A trip to any major retailer will remind you that Easter is fast approaching. Stores are fully stocked with candy, plastic eggs, and bunnies. Family gatherings are being planned, and the perfect outfits are being shopped for. As you prepare for this upcoming celebration, here are some resources to help your family keep your hearts and minds centered on the glorious reason we celebrate this season – Jesus’s sacrificial death and resurrection! You can find these books displayed on the check-in desk in the Children’s Ministry hallway. Please borrow a book or two to use for the next several weeks! ... Sara Southard
Family Devotions:
Darkest Night Brightest Day: A Family Devotional for the Easter Season
by Marty Machowski
This beautifully illustrated ""upside down"" book includes fourteen Bible stories for Passion and Easter weeks. You can begin on Palm Sunday with the first side, Darkest Night, which has seven stories that recount the events of Passion week, ending with Christ's crucifixion and burial. Flip the book over on Easter morning and continue by reading Brightest Day, featuring seven more stories that progress from Christ's resurrection to His ascension and Pentecost.
30 Prophecies, One Story: How God’s Word Points to Jesus by Paul Reynolds
This 30-day devotional takes readers through the conversation Jesus had with Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus, and what He was trying to help them understand. Go on a tour of some of what “Moses and all the Prophets” said about Jesus. Who were they talking to? What did it mean to those people? How was any of it about Jesus? Each day’s reading looks at different places in the Bible where you can find a prophecy about Jesus.
A Jesus Easter: Explore God's Amazing Rescue Plan by Barbara Reaoch
These easy-to-lead devotions start by looking at Genesis and going through the Old Testament to see how Easter was always part of God’s amazing plan for His people. The remainder look at the Easter story itself, helping families to experience the full joy of our resurrection hope.
Each day there is a passage to read together, questions to think about, an explanation, and a prayer. There are also age-appropriate application questions, with some for younger children and some for older children, as well as journaling space so that family members can write or draw their own response to what God has shown them.
Picture Books:
The Donkey Who Carried a King by R.C. Sproul
Davey was a young donkey who was bored and unhappy because he was never given anything to do. Then one day, some strangers came to the gate―and Davey’s master picked him for a very special task. Davey carried the King, Jesus, into Jerusalem. A few days later, Davey saw some angry people making the King carry a heavy beam of wood. Davey could not understand it―until another donkey helped him see that the King was being a Servant on behalf of His people.
This book offers a unique perspective on the events of Jesus’ Passion week and calls all believers, both young and old, to follow in the footsteps of the Suffering Servant for the glory of God.
The Garden, The Curtain, and The Cross by Carl Laferton
This beautiful hardback Bible storybook for 3–6-year-olds takes children on a journey from the Garden of Eden to God’s perfect new creation. It is a gospel presentation that focuses on the significance of the temple curtain. God said, “because of your sin you can’t come in,” but the moment the curtain tore in two, everything changed. Children will learn why Jesus died and rose again, and why that’s the best news ever.
A Very Happy Easter by Tim Thornborough
This fresh retelling of the Easter story focuses on the emotions of Jesus’s friends and invites children to copy the expressions they are making. As they learn about how Jesus died and rose again, they will see that Jesus’s friends felt fear, sadness, surprise and joy, and they will have the opportunity to think about how they might have felt. This book is a great way to make story time interactive and explain Easter to young children in a way that connects emotionally and builds empathy. It’s perfect for toddler or younger elementary-age children.
The Friend Who Forgives: A true story about how Peter failed and Jesus forgave
by Dan Dewitt
Do you ever talk before you think? Mess up? Let others down? That’s what Peter did, again and again and again, and it led him to abandoning his best friend, Jesus. But after Jesus rose from the dead, He went and found Peter and forgave him. Jesus explained that His death took the punishment for all of Peter’s mistakes and that His resurrection showed that the penalty was lifted. Peter spent the rest of his life telling people that if they put their trust in Jesus, they could be forgiven too - again and again and again. This book points children to Jesus, the friend who will forgive them.
