in the congregation, particularly the children!

Choose the stations or areas around the church to hide eggs of the same kind.  When you hide the eggs you will have to make sure that all the eggs with ‘nails’ for eggsample are in one area and don’t get mixed up with eggs from another.   Get into groups of no more than 9.   When you send the children/adults out for an egg hunt, make sure that you are clear that one person from each group goes to one place so that when the group comes back together they will have eggs filled one with each item on the list.  You might want to give a list out to each group of what they are supposed to end up with! If you have less than 9 in the group someone will have to get more than one, leave it to the group to coordinate who goes where.

When everyone has an egg, they should go back to their group and start opening their eggs – and of course eating the chocolate.

They will have a range of things now in front of them.  Give the group a little while to talk together and try to work out what each of the the items symbolise and where they are in the story.  With the help of the adults, get them to share the story about what happens.

For a prayer time, play some music and show (if you can) the text with some suitable images from the following link.  http://www.rainbowcastle.org/resurrectioneggs.html which can be read by one of the children.  Encourage everyone to look at the items in front of them and see which ones relate to which part of the story.

Sermon

I personally wouldn’t be too fussed about a sermon here, it is sometimes enough to just to this.  But if you do want to do a quick talk then produce a red rose.  The rose should have had all it’s thorns removed.  Pass the rose around and ask people what is wrong with it.  Most won’t realise that the thorns have been taken off. Encourage them, perhaps by saying ‘what is missing’ to think what is wrong with it.  Ask why roses have thorns (protection from animals trying to eat it.)

Point out that a red rose is often seen a symbol of love, or caring for someone.  But a real rose always has thorns.  It’s wrong to think that love is always sweet and soppy.  Sometimes it can be.  But love is also sometimes painful – think of if you have lost someone you care about, or your favourate pet has died, or even if you lose your teddy bear! (this is real for many young children, please don’t dismiss this last comment)

The greatest love shown by anyone was Jesus, who died for us so that we could know father God.  Like a rose has painful thorns, the love that he showed had pain right along side it.  But his death took away all the wrong things that we have done to God.  How do we know?  Because Jesus promised us life in all it’s fullness leading to eternal life.  And proved it: he himself was resurected which means by God’s power he was brought back to life from the dead.  But his death was painful.  In fact he wore a crown of thorns.

So next time you think of the loveliness of a rose, remember the thorns, and remember the crown of thorns that Jesus wore, and how he showed the love that God has for us by dying and rising again from the dead which shows us that we can have life forever with him.

Want a load more ideas?  I got creative and posted a load of ideas of what to do with your plastic Easter eggs over on hubpages. (apologies if some odd ads come up: they are beyond my control!)

Go to http://hubpages.com/hub/Plastic-Easter-Eggs-ideas

Shortlink: http://wp.me/pDlJe-4R