These simple and creative Lent ideas for families will help you and your kids grow closer to God and reflect on the things that are most important in your life. Lent is a great opportunity to realign your own will with God’s will, and reassert his sovereignty in your life. Why not do this as a family and either give up something meaningful for Lent or engage in another practice that will help draw you closer to God and form you into the creatures that he intended you to be.
Read more below for some simple and creative Lent ideas for families that you can practice together.
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What is Lent?
Lent is the season leading up to Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday and lasting for 40 days (not including Sundays – technically, it’s 46 days long).
Lent is observed by Christians around the world, including Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians. Lent is a season for reflection and preparation for Easter.
Typically, Lent involves three practices: repentance (or penance), almsgiving, and fasting. (Which basically means recognizing your own sin, giving to others, and giving something up for a season.)
Fasting is the most well-known Lenten practice, and for most Christians who observe Lent, the question on everyone’s lips is: “What are you giving up for Lent this year?”
Lent doesn’t have to be about “giving something up”, though. And it is definitely not an exercise is asceticism and self-control. Lent is fundamentally about realigning ourselves with God’s will and solidifying God’s reign in our lives.
There are many ways that you can do this.
Many Christians will choose to give something up for Lent, in order to intentionally mirror Christ’s own temptations in the desert.
And these were Christ’s temptations:
- material comfort
- worldly power
- relevance
- popularity
- doubt
- control
=> Read more: Rethinking Lent | what is it, why do we do it, and how does it bring us closer to God?
Lent is an opportunity for us reflect on what is truly important to us, and to resist the temptations of the world that compete with God. This resistance is not about asserting our own self-will over coffee, or chocolate, or social media, or whatever it is that we choose to give up for Lent. Instead, it is about making space for God in our lives and surrendering those things that compete with Him.
What to Do for Lent this Year
Giving up something for Lent becomes more meaningful and more impactful if you give up something that makes more space for God in your life. Rather than giving up chocolate or coffee, give up screen time (and spend that time with your family or in Bible study and prayer), give up complaining or criticizing….
You can also start a new habit for Lent. If Lent is about affirming God’s reign in our lives and intentionally mirroring Christ’s own temptations, then starting a new habit can be just as effective as giving something up. Below, you’ll find some simple Lent ideas for families that will help you to center your lives on God.
Why Observe Lent as a Family?
Observing Lent will give your family the opportunity to affirm God’s reign in your life, to learn to depend more on Him, to grow in gratitude, and become more like the creatures that God intended us to be.
Observing Lent as a family will also open up space for conversations about faith and God. Talking with your kids about their faith, making space for questions, and engaging in concrete practices will make faith more impactful for your entire family.
Giving up something meaningful that makes more space for God in your life, or adopting a practice that reaffirms God’s foundational place, is one way that you can make an otherwise “invisible” faith “visible”. (The more kids see you practicing your own faith, and the more they can engage with their own, the more real it becomes to them.)
6 Things to Give Up for Lent as a Family
If you want to give something up as a family for Lent, here are some simple and creative ideas that will help you to realign your will with God’s, and to reaffirm His reign in your life.
- Give up screen time. Maybe not 100% for all of Lent. (I know my family wouldn’t survive that.) But limit screen time during Lent. Give up one specific thing, like social media. Or implement a 1 hour a day screen free rule, where you just hang out and play games with each other.
- Give up busyness. For six weeks, fast some the crazy pace of life. Give up one extracurricular and spend the time at home instead, resting and spending time with each other. Don’t volunteer for things. Let someone else host Bible studies.
- Give up a material comfort. Maybe you want to give up meat, or single-use plastic, or candy for Lent. Pick one thing to give up. If you are all fasting from something as a family (not necessarily the same thing), you can provide each other with some moral support.
- Give up a vice. Try giving up complaining, or criticizing, or talking about yourself during Lent.
- Give up eating out and take out food. Put the money that you save away and donate it to a charity, a ministry, or a family in need at Easter.
- Go on a spending fast. Okay, so you have to buy groceries (and diapers if you have little ones). But give up buying toys and other luxuries during Lent. Buy only what you absolutely need.
20 More Lent Ideas for Families
Lent doesn’t necessarily have to be about giving something up. Try implementing a new practice for 40 days (or longer).
- Implement a 1-hour a day “no phones” rule.
- Start a family game night.
- Start volunteering.
- Spend some time writing letters to people.
- Donate money. Make it fun for the kids by letting them pick the charity.
- Start a devotion. Devotions are great additions to the bedtime routine.
- Adopt a child through an organization like World Vision or Compassion Canada.
- Start a prayer journal as a family.
- Read a book that will help strengthen your faith as a family. The Case for Christ for Kids is an excellent book to teach your kids the solid ground we have for belief in Jesus.
- Start a gratitude journal as a family.
- Keep a gratitude jar: count your blessings with pennies or nickles and donate the money to charity at Easter.
- Donate toys that your kids no longer play with.
- Donate extra things that you may have that others don’t have enough of (coats, hats, mitts…)
- Make a construction paper prayer chain.
- Make a jelly bean jar: each day during Lent the kids earn a jelly bean of whatever colour they followed through on (green for good deeds, red for sacrifices….). This works great with the jelly bean prayer.
- Try a 40 bags in 40 days challenge: declutter your home and donate one bag of stuff for each day of Lent.
- Collect one item of food each day from your pantry to donate.
- Use a good deeds jar for 40 days: put a lima bean into a mason jar for each good deed witness, and then exchange the lima beans for jelly beans on Easter.
- Set aside extra time to read a Bible with your kids. The Jesus Storybook Bible is one of our favourite kid books about Jesus (perfect for preschool all the way up to grade 5). It has some excellent Easter stories.
- Encourage one another daily.
Observing Lent was not a practice in my family of origin neither did I implement this in my home when rearing my children. I appreciate your explanation and the suggested activities. I loved that you spoke of more than fasting but rather doing something to draw closer the Lord.
Thanks for your comments, Calvonia. I love the practices that aren’t necessarily about giving something up the most. Jesus’ temptation in the desert was about resisting the devil (power, doubt, material comfort, etc.). There are so many creative ways that we can join in that resistance and prepare our hearts for Easter.