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Struggling to find children’s ministry Easter ideas?
I recently got the following text from a fellow children’s minister: “Do you do anything fun in the service with kids for Palm Sunday or Easter?” We both serve at churches averaging about 200 on a Sunday morning and we’ve been in our positions for a decade or more. As we talked we realized we do a lot of things the same every year.
She said, “I’m trying to decide if it’s a tradition because it’s a good idea, or because I haven’t come up with anything better.” Easter is a holiday steeped in tradition, and traditions are good when utilized well. As you prepare for this season at your church, take a moment to think about your traditions and events, and consider adding in some new elements.
Sunday School Class Isn’t The Only Place To Teach The Easter Story
The Easter Story is foundational to our faith because it is central to the gospel. This familiar, important story can be taught in so many ways outside your usual Sunday morning programming. Here are 8 simple ideas you can try this year.
8 Creative Children’s Ministry Easter Ideas For Your Next Easter Experience
1. Easter Experience Stations
Consider the key points of the Easter story, and create a hands-on station for each main point. Think of simple crafts, guided prayers, and different sensory experiences to go along with key points and verses you want to highlight.
Experiencing the Easter story in a new way is a great way to remind kids who may be very familiar with it how important it is.
This could be turned into a whole church family event that you use as an outreach event for your community, or scale it down just for your Sunday School class.
2. Gospel Themed Scavenger Hunt
Instead of a traditional egg hunt, consider turning the key points of the gospel into a scavenger hunt around your church. Write your own clues and have people stationed at each point to help kids along the way.
Kids learn best when they are having fun! While it’s important to teach the gospel in more traditional ways, adding this fun element is a great way to reinforce these important truths.
What if you incorporated a simplified scavenger hunt into your adult services? Maybe you give clues to certain people in the audience and have a few kids work through the clues together with the support and help of the congregation. This would be a great element to add to a short kid’s lesson during a main service.
3. Prayer Walk Family Experience
Create a prayer walk to prepare your families for the Easter season. This would be a great event if you have good spring weather in your area and a nice outdoor space. Put a volunteer at each station to lead a prayer and help as people walk through.
Encouraging kids to experience things with their families is a great way to disciple the whole family.
If you don’t have the space or time for an entire prayer walk, could you do some guided family prayer during a large service. Give people guided prayer prompts, or even scripture based written out prayers to pray together.
4. Empty Egg Hunt
This is a great way to simplify and organize your traditional egg hunt. Instead of stuffing eggs with candy, hide empty eggs and have kids turn in those eggs for a prize. You could use prebagged candy or other non-candy prizes. This is a great way to ensure everyone gets enough, cuts down on candy intake, and allows you to use things that don’t traditionally fit in a plastic easter egg.
5. Resurrection Rolls
Gather kids together in the church kitchen for this fun science experiment that is also a tasty treat! Put a marshmallow “Jesus”, that’s been rolled in butter & cinnamon sugar “spices” into a crescent roll “tomb” and watch him disappear from the grave after baking!
This classic recipe is a great way for kids to visualize the Easter story, and is a memorable way to add some fun to your Sunday School time.
This activity could be added as a hands-on station if you choose to do a family prayer walk or Easter experience stations.
Check out the recipe here!
6. Palm Sunday Parade In Main Service
I know, this is not a ground-breaking idea, but take a moment to think through how and why you may do this. Have you considered giving the entire worship service access to branches to use during a certain song in the worship set? What if you had the pastor tell the Palm Sunday story and let the kids demonstrate how the people used palm branches to welcome Jesus?
Being given a palm branch is a core memory for many church kids from many denominations. Just be sure you are explaining why this particular part of the story is important, Make sure your kids don’t just remember walking through the church waving a palm branch, but how this story interacts with the whole Easter story.
7. Interactive Good Friday Family Service
Often, in smaller churches, it’s hard to find volunteers to run a Good Friday service for kids, so they end up joining in the adult service with a coloring sheet and the hopes they’ll stay quiet. Consider turning your Good Friday service into a more interactive experience. Can you add some non-traditional elements like prayer stations or sensory-rich activities? A simple way to make any adult service more kid-friendly without those elements taking over the service is to add more worship music. Kids love music, and if you can add in simple hand motions, even the old hymn can become kid-friendly. Consider breaking up shorter teachings and scripture readings with lots of music.
Kids learning beside their families is always encouraged, and one of the great benefits to small churches who are able and willing to tweak their regular programming to accommodate children.
8. Live Action Easter Morning
Most small churches are not able to provide dramas or puppet skits every Sunday morning. However, putting together a simple skit with people or puppets for Easter morning is a great way to tell this important story for kids who might be new to the church. Don’t try and make it too dramatic or perfect, focus on retelling the story in a way your kids would understand. Show John outrunning Peter to the tomb, it’s a great part of the story kids will love.
This is a great element that could easily be incorporated into a main service. Maybe you even have the kids be the one to perform the story.
Adding Creative Elements To Traditions
The Easter season is important for Christians, because it celebrates such a pivotal part of our redemption story. Don’t be afraid to continue simple, time-honored traditions in your church, even if they don’t seem flashy or fancy. Take some time to think of ways to enhance the things you already do and add some new creative elements.
Read More:
Share The Gospel At Easter Egg Hunts
How To Host A Community Easter Event
Amber Kreider has served on staff at a small church in northern Indiana for the past 10 years focusing on children’s ministry, administration, women’s ministry, special events, and more. She also fulfills several volunteer roles with the Missionary Church North Central Region and with a K-12 private Christian school that her husband teaches at and their two children attend. Amber loves talking ministry with other churches and getting creative on using whatever resources God has given us to the best of our ability.
