Saturday, February 23, 2008

Family Celebration at Easter - Ann Hibbard


(published by Baker Books - click photo for link)
I was blessed to get this book on Paperback Swap.


This book has 3 main sections and a few extras.

The first section contains Lenten Devotionals. These begin with a "real life" illustration, then have a Scripture, worship song, discussion questions and a prayer. There are little "ornaments" you can make for an Easter Tree that go along with each devotion. We've not used the devotions in this book because we liked the child's perspective in "A Family Journey with Jesus Through Lent" for our younger set (2 of which we are still training to sit through family circle).

The second section offers an Easter family worship service and directions for a "Holy Treasure Hunt." I had already gleaned this idea from Debbie when she shared how she uses the Resurrection eggs. The author also suggests setting up a table that is then filled with "treasures" as the season goes along. You fill it with various symbols...crown of thorns, cup, bread, stone, etc. I think that could be fun in future years, or maybe we'll still do it this year, but I've not gotten that far. I think if I took the snowmen down, I'd have room to set up a treasure table in our entry way.

The third section of the book explains Passover, preparation for a Seder, the Passover meal, and includes the script for a messianic Passover. At this point, we plan to use the haggadah from this book for our Passover. This was a very concise and yet meaningful explanation of Passover.

There are a few other extras in the book. There are directions and patterns for symbols to create an Easter Tree. Now that I see my Jesus Tree is a "kit," I may well go ahead and copy these, color them, laminate them, and use them on the pine trees that stay in my living room year round. I need to study them more. I need to explore how much meaning the symbols will have without the accompanying devotionals. The book also has the music and words to several hymns.

While I'm not using a lot of this book, I liked it well enough that I decided not to re-post it on PBS. ::snort::

Another on the ever-changing 2008 Reading List.
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3 comments:

Jen said...

We used the Haggadah from this book the first few time we did the Seder. Since then, I have used various Haggadah's from Jewish and Messianic sources, but haven't completely abandoned this one, it's made reappearances. I find each one has different aspects that I like. This one does a nice job of bringing in the parallels of the holidays.

Jen said...

Oh, I forgot, Zola Levitt has a great video on celebrating a Messianic Seder. You can watch it here:http://www.levitt.tv/#specialtopics

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Jen, thanks for your input. I also thought it did a good job of showing the parallels which will be important for our first celebration.

I'll check out the Zola Levitt sight. My in laws love him.