Palm Sunday Activities

Palm Sunday was always a big day for us in the traditional church and we are still trying to find ways to make it meaningful in a house church setting. We started out with singing and let the kids have some palm branches and their favorite instruments (drums and shakers) with JP on the guitar.

Our songs included:
Blessed Be The Name (Charles Wesley)
Hosanna (Carl Tuttle)
Blessed Be Your Name (Chris Tomlin)
Blessed the Name of the Lord (Don Moen)

After that we read our Scripture reading from a Nazarene Hymnal (Sing To The Lord #216) We also looked at Mark 11:1-10. The roller coaster ride the disciples went on starting here must have been a doozy. They were looking for a different kind of messiah than the one Jesus turned out to be. They wanted freedom from the tyranny of Rome as well as wanting to see Israel become a mighty world power. They watched as Jesus did the miracles, confounded the religious leaders, and fed the multitudes with little or nothing. Then they saw him ride into Jerusalem, the place he predicted he would die, as a conquering hero. The people swearing alliegance to him with palm branches and their garments covering the roads as he rode in on a donkey (a common mount for kings in that time). They probably cheered as he cleared out the Temple courtyard of the greedy money changers and merchants. After all if he conquered the city and the Temple, then Rome would surely be next. Then comes the Last Supper and Jesus, the conqueror, puts on a slave's garment and starts washing feet! He prays in apparent anguish at the Garden of Gethsemane and is then arrested. Imagine the soaring emotions of going from the thrill, glory and adoration of a King to the arrest, trial and prosecution of a criminal!

Following our discussion of the Triumphal Entry we did an activity that symbolized the "roller-coaster ride" of emotions. We took the palm branches that the children waved in our singing and used them to weave crosses and a crown of thorns. (This turned out to be a bit tricky since our palms were not the long branches that the on-line demonstrators used. So we had to trim our branches and staple the short pieces together to make one long strand. The little branches and stems also made it hard to do the crown of thorns but it still came out fairly well.)

Trying to figure out how to weave palm crosses and crowns while expaining it to others at the same time!

Our palm table full of the wrong type of fronds for weaving (though not bad for waving but hey, what are fronds for? yuk yuk!) BTW notice the cool inflatable palm tree?

Our finished projects on a display board.