Tuesday Topics: Talk Amongs Yourselves

This Sunday I am not preaching, the first in a long while...

Although this Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday we are doing something fun! Well maybe not "fun," but very cool....

Our children have written meditations and prayers for each of the stations of the cross. They have also designed each station with some art work or "performing" art piece. So for example at the station where Jesus is nailed to the cross one child brought in pieces of wood, nails, and a hammer, and people will hammer the nails in the wood at that station

Instead of our usual Passion Reading with members of the congregation and instead of a homily, the kids will take us on a walk through the stations, they will be our guides. In small groups the parish will walk each of the stations with the kids leading us, we will reflect on their meditations and pray their prayers and ponder their art work for each station. Sure, we will begin the service with our usual Liturgy of the Palms, processing around and singing "Oh glory laud and honor..." and we will listen to the readings of OT, Psalm, and NT...but for the Gospel/Passion reading and sermon time we will leave in groups with the kids and walk the stations they have created. They are being built all around the church space, in and out of various rooms, so we will literally be walking around.

We will also have a booklet made with the meditations, prayers, and pictures of the artwork for folks to take home.

This whole thing was their idea...I did a "Stations of the Magi" reflection for the season of Epiphany and created a labyrinth of sorts in our worship space along with a mediation book. The kid walked this labyrinth and decided they wanted to do one using the stations of the cross...how cool is that....so they did.

This has been a very cool exercise for our kids...I'm excited for them and for our parish.