The Lent Cross Challenge

The Lent Cross Challenge

The Lent Cross Challenge The Lent Cross Challenge is an initiative created by the Diocese of Bath and Wells Youth and Children s Go Team. This intention behind the Lent Cross Challenge is to keep the cross at the heart of Easter. It is aimed at children and young people in groups and schools. It can also be done by individuals or as a family activity during Lent. The challenge is to find, identify, make, bake, discover or create 40 different crosses during the 40 days of Lent. These can be photographed to make your very own Lent Cross Challenge collage or you can just have fun identifying 40 different crosses during Lent. In this booklet you will find a daily sentence, to help you reflect on the Easter story and some ideas to help with your Lent cross challenge. We will also set up an interactive online Lent Cross Challenge page on our website with lots more ideas and a daily reflection page. And don t forget to post a picture of your creation on social media using the hashtag #lentcrosschallenge18 or email them to sarah.lockie@bathwells.anglican.org

Ideas for 6-10s /children s groups Stained glass effect crosses This is a very simple creative activity for a children s group. All you need is some clear plastic sheet or an acetate slide, different colour tissue paper, some paper or card to make a border, a PVA glue stick and some scissors. The finished crosses will brighten up a window in a church hall or at home. They could be fixed to a window during Lent. Alternatively, you could use a sheet of clear Perspex and some glass paints. Coin crosses Junk sculpture crosses Ask the children to find as many coins from home as they can and bring them to the children s group. Then use the coins to make lots of different shapes, designs and sizes of crosses. For the final cross, join all the coins together to make a massive cross. When you have finished this activity collect all the coins up and give them to a local charity. Collect lots of household scrap material or pick some up from your nearest scrap store. Lay them out on the floor and invite the children to make model crosses using the materials. They can be made flat on the floor or 3-dimentional. Have available some PVA glue, Sellotape, wool or string to help fix things together, and some scissors to cut things up. Please remember to recycle the scrap materials when they are finished with.

Ideas for 11-16s/youth groups Paper crosses Give each member of the group a piece of paper (it can be as big as you like but it has to be rectangular. A5 or A4 is fine). Without telling the young people what you re going to end up with, get them to follow your instructions, folding and tearing the paper as shown in the diagrams below. When each person unfolds their piece of paper they should have their own cross. The paper crosses could be used for a reflection or to write prayers on, or simply to take home and pin up somewhere. Cross of Tea Lights Set up a cross on the floor in the centre of your space; made from wooden planks, plus a tea light for each member of the group on top of the cross shape. You may also want to dim the lights or play some background music to create a relaxed atmosphere. Encourage the group to sit around the cross on the floor. It may be at this point that you want to say something or get one of the group to read out something about the cross and what Jesus has done for us. Invite the young people, one at a time, to come forward and light a candle and then sit back down. Encourage quiet as each person takes their turn. Once everyone has had a their turn you may want to allow some time for reflection, prayer or perhaps to listen to a song. Conclude with a prayer read by yourself or someone else from the group. You may need to think through the safety and risks of using candles in your setting. As an alternative you could use battery powered tea lights that are readily available from retailers.

Lent Cross Challenge - Out & About Divide the group up into smaller groups as necessary and ensure each small group has at least one phone and/or camera. Send the group out from the meeting place, giving them 15 minutes (or longer as appropriate) to find and photograph as many crosses as they can. These could be actual crosses, i.e. on a church building, or cross shapes spotted in other structures such as cracks in a pavement or the frame of a window. Encourage them to get creative and perhaps award a prize for the largest number of crosses and/or most creative cross found. Conclude with a time of sharing each other s pictures and ask: What does the cross mean to you? An alternative indoor version of this could be to set the challenge inside your local church building, giving them 15 minutes to find as many crosses as they can, some that are meant to be there and others that they can spot. You could even hide some extra ones around the building for the groups to find. Conclude with a sharing time and award prizes for the most crosses found and the most creative picture, and ask: What does the cross mean to you? Ideas for families/family groups Make a cross in nature Whilst out and about in the woods, on a hillside, at the beach or even in your back garden, send everyone off to find natural materials to create a cross on the floor (i.e. a collage of leaves, sticks & fir cones or using pebbles, rocks and seaweed). Make sure everyone gets to participate in the creation of the cross and don t be too prescriptive about what it should look like. Once everyone s happy with the creation take a moment to reflect: what does the cross mean to you? As you leave, you may want to leave your creation where it is for others to come across when they are out and about. Plant, hide, leave a cross in your neighbourhood Make some wooden crosses from ice lolly sticks or twigs. Tie them with coloured twine or string and decorate them with patterns or simple Easter messages ( Jesus is alive! ) Over the Easter weekend plant, leave or hide the crosses in different places around your neighbourhood where others will find them.

Cathedral Cross Trail Take a trip to Wells Cathedral and have a go at their Cross Trail during Lent and Easter. Alternatively go along to your local church during the week and see how many crosses you can find inside the building. Ideas for schools - Ways for schools to engage in the 2018 Lent Cross Challenge Primary school: Class cross challenge how many different images of crosses can each class gather together? Form a collage with the images collected. Consider giving it to your local church as an Easter gift. Use as many different materials as possible to make a selection of crosses as part of your sharing of the Easter story. Have a cross for each class (such as a holding cross) and send it home with a pupil each day, with a simple explanation of Holy week to share with the family. Each pupil returns the cross to school, with a photograph of it in the family home, in the garden or somewhere the family have visited. Secondary school: Social media cross challenge find crosses around the school site. Use a hashtag (#lentcrosschallenge18) and encourage students to take photos of crosses and share on social media. A creative way to engage with the Easter Story through imagery is Stations of the cross https://www.schoolswork.co.uk/resourcetoolkit/entry/easterjourney

Easter Story in 40 sentences (Adapted by Tony Cook from www.animationfactory.co.uk) The Easter Story (also known as the story of Holy Week) Day 1: Easter is the time when Christians all over the world celebrate new life through the person of Jesus. Day 2: For three years Jesus had been going around the area with his 12 close friends, known as the disciples, telling people about God, performing all sorts of miracles, healing people and forgiving them for the bad things they had done wrong. Day 3: The Holy Week begins with Jesus and two of his friends travelling to a place called Jerusalem. They were on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate a special time for Jews called Passover. Day 4: Jesus sent his two friends ahead of him to fetch a donkey and told them that if anyone should ask you who needs it, say the Lord needs it. Day 5: Jesus and his friends entered into Jerusalem with Jesus riding on the donkey. Day 6: People lined the streets shouting Hosanna (which means saviour). They took palm branches and waved them at Jesus, some even took their coats off and laid them on the ground. Day 7: The crowd were pleased to see Jesus as they were expecting a new king of the Jews. Day 8: The following day Jesus went into the temple. Day 9: When he got there, he got very upset because people were using the temple as a market place, selling all sorts of goods and exchanging money. Day 10: Jesus told the market traders that the temple was a place of prayer and he overturned the tables and threw them out of the temple.

Day 11: Over the next few days Jesus continued to teach his disciples and the crowds who came to listen to him. Day 12: He also said that people needed to turn away from the bad things that they were doing and turn back to God. Day 13: Many of the Jewish religious leaders didn t like what Jesus was saying, so they decided to find a way to hand Jesus over to the Roman authorities to kill him. Day 14: Whilst Jesus was talking to the people, one of his 12 disciples made a plan with the religious leaders to capture Jesus and hand him over to the Roman authorities. Day 15: The close friend who plotted against Jesus was called Judas Iscariot. Day 16: The Jewish religious leaders gave Judas 30 silver coins to help them capture Jesus. Day 17: The Last Supper (Jesus s final meal with his close friends). Day 18: Jesus knew that the Jewish religious leaders were plotting against him, he also knew that as a result he would be handed over to the Roman authorities and that he would die. Day 19: So on the Thursday evening before Passover, Jesus shared a special meal with his 12 disciples that we now call the Last Supper. Day 20: This was because it was the last meal that Jesus would have with his disciples before he was to die. Day 21: During the meal Jesus took bread and blessed it. He gave it to his disciples and said to them, Take this bread and eat it. This is a symbol of my body that will be broken for you. Day 22: Jesus told his disciples that he knew that one of them would betray him and hand him over to the Roman authorities to be killed.

Day 23: Jesus also said that Peter, one of his closest disciples would say three times that he didn t know Jesus, and this would happen before the cockerel crowed. Day 24: After they had eaten the bread, Jesus took the cup filled with wine and said a prayer. He gave them the wine to his disciples saying, this is a symbol of my blood, it is poured out for many so that all of the bad things that they do wrong (sins) can be forgiven. Day 25: When Jesus and his disciples had finished their meal, they got up and walked to a garden close by called Gethsemane, where they went to pray. It was at this point that Judas must have wondered off. Day 26: Jesus walked a little ahead of his disciples and prayed three times. Each time when he went back to see his disciples, they had fallen asleep. Day 27: After the third time Jesus prayed, he went to his disciples and told them to wake up, as the time had come for him to be handed over to the Roman authorities. Day 28: Just then Judas arrived with some Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus, Judas went up to Jesus and kissed him on the cheek. This was the sign to show the Roman soldiers who to arrest. Day 29: After Jesus was arrested by the Roman soldiers, all of the disciples ran away because they were scared. Day 30: It was during this time that Peter, one of Jesus closest disciples denied three times that he knew Jesus. This is exactly what Jesus had said would happen. Day 31: The Roman soldiers first took Jesus to the Jewish religious leaders, where he was falsely put on trial. Many people told lies about Jesus to the Jewish religious leaders as they were scared or paid money to do so.

Day 32: The next day which was Friday, Jesus was taken by the Jewish religious leaders to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. They told Pilate that Jesus should die. Pilate finally agreed and after the Roman soldiers had made fun of Jesus and beat him up, they led Jesus out to a hill called Golgotha to crucify him. Day 33: They nailed Jesus to a cross through his hands and feet and after a while he died. Day 34: After Jesus had died his body was placed in a tomb and a large stone was place over the entrance to the tomb. This was on Saturday. Day 35: Early on Sunday morning some of Jesus women friends went to the tomb to mourn, as they were very upset. When they got to the tomb, the stone was rolled away and Jesus body was not there. Day 36: Then the women saw an angel who told them, don t be afraid, you are looking for Jesus who was crucified, but he has been brought back to life. Go, and tell his disciples that he is alive and not dead. Day 37: Over the next few days, Jesus appeared to the disciples and other people many times. He spent time with them and ate with them. Day 38: Jesus told his disciples that it would soon be time for him to leave them to be with God, but that he would send them a helper called the Holy Spirit, who would help them tell others about him. Day 39: After Jesus met with his disciples one final time, he was taken up to Heaven. This is called Ascension. Day 40: But this is not the end of the Easter story, Jesus told the disciples that one day he would return but until then, all Christians should tell others across the whole world about Jesus. And this is how we join in with the Easter Story.

A few more ideas

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