Sharing Lent with Children

On this Shrove or Fat Tuesday, the eve of the Lenten journey, I find myself reflecting on the changes in our culture and our increasingly post-Christian society. Where it used to seem that most churches hosted pancake suppers, that number has shrunk considerably in my city. Where Ash Wednesday services used to be commonplace, now they are rare. The fact that Easter, and therefore Lent, are so early this year doesn’t help with its low profile.

I would be surprised if many of the kids in our ministries have wrapped their heads around why we bother with pancake suppers on this auspicious day. The idea of eating up the lard, milk and eggs at the end of celebrating the feasts of Epiphany in order to prepare for forty days of fasting before Easter is probably foreign to most of them. They just love to eat pancakes with lots of syrup! And it’s a night for mom or dad to not have to cook. Hurray for church pancake suppers!

The task of Christian education has never been greater. Where in the past it may have been the case that Sunday school and other programs were supporting and perhaps in tandem with Christian parenting and learning in the home, in my experience what the church provides (and maybe a Christian/Catholic school) is often pretty much the full extent of their learning about the Christian faith. Some children have parents who mean well but have forgotten what they learned or who are new to the faith themselves. Some children have parents who will not set foot in a church and the kids either come with friends or grandparents or surrogate spiritual mentors.

Regardless of how the children come to us, we can’t assume that they have any grounding in the faith whatsoever. They may have no idea of what a Bible is, of who Jesus is, or of what a church is for. And how can we blame them? Even our own Sunday school regulars can forget year to year what Ash Wednesday and Lent are all about. All of this means that we need to be wise, welcoming, relevant and begin at the bottom floor. How do we explain what is happening here and what Lent means?

1. We keep it as simple as possible, going deeper with those who are older and/or ready. We share that the next few weeks we remember how Jesus prepared to die in our place on a cross. It was a horrible, cruel way to die, but Jesus did it willingly because He loved us so much. We follow Jesus’ footsteps as we journey to Easter. Lenten readings during worship and learning times are great for maintaining this focus.

2. We encourage them to see this time as just as important as Advent. While Advent was expectant waiting, adding more happy decorations and opening windows on calendars, this is a time of paring back, of increasing reflection and even sadness. Without what Jesus went through for us on the cross, we would not have the joy of Easter.

3. We highlight opportunities to be involved with this important season outside of Sunday mornings. Encourage families to collect coins that can help those in need. Encourage praying as a family and as individuals. Offer a spirituality centre or just some prayer stations for quiet reflection and meditation through the week. Provide descriptions of what prayer is in simple language, i.e. “Prayer is talking to God. We thank God for things but we also admit things we have done wrong. Sin, or anything we do that is not God’s way of love, is what made Jesus die for all of us. We tell God that we are sorry for how we have hurt others.”

Through the weeks of Lent, I want to write about simplifying aspects of our living that clutter and cloud our closeness with Jesus. The story of the Passion is not nice or easy, and it can be tempting to become busy so we don’t have to deal with its realities. Instead, I’m going to suggest ways that we can guide our kids to become more intentional about our time with God in these weeks of reflection and preparation for the biggest events of the Christian year.