Children enjoy a tangible way to understand the stories of the Bible.  Here are a couple of Holy Week and Easter recipies that can help you share the story of this sacred time of the year in a fun and meaningful way.

Crown of Thorns Snack

You take some frozen bread dough, roll it out into strips, braid the strips together, form it in the shape of a crown, add some round edge toothpicks (for the thorns), sprinkle the top with spices (cloves, ginger, cinnamon), brown sugar, lemon juice and bake it …

Last Supper snack

Red & Green Grapes, Pita Bread, Cheese & apples

And for Easter Sunday, why not make some Empty Tomb / Resurrection Pastries?

Empty Tomb / Resurrection Pastries

You take a Pillsbury crescent rolls and roll the dough around a marshmallow (which represents Jesus’ body).  Add some melted butter or margarine to represent the oil Jesus’ body was anointed with and some cinnamon to represent the spices.  While baking the marshmallow melts and you have an empty tomb inside.

And here are some more Easter Snack ideas:

http://littleblots.com/LessonEaster.html

http://www.sundayschoolcrafts.com/Easter_Story_Cookies.html

Thanks to Anglicn Diocese of Ottawa Baptismal Ministry Formation Director Lisa Chisholm-Smith for sharing these ideas.

Sunday morning is a good chance to pass on all kinds of tips for parents. Perhaps it’s even just a line in the bulletin. Here’s a story that demonstrates the value of one safety trick parents may not have considered: giving your kids a code word so they know that the person picking them up from school or an activity has actually been sent by their parents.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/10-year-old-ontario-girl-uses-code-word-to-thwart-attempted-abduction/article9989954/

This being Lent, what is meant as a time of focused contemplation, here’s a great article about what not to do if you want to be happy. In the end, it boils down to the central lesson of the gospel: love others as you want to be loved. But here are some specific tips to get there. http://lifehacker.com/5991218/want-to-be-happier-stop-doing-these-10-things-right-now

Last October, a young woman named Malala Yousafzai was heading home from school in Pakistan with her classmates when two masked men boarded the bus. They asked for her by name, and when they identified her, they shot her twice in the face. The men belonged to the Taliban, and they had tried to kill Malala because she had been speaking up for the right of girls in Pakistan to get an education. She had been blogging anonymously for this cause with the BBC, but her identity was figured out. Malala almost died for her efforts.  She was saved by surgeons in Britain and is recovering today.

Malala is the kind of woman we celebrated last Friday on International Women’s Day. This day has been a tradition for over a century, since some ordinary women, mostly factory workers, began to fight for the right to vote, for better working conditions, and for the rights of children. And yet, we are in an interesting time for feminism. As most of you will know, I live with an outspoken feminist, I call myself a feminist, and I hope someday my sons will as well.  But a lot of women, especially younger ones, get squirmy at the word. It has negative connotations, mostly unjustified. Perhaps they are influenced by women like Beyoncé, who dodge the phrase. More likely, they have forgotten the long history behind them – the women who came before Malala who risked their lives and their livelihoods to stand up for the rights of not just women, but all minorities. We live in a country that isn’t perfect: men, for instance, outnumber women in parliament by 3 to 1. But we also have six female premiers. We are creating the most educated population of young women in the world. We have pretty good maternity-leave benefits. And we are one of the safest countries in the world. The danger, of course, is that we get complacent. Because our lives are good, we forget to keep trying to fix the problems that still exist – like our poor showing on correcting child poverty and our poor outcomes for aboriginal women. That’s the risk of the good life: we get too comfortable and forget about those around us – and in the rest of the world – whose lives are far from good.

In a way, isn’t that what the story of the prodigal son is about: The risks of complacency and a lack of empathy for those who struggle? We could level this accusation at the son who stays, whose life is good, who never strays from his calling. He has it pretty easy. He has followed the rules, and things have worked out for him. That’s noble, it’s true, but having never left the safe confines of his father’s home, he also probably didn’t face too many challenges. He has been well-rewarded.

So when his brother returns, having strayed and suffered for it, he can’t relate to him. He sits back in judgment. He is short on empathy.  He can’t recognize what factors may have led to his brother’s straying from the path, or what unlucky turns may have befallen him.

What’s more, he is angry when his father rejoices at the son’s return and throws a party. “What’s up, Dad?” the son who remained asks. “I have been here all along: where’s my party?” And his father tells him, essentially, welcoming back your brother does not reduce my pleasure in your constant presence.

But here’s the truth of it: where God is concerned, we are all children who wander off the path. Not one of us is more like the son who stays, who never falters, who is constant. That’s because we are human: we mess up. We fall down. We, consciously or not, make bad choices.  The story of the prodigal son is the hope of redemption – that acknowledging our failures, we return to God. We keep leaving and returning over and over again. Our story ends with a party, but we don’t know what happens next to him. Did the wayward son dutifully remain and never make a wrong choice again? I doubt that. He is meant to represent us – in this constant state of distance and embrace.

This is important in our relationship with God and to the gospel. It is the way of human life, to blunder about, and try to make amends for our blundering. In trying to do the right thing, we often make mistakes. The gift of the gospel is that we get to keep coming back, and every time God throws a party. And then God sends us out again to take another stab at it. Not everyone can stay home to tend the vineyard.

It’s important to the nature of this relationship with God for two reasons. First, it prevents us from becoming like the son who happened to be in the vineyard when his brother came home. It stops us from casting judgment, from assuming that what we see on the surface tells the story of their lives. And it stops us from becoming mired in our own mistakes, and lets us see them as learning moments that strengthen our faith and empower the Gospel through us.

That’s also how we must teach ourselves to see the larger world. The son who stayed had stopped looking past the borders of his father’s land. His life was too cushy.  It’s an easy habit to get into. But we learn to see the world for how it is when we remember our history — those who fought a struggle before us — and when we educate ourselves about what’s happening elsewhere.

It’s hard to believe that anyone who knows that in Somalia, young women can expect to go to school for just two years, or that in Saudi Arabia, there is not one woman in Parliament, could not see the value of feminism.  That, still in many parts of the world, girls are forced into marriage, or blamed and beaten for sexual assaults, and not see the value for those of us who enjoy such benefits calling ourselves feminists.

Jesus was most certainly one: he took advice from women in a society that gave them little value, he spoke in their defence when no one else would, he honoured them by appearing first to his female disciples after he died. Perhaps Jesus understood that having suffered and chosen to follow, their faith was stalwart in a different way from that of the male disciples.  This is not to say that Peter, and the rest, were not valued equally – like the son in our gospel who remained in the vineyard. It says that God respects the struggles that life tosses our way and honours us for persevering.

We are all the prodigal children who go into the world and make our way.  But, as the psalmist tells us, God is the parent who sets us free: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go.” God is like the parent, always watching over us: “I will guide you with my eye.” And God is there, waiting at the gates, to throw a party when we return.

It’s hard to think of a time in which parents have been more focused on their children – providing them with the best opportunities, the best chance at a good education, the best extra-curricular activities. The term helicopter parent describes this new perspective: moms and dads flying around and over their kids making sure they are getting all the benefits.  There are many factors behind this trend: parents (usually both) are working longer hours, and the time they have with their kids is precious. Couples have fewer children so they have more time and resources to invest in their development. Today’s parents were raised by Boomers, who were doting parents themselves. We are a child-centered society.

In the good old days, so to speak, people attended church out of sense of tradition, or because it was the one time to gather as a community. In mid 1900s, research shows, families were led to church by mothers, who were more likely to direct a family’s faith practice. This is no longer true: most mothers work now, or slowly became disenchanted with a church that was slow to adapt to modern values. (Consider that even in a pretty liberal country like Canada, women, and especially younger women, are more likely than men to support gay rights, abortion rights, and social equality.) As a church, we have caught up – but for many mothers it is too late.

Now families increasingly choose churches with their kids in mind : Does the minister relate well to youth? What are the character education programs available? How are youth included in worship? And – the bottom line – are our kids having fun? When we ask a family to get themselves out of bed on a Sunday morning, to choose worship over hockey, we have to accept the reality of the times:  it’s our youngest members that are often driving that decision.

Considering the sample size of the newest members at the church where I serve, and the reasons why they chose to join a new congregation, all of the families have told me it was for their children. In one case, their two young girls like coming to church, listening to the children’s sermon, doing the crafts in the nursery, even playing with the plasma cars in the hall. Another mom brings her girls because of a friendship with another youth in our congregation. Another mom started coming because she wanted her daughter to be baptized. Some of these reasons may not be surprising, but they are all certainly worth considering.

As a church, we have a tendency to box up our youth programs and put them “over there.” They are separate from our mission and finance committees, worship – or at the most a secondary consideration. This needs to change: as an organization, we have been slow to recognize this significant shift in why young families attend church. They want their kids to learn the gospel, to be trained as leaders, to participate, to explore big ideas.  Those elements of a church can be shunted “over there.”

But what about older members, you may ask? In many ways, churches still serve its older members pretty well. Pastors spend more time visiting and providing pastoral care to older members. Church council is typically the domain of older members. Bible studies, quilting groups, etc cater mainly to older members.  What’s more, what’s the first thing an older member will say, when asked what they’d like to see more of at their church: kids.

How do we shift that “over there” attitude, and make youth and family-centred perspectives central to our larger ministry and synodical work?

Well, let me tell you about a new policy that Britain is trying. A few years ago, economists made an interesting finding: although the GDP of most western countries had steadily risen, when citizens were surveyed about their well-being, researchers didn’t find a similar rise in happiness. In many cases, happiness had declined. The conclusion was that government policy focused on fuelling the economy did not make the citizen living in it any happier – so what was the point? Ultimately, a nation wants to be happier, not richer and more miserable. The British government announced a new initiative, from now on every new government policy, tax effort or legislation would include a specific consideration of the Happiness index – that is rather than counting coins in the coffers, how would the policy improve the quality of life for the country’s citizens.

This is also what we need do with a family-focused church. Every policy or committee decision should include in its documentation a consideration of how families will benefit or be served. Part of this is a perspective change: by being required to consider a family or youth element, we may end up adjusting policies to better serve this demographic. We will be more sensitive to certain messaging that is contrary to the value of our families, and youth. We will be more likely to add a social media element to new programs.

We can’t just talk about being a youth-friendly church and synod. We have to put this into practice. By creating an imperative to include a youth/family assessment, we are forcing ourselves to think like a modern church living in a modern society.