We’ve celebrated Passover in our home for a number of years now, and each year it’s different, as we adapt it around who will be there. We tend to have a big feast-like meal interspersed with parts of the service (seder). We include elements which we use each week in our Shabbat meal, for example … Read more
Why would you celebrate Passover if you’re not Jewish? Such a good question! We’ve been celebrating Passover for over ten years now. Our children have grown up in a home where it’s the norm and each year we’ve invited other people to join us. In some ways, we celebrate Passover because we celebrate a weekly … Read more
Have fun choosing and preparing fruit. If possible, arrange to visit a pick your own farm to pick it first! Look for suitable moments during the preparation to help everyone reflect on what fruit they like and why, and to tell god about this, thanking him for his brilliant creations. Open ended questions are good … Read more
This fun activity was created by my friend Caroline. Instead of ‘fortune cookies’, she made ‘encouragement cookies’ simply by writing out blessings on slips of paper then put them inside home-made fortune cookies. Warning: the folding bit is rather hot, so be careful! What sort of blessings you write will depending on who you are … Read more
This is a really popular prayer activity: 1 Grab a pack of multi-coloured sweets — Skittles work well! 2 Assign each colour sweet a category, for example: Red: family Purple: friends Green: environment/ animals Yellow: the world Orange: school/work 3 Take it in turns to pick one sweet. You could do this with your eyes … Read more
Have fun thanking God with fruit! Choose four different types of fruit and make them in a chunky fruit salad. Easy options are strawberries, raspberries, grapes and blueberries. For a more sticky and use-immediately salad, you could add kiwi, banana, pear, or melon (and make sure you have wipes or a bowl of water handy!). … Read more
Each week, on a Friday just as we start our Shabbat dinner, we take it in turns to wash our hands as a symbol of our hearts being washed clean. We say words from Psalm 24:3-4: “Who can go up to the temple on the mountain of the Lord? Who can stand in his … Read more
Use different shaped pasta to pray! Take it in turns to talk about something which makes you afraid. They may be simple things like spiders or more personal things like getting lost or losing someone. Use the pasta to make a little picture of the thing which makes you afraid. When you have made the … Read more
Sabbath starts in the evening. In Jewish tradition, all days start in the evening, because “there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (Genesis 1:4) This is marked with a ritual meal where candles are lit, hands are washed, bread and wine shared and blessings spoken before we tuck into our roast chicken. It’s not … Read more
Would you like a way to mark you Sabbath, to make it different from the other days of the week? In our home, we mark it with a weekly Shabbat meal, a simple ritual we do together as we begin our Friday evening meal (which is always roast chicken!!). You can find out more about … Read more
We’ve been celebrating Shabbat each Friday for 12 years now. We love it, and couldn’t imagine our week without it. If you’ve not come across Shabbat, it’s a traditionally Jewish ritual Friday night meal with prayers and blessings. Our two children, ages 4 and 5 join in with the songs, the actions, and some of … Read more
Bake jam tarts or cookies using an angel-shaped cutter and give them to a friend, neighbour or a delivery person. If appropriate, offer to pray for them, including a prayer that God will bring them good news, just like the angels brought good news at the first Christmas. You might like to read the Christmas … Read more