Pentecost Day ideas for families

Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Church. Another day we often do not celebrate much as a family or simply celebrate on Pentecost Sunday. Many times we have forgotten to build up to it from Easter Sunday. The Ascension (Which you can see our previous blog here) comes 40 days after Easter Sunday. There are 10 days of waiting between Ascension and Pentecost.

Are there any ways you have celebrated Pentecost in the past?

Simple Pentecost Ideas at a Glance

Examples:

• Wear red,

• Read Acts 2,

• Pray together,

• Invite people for food,

• Flame crafts

• Multilingual “Jesus” poster.

What Is Pentecost?

The day of Pentecost takes place 50 days after the resurrection on Easter Sunday and 10 days after Jesus ascends into heaven. The word Pentecost comes from the greek word ‘Pentēkostē’ πεντηκοστή meaning fiftieth. The word is found, in the Jewish celebration of the Feast of Weeks and would come 50 days afterwards, much like Christains and Easter. 

In the Old Testament this feast is known as the Feast of weeks, seen in Leviticus 23 & Deuteronomy 16 and would have been a time the Jewish people celebrated the wheat harvest and brought their first fruits to God thanking him for his provision. People would travel all the way to Jerusalem from many places, which could be why many nations and languages were there on the day. As they heard the disciples speaking many foreign languages!

For Christians, this was the day that the long awaited helper the ‘Holy Spirit’, part of the Trinity descended as tongues of fire on the first disciples. As Christians now we rely so much on the Holy Spirit and this is the day that was first seen with a powerful outpouring in the upper room! They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them - Acts 2:3-4.  There were tongues of fire and Christians have connected Pentecost with God writing his law on hearts through the Holy Spirit.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

There are some who don’t believe all spiritual gifts are around anymore and that they ended with the Apostles, others may focus a bit too much on some gifts. But regardless of this or your view we can’t deny that 50 days after Jesus conquered sin and death the Holy Spirit came upon those first Christians. Igniting a chain reaction of changed hearts and lives in following Jesus both Jew and Greek.

Why make a big deal of Pentecost?

Why make a big deal of the Pentecost?

Because Pentecost is such a pivotal part of the Churches’ history, many churches annual calendars celebrate this day and it brings into focus the Holy Spirit who is part of the Trinity. “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life” from the Nicene Creed.  Shouldn’t we want to explore this with our family, teaching them the exact words from the Bible and help them know further how God helps them and us in our everyday lives?

Many liturgical Churches use red on Pentecost Sunday to symbolise both fire and the Holy Spirit’s presence and power.

How to Celebrate Pentecost?

There is not one way of celebrating this moment as a family. It can be simple, quiet, playful or all mixed up together depending on your family’s life and stage. For us we are still testing out rhythms and ways of making them fit our regular life.

Where and When 

Keep this simple and realistic for your family life. As it always falls on a Sunday and we are already at church we try to fit traditions in around the services maybe before church. we aim to invite a group over for food afterwards to make the day feel a little more special like Christmas and Easter. As we don’t want to celebrate this day alone!

Food

We read in a book about different types of food that could be had for this day and really loved the concept of a curry thinking of the tongues of fire. As a family our spice tolerance isn’t that high. Don’t be too worried about making something super spicy. I believe mild can work nicely, helping our children to consider more tongues of fire. We also don’t tend to allow our children to have other drinks apart from milk or water but again as this is a special day allow them to have something a bit more exciting like blackcurrant squash.  We even had a cheeky dessert brought by some people from church and our community. This year we had trifle, brownies, meringues, fruit, cream and cheesecake. 

We chucked the curries into 3 slow cookers the night before so it was easy to serve up once we got home and just needed to chuck rice in the rice cooker and bread into the oven. As Red is the colour of the day you could use red serviettes or a table cloth. No pressure though.

really loved the concept of a curry thinking of the tongues of fire.

Games

We didn’t end up doing any games this year but have seen many cool and fun ideas that we may test out in future years; from; 

Water balloons or water gun fights to contrast the tongues of fire, linking to water baptism and baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Crafts

In the morning as a family we did some drawing and colouring before church, our son drew tongues of fire. He also had his own inspiration of adding Spider-Man and a few other fictitious characters in the picture. We made a ‘Happy Pentecost Day’ picture and placed it in our front window for passers-by to see. We also had the name Jesus cut out in different languages stuck around the poster to get people to think and hope that people would ask questions if they see Jesus written in their own language. 

The week leading up to Pentecost we did some windmills (fans) at a children's group and had them symbolising the wind drawing fire and other things on them. 

Some other ideas that we may use in the future are to decorate some flame like streamers or flags to wave around as a family in worship or make paper flames or dove decorations. 

Even consider getting them to do a birthday card for the church.

Prayer Structure

We took part in the corporate worship at church praying and singing to God the Trinity. We also prayed things like “Holy Spirit Come.”

Praying the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed with younger ones For slightly older ones why not try the Athanasian Creed.

Lifting our hands up during prayer

Lighting a candle to show us the Holy Spirit is still burning.

Bible Readings

Acts 2:1-13 or other passages in the lectionary for this day.

Role Play Storytelling

Role play the story of Pentecost either retelling Easter or Ascension as well. But particularly imagine being in the room where it happens with it shaking and practicing saying things in different languages such as simple greetings.

Reflections 

For us, this is still something we are learning and shaping as a family. It doesn’t need to be perfect or complicated, just real and rooted in Christ as we grow together with our children.

Pentecost has become a reminder that Jesus sent his helper The Holy Spirit to come with us and that we can trust the Spirit when we are worried or unsure to be led in the righteous Path and follow Jesus’ example. 

In the future we may try to wear red clothing.

For us, this is still something we are learning and shaping as a family.