Preparing Your Family For Easter

Easter is the most important event in the Christian calendar. Remarkably, as important as it it, it is easy to let the week slip by in a blur of egg hunts and ham dinners without ever stopping to help your family grasp what it actually means. So how can you prepare your family to fully understand and appreciate the importance of Easter? Here are some practical, faith-building ways to walk your family toward Easter Sunday with intention.

Start the Week With the Story. On Palm Sunday, gather your family and read the triumphal entry together from Luke 19:28-40. Let the kids wave something — a napkin, a paper palm branch, anything — and talk about why the crowds were celebrating. Setting the stage early in the week gives the whole family a narrative thread to follow all the way to Sunday morning.

Pray Through the Events of Good Friday. Each evening of Holy Week, read one part of the crucifixion narrative and close in prayer. Use John 19:30 as an anchor — “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.” Ask your family what they think Jesus meant by those three words. The answers might surprise you. New Life offers Good Friday services online and in person. 

Give Sacrificially. Isaiah 58:6-7 calls God’s people to acts of justice and generosity as genuine worship. As a family, choose one practical act of service during Holy Week — deliver a meal, write encouragement cards, or serve at a local ministry. Connecting Easter to outward action teaches children that resurrection life produces something visible.

Make Saturday Quiet. The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is an underused gift. Resist the urge to fill it entirely with activities. Read Psalm 46:10 together — “Be still, and know that I am God.” Talk about what the disciples must have felt. Silence before Sunday makes the celebration more meaningful.

Wake Up Early on Easter Sunday. Mark 16:2 tells us the women came to the tomb “very early in the morning.” Wake up before the noise of the day begins, step outside together, and simply say it out loud — He is risen. Start Easter the way it was discovered: in the quiet, at dawn, with expectation.