Online and at Home Resources and Ideas
Ash Wednesday
- Send temporary cross tattoos to your church members
- Send small, individual containers of ashes to your members for application at home (be sure to remind people not to mix ashes with water)
- Ash Wednesday precautions (with example service attached) from Marcia McFee (UMC)
Lent
- Lent Kits – how to create kits for members of your church to engage their faith at home (Barn Geese Worship, ELCA)
- ‘Surviving a COVID Lent & Easter (Again) with Illustrated Ministry’ – prerecorded webinar from Practical Church Resources
- Lent at Home from Godly Play – free downloadable devotional and activity kits for purchase
- Lent in a box – Digital Resource (UMC)
General Holy Week
- God’s Big Easter Story: A Holy Week Journey for Families – Devotion and Story Symbols (Christian Reformed Church in North America)
- Easter and Holy Week in a Time of Social Distancing – Recorded Webinar with Dr. Marcia McFee (UMC)
- Folk/Indie/Bluegrass Holy Week Playlist – by Kathleen M. Henrion (PCUSA)
- Holy Week at Home: Praying with a Centerpiece
- Holy Week Online Resources – ideas compiled by Rev. Rachel Gilmore – PathOne Church Planting (UMC)
- Holy Week Playlist – on Spotify by Sacred Ordinary Days
- Holy Week Tenebrae: A Home-Based Devotional – $10-$60 from Salt*
- Home Worship for the Three Days – Ecumenical resource compiled by Gordon Lathrop and Gail Ramshaw (ELCA)
- Illustrated Holy Week – $29.95 from Illustrated Ministries
- Online Services for Holy Week and Easter 2020 – from The PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship – includes best practices for live-streaming, outlines for online services, creative ideas for for each day of Holy Week, and musical suggestions in the public domain
Palm Sunday
- At Home Hosanna, At Home Hallelujah- Community Art Project
- Invite congregation members to find vegetation from their yards or houses to represent Palms. Have them send a photo or video that you compile into a slideshow/movie. Or have them bring them to worship online on Sunday.
- Invite people to create a palm branch out of paper and wave it as a part of worship.
- Palm Frond cut-outs – Free resource from Illustrated Ministries
- Palm Parade – “We always carry palms with us – the palm of our hands.” Waving your hands instead of branches.
- Palm Sunday and Remembering the Acts of Communion -Written by Rev. Hedy Collver (UMC)
- Palm Sunday Stations – by Rev. Rachel Gilmore – PathOne Church Planting (UMC)
- Virtual Palm Parade – Whitney Point UMC
Maundy Thursday
- Comfort Food: A Feast of Love – liturgy alternative to communion designed by Dr. Marcia McFee (UMC)
- Handwashing – create liturgy and ritual around handwashing tied to the story of Jesus washing people’s feet
- Maundy Thursday at Home
Good Friday
- Create an altar space in your house and ceremonially strip the altar on video at the end of your service
- Seven Last Words Devotional – $9.99 from Illustrated Ministries
Easter
- Alleluia Butterflies – $16.99 from Illustrated Ministries
- Easter Playlist – on Spotify by Sacred Ordinary Days
- From Darkness to Light – Begin with dim or no lights. If streaming worship, invite congregants to light candles, inviting the Light of Christ. Do so on screen as well. Read the Easter story and gradually brighten lights as Mary and others begin to realize that Christ has risen.
- Preach from outside (if weather allows). We might not have flowers in the sanctuary, but can you point to new shoots and other plants coming back to life in your yard?
Children & Families
- At Home Easter – Emmy Kegler (ELCA)
- God’s Big Easter Story: A Holy Week Journey for Families – Devotion and Story Symbols (Christian Reformed Church in North America)
- Holy Week Story/Coloring Book – from Picture the Bible (UCC)
- Online Easter Egg hunt – Have your website team “hide” pictures of Easter Eggs throughout your website. Have the kids, with parents, seek to find them.
- The Story of Holy Week & Easter for St. John’s Sunday School – adapted from Gretchen Wolff Prichard’s Offering the Gospel to Children by Rev. Jack Clark
More links and resources will be added as they become available. See more resources for addressing ministry during the COVID-19 Outbreak from the Wisconsin Council of Churches on our Coronavirus Resource Page
Have you appreciated or benefited from our crisis response ministry with respect to the coronavirus? Please share a word of testimony, or make a donation to sustain this work, which is helping clergy and churches here in Wisconsin, and across the nation.
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