Activities to Teach Teens About the Liturgical Year

Lectionary

• The lectionary lists which biblical passages a minister uses for study and preaching during the year. Each Sunday has an Old Testament, Gospel, New Testament Epistle and a Psalms reading, and there is an Old Testament and New Testament reading for each day during the week. The lectionary is governed by a three-year cycle. Your teen can explore the lectionary to see how the minister chooses a reading for the message. He can look through past bulletins or sermon listings to see how closely the pastor follows the lectionary, because some pastors vary from the lectionary when they preach a sermon series. Alternatively, he could prepare a family devotion message based on the standard lectionary for the year.

Liturgical Colors

• Each season on the liturgical calendar has an assigned color and meaning. Violet is the predominant Advent color in many Catholic and Episcopal churches. It represents Jesus̵7; royalty. Other denominations use blue for Advent. Your teens can tie the liturgical colors and meanings to a standard calendar. She can break the regular secular calendar into Christian seasons and note which color vestments the pastor will probably wear during the service. If you have a family altar and devotion practice, she could lay out a scarf in the appropriate color to mark the passage to be read and the reader can wear the scarf when the passage is read.

Decoration Worship Space

• Many churches decorate the church each week based on the colors for the Christian season identified in the liturgical calendar. Your teen could volunteer to help decorate the church using the appropriate colors or help arrange flowers using the correct colors for the season. Your teen might join with others teens in the church to create liturgical banners for use in the sanctuary or Sunday school class, using appropriate colors and symbols for each season.

Saints and Holy Days

• Some churches, such as the Catholic, Episcopal and Greek Orthodox churches, celebrate holy days dedicated to various saints. The liturgical calendar used by those denominations identifies each saint̵7;s name date. Your teen can check the liturgical calendar each day to discover if a specific saint is being honored. On days when the calendar lists a specific saint, your teen can look up information about the saint and present it during family Bible study. Your teen could also look to see whether he shares his birthday with a saint and learn more about the saint. He could choose a patron saint as a role model based on a specific date or the characteristics of the saint.