In preparing for the Lent/Easter season at Central Christian Church, I wanted to come up with something that would be fun, rich in purpose, filled with study and fellowship and provide an opportunity for the youth to connect with the rest of our congregation as well as the Waco community. Last year, our KidCentral Children’s Ministry offered an incredible “Journey to Easter” experience with passports, boarding passes and extensive activities, teaching, and experiences as the children learned about the passion of Christ. We are going to do Journey to Easter 2.0 for the children, but I didn’t want to just do the same thing for our youth (after all, why would they want to do what the “little kids” we doing.

So, after some dreaming (and a lot of praying) The AmazinGrace was born (see what we did there—punny, I know).  We are still finalizing the details of the whole experience, but here is a basic plan for our Lenten Journey…

The whole experience will be built on the same premise as the popular reality TV show “The Amazing Race” where teams decipher clues and follow instructions to complete a journey around the world. We will have clues, road blocks, detours, and more for each leg of our race.

Sundays-Using the Lectionary Gospel text for each week, youth will engage in active Bible study during the Sunday School hour centering around the scripture passage for the day. Some weeks, this will involve traditional Bible Study, and other weeks, they’ll be required to travel around the church building to complete the given task for that “leg” of The AmazinGrace. Our outline of stories are:

• February 22: Mark 1.9-17: Jesus is Baptized, Tempted, Calls Disciples
• March 1: Mark 8:31-38: Take up your cross and follow me
• March 8: John 2.13-22: Jesus Clears the Temple
• March 15: John 3:14-21: Jesus is hope for the world
• March 22: John 12.20-33: Jesus predicts his death
• March 29: Mark 11.1-11: Palm Sunday: Triumphal Entry
• April 5: Mark 16.1-8: Easter Sunday: Resurrection (no Sunday school)

On Wednesdays, during youth group time, the youth will have “around town” legs of The AmazinGrace. Using the free curriculum from Sticky Faith on “noticing God,” we will weave Bible study, service projects, spiritual practices and encounters with some of the matriarchs and patriarchs of our congregation as the youth learn their faith stories. Each Wednesday, after snack supper, our youth will be given their road challenge for the evening and will run out of the church to jump into their own “taxi” (church members who have given their time to serve as drivers for the evening!)

There will also be “legs” for Fat Tuesday Pancake Supper, Ash Wednesday, our community egg hunt and Holy Week.

Check back soon for details about each leg of the race!