Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lenten Lights

Noel Piper has a written a treasure (no Pun intended) of a book called :

http://www.desiringgod.org/media/images/products/BTGT/btgt_large.jpg
She has some excellent suggestions for Celebrating the Resurrection:
  • Fasting from certain things that pull our attention away from God
  • Resurrection Tree- with symbols representing the story of the holy week. (Donkey, palm branch, grapes, coins, etc)
  • Making a Tomb to act out the story
  • Lenten Lights
One thing we have done the past couple years was use parts of Noel Piper's Lenten Lights devotional.   You can buy the devotional in pamphlet format or read the whole thing above in PDF format
It’s not too late to get the materials to start this on Saturday!

You have 7 candles (I found 7 small votive type candles at the dollar store) and we centered ours around a cross. You can either celebrate the 7 weeks leading up to Easter (way too long for my little llamas) or the 7 days of the Holy Week(much better).

You Light all the candles the first night.  And each night you “snuff” one out until Good friday when you snuff out the last candle.  Then Saturday it is all dark.  Resurrection Sunday comes and you light them all back again!

We used some of the verses and will add to this time as the children grow.   But mainly it was just another visual reminder at meal time that this week was Special... it was all about God's Son! And our Salvation!

Easter (21)


Have any of you done Lenten Lights? I love this as a visual remembrance, much like the Advent Wreath at Christmas.  This is an easy Christ Centered way to remind yourself and your family that the Easter Week is Holy and special and to be honored and remembered.  

Let me (and Noel!) know if you incorporate this
into your holiday traditions!


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13 comments:

  1. I just ordered this book last week... still waiting for it to get here. I love this idea!

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  2. i adore this book!!! i borrowed it from a friend a few years ago, but i do need to get my own copy. i love her ideas... i admire her so much! noel cares for her household so well (she has a great blog, too!). we haven't done the lenten lights. we need to!

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  3. What a Great (Easy) way to add more Jesus to Easter! Thank You. We Will be doing this!

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  4. We do Lenten Lights here too! I found it on Desiring God a few weeks ago, and like your little llamas, my little monkeys can't do 7 weeks so we are starting on Saturday.... and I also circled our candles around a cross! :) By the way, you can download and print her book for FREE from the Desiring God website-- it's a lot of pages for a small printer, but my hubby printed it for me at church and bound it!

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  5. Thanks for the book recomendation and the candle idea-this would be great for my girls.

    I have something for you on my blog-hope you'll join in

    http://7alltogether.blogspot.com/2010/03/hop-hop-hopping-along.html

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  6. Oooh! I love this! I might just do that w/my kiddos this year!

    amanda at impressyourkids.com

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  7. I love the simplicity of this idea. For this non-crafty mom, it's one I think I could actually implement. Thank you.

    ~Lisa-Jo

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  8. oh that looks so good! hadn't heard of it yet. i love the Pipers! God sure is using them to impact alot of people!

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  9. That's a beautiful idea. My girl is not old enough to "get it" but I'm tempted to start this week anyway!

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  10. I've got a "meaningful easter" linky up this year--I'd love for you to link this post up! :)


    http://impressyourkids.org/resurrection-easter-ideas-for-kids/

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  11. This is so lovely, thank you for a unique idea! I am linking it up to my new post celebrating Easter activities with children. Thank you!

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