Lent & Lenten Resources

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Lent & Lenten Resources

Every year I try to put together a list of Lutheran Lenten resources on my website, maryjmoerbe.com. You can go here for my latest Lenten Resource post. However, here on LutheranHomeschool.com, I compile resources more specifically for discussing & practicing Lent with your children.

(The product is a PDF of this information. Additional resources & recommendations are welcome! Just let me know. Also, once “purchased,” I think you have access to updated files as soon as they are updated.)

Introductory articles

• Lutheran Liturgical Practices During Lent
• Do Lutherans Have to Give up Something & What is the Significance of Lent?

Resources and Ideas for Kids

• Trinity, San Antonio has put together Lent guides for both individuals or families.
• Kids in the Divine Service are a great resource for teaching children about Lutheran worship. You can find the free bulletin inserts on LCMS.org or here are the weeks for Lent. Another option is buy the book.
• CPH has also started offering a Lent & Easter Family Calendar paired with their other Lenten resources for the year (though you might ask your church to get them since they come in packs of 50!). Here are the ones they offer so far.
• Have you ever heard of a Lent Tree or a Jesus Tree? It’s like a Jesse Tree and goes through the major events of Jesus’ life during Lent. You can google it to find ornament patterns.
• Here’s a free visual guide to Gesimatide & Lent.
• Here is a $5 digital Lenten Bundle that includes a Lenten calendar in both letter and poster size, plus color sheets for each of the saints honored in the Lutheran Service Book during the Lenten season. Yay! (If you are already using the Family Lectionary available through Concordia Collective, the printables are already available to you under your printables link.)
• Pleasantly Crafted has a Holy Week Banner, Devotions, and Coloring Sheets.
• Pure Joy Creative has four images on a Holy Week Coloring page.
• Resurrection Eggs are a thing and here is one post about potentially making your own.
• Another thing to consider is going through the Catechism. In fact, Rev. Ryan Loeslie has a free month-long challenge that I think could easily be adapted for use in Lent.
• Do you have any budding musicians? Here’s a link for the free Lent and Holy Week volume of Hymns for Small Lutheran Hands. 
• Stephenie Hovland is a Lutheran writer who has several books for daily Lenten devotions for children and their families, including These Stones will Shout, Were You There? Let’s Grow into Lent, For God So Loved, and Looking up to Lent.
• I know that memorization isn’t always the priority it once was, but Lent is an excellent time to resume the practice. Pick a few psalms or a chapter of two of a Gospel. Pick out a hymn! OR, memorize the Athanasian Creed by starting on Ash Wednesday and ending at Trinity Sunday! Every line will be a blessing! Granted, it’s not a 40 day exercise, but still a very excellent spiritual discipline and education. I even put together this document pairing the text with each week. Athanasian Creed for Easy Memorization.
• Passion Books are another thing and rightly so! Use Lent to read through a harmonization of the Gospel passion readings. Rev. Andrew Richard has also put together a Passion book including additional historic readings for Holy Week and he’s paired it with various woodcuts and paintings. (And woodcuts remind me of Deac. Carolyn Brinkley’s devotional book, Bearing the Cross: Devotions on Albrecht Durer’s Small Passion, which consists of 34 devotions by my admittedly fallible count.). You may also want to consider Bugenhagen’s Passion, which consists of a harmonization of the Gospel passion readings over seven readings, so absolutely ideal for Holy Week!
• As children get older, Higher Things has Reflections available for youth & families for throughout the church year,
• And, Steadfast Lutherans offers a schedule to read through the Book of Concord for Lent. Kids can absolutely read or listen to the Book of Concord, even if you excerpt at times. If you think about it, much of the Lutheran Confessions were written for them, including the Creeds, the Catechisms, and the Augsburg Confession.

Simple Articles or Explanations on Fasting

• Here‘s a quick Lutheran definition and explanation from the Lutheran Cyclopedia.
• ELS on Fasting
• The entry on Fasting from the Lutheran Cyclopedia
• Here’s a neat guy for devotion, fasting, and almgiving.