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Palm Frond Coloring Page: Get Ready for Palm Sunday

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Palm Frond Coloring Page

Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter are all going to feel very different this year, while we are physical distancing and trying to flatten the curve amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Churches are turning to Facebook Live, Zoom, and other video-conferencing platforms to find ways to bring worship from the homes of pastors into the homes of their congregations.

For many, it will be difficult not to be able to be together during this season. They’ll miss the Palm Sunday processions, the waving of the palm fronds, the trumpets on Easter morning, and the sound of kids running through grassy fields looking for eggs.

As we have been doing for the past couple of weeks, Illustrated Ministry is trying to do as much as we can to help support churches and families through this difficult time.

If you haven’t already signed up to receive our FREE, weekly, faith formation resources, you can do so here. Every Friday, we send out a children’s worship bulletin, a coloring page, and some other resources that churches and families might find helpful.

Palm Frond Coloring PagePalm Frond Coloring Page

Another freebie we are offering is a downloadable palm frond coloring page that you could send out to your church or post on your church’s website.

Have people download it, color it, and then you’ll at least have something to wave on Palm Sunday while you’re gathering with your family watching worship on TV, or if you’re all participating in an online Zoom worship gathering.

You can download the Palm Frond Coloring Page here.

Mosaic Poster Tiles: Coloring Posters You Can Print at Home

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Mosaic Poster Tiles

Today we launched a new poster format for three of our Easter coloring posters: Mosaic Poster Tiles.

Mosaic Poster Tiles
The photos in this blog post are included for instructional purposes only and to help give a sense of the process for completing the project. The photos do not reflect the actual Mosaic Poster Tile sizes offered in the products themselves. These Mosaic Poster Tiles were developed in just a few days at home with limited resources during the COVID-19 pandemic; we weren’t able to actually put together a large Group Size set of 32-50 poster tiles.

While we live and do ministry during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had to rethink everything. What does school look like? How do we lead worship from our homes over video-conferencing apps? Should I go to the grocery store, order my groceries, or just eat my pantry to the end?

This is why we started to create and offer free, faith formation weekly resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can sign up to receive these here.

The team at Illustrated Ministry has been having many of these same conversations over the past couple of weeks. Many of our customers love using our large coloring posters during Lent, and now that we are all physical distancing, it’s impossible (and unsafe!) to gather intergenerationally, color a poster together, and enjoy community, conversation, and coloring.

We’ve mentioned our Facebook Group before because it is a growing community of our customers and friends. But don’t think it’s just a place where we promote and sell our stuff. Our community posts photos, shares ideas for how they are using our products, and cares for each other! We recently ran across this post in our group, and it got us thinking:

Illustrated Ministry Community Group

Some of our best product ideas have come from our Facebook Group (including our bestselling Illustrated Nativity Sticker Sheets). We know people across the world are following shelter-in-place/stay-at-home orders/recommendations, and we immediately realized this could be a fantastic gift to offer to our community.

So…after a few days and almost a ream of paper (that we repurposed and recycled, of course), we are now able to offer this new poster format for three of our Easter coloring posters.

Mosaic Poster Tiles: Now what…?

Christ Is Risen Coloring Poster
The photos in this blog post are included for instructional purposes only and do not reflect the actual sizes offered in the products themselves.

So what does this mean for you, your family, or the community you serve? Essentially, anyone with a home or basic office printer can create a giant coloring poster to use at home. Or you could send out individual PDF “tiles” to members of your church, youth group, or campus ministry. People could individually color them, and then when we all come back and worship together, they can bring their colored tiles, and you can create a giant, beautiful mosaic.

What better way to represent the wholeness and togetherness of the church? When we all eventually come back together after being apart during COVID-19, we are reminded that we were truly never separated.

Details, details, details…

Illustrated Ministry serves an international audience, and given the complex nature of creating these Mosaic Poster Tiles, we wanted to make sure it would be an enjoyable experience for all. For that reason, we have created two versions of the Mosaic Poster Tiles: one formatted to print on US Letter (8.5×11) paper and another that is formatted for A4 paper. We’re hoping that helps our international friends have successful poster-creating experiences.

We’ve also created the Mosaic Poster Tiles in two sizes:

  • Family Size: This size is perfect to send home to families so they can create a small coloring poster that they can color and put together at home. The family size option requires around 4-6 sheets of paper.
  • Group Size: If you’re looking for a more significant project for a larger group, the group size is the perfect option. Maybe you want to send it out to a large group in your congregation, or you have a lot of homebound folkx (aside from all who are currently physically distancing due to COVID-19) who would love to participate in a communal art project. The group size option requires around 32-50 sheets of paper.

So, how exactly do I do this?

Mosaic Poster Tiles
The photos in this blog post are included for instructional purposes only and do not reflect the actual sizes offered in the products themselves.

We tried to make this a relatively simple project that anyone could do at home. That said, there is a disclaimer we should share:

If you are a perfectionist, proceed with caution. We tried many different methods for making these poster tiles, and we believe we ended up with the best possible option. While you’re assembling the “puzzle pieces,” you should keep in mind you are creating a beautiful, collaborative piece of communal art – not a gallery-ready fine art print. That said – it’s a fun project, and we can’t wait to see photos that you all share online.
Mosaic Poster Tiles Pinterest
The photos in this blog post are included for instructional purposes only and do not reflect the actual sizes offered in the products themselves.

Mosaic Poster Tiles Instructions

After you purchase, download, and open the ZIP file, choose whether you will be printing on 8.5×11 (US Letter) or A4 paper. Then select the size of the poster you would like to create (Family or Group size).

Distribution

Email: Use the split tile files to email out to individuals.
Hand out/Mail: Print out the PDF and distribute the individual pages (perhaps not the best or safest method during the COVID-19 pandemic – we would encourage emailing the files).

Printing

When you print, select either “Scale” and set at 96% or “Scale to Fit (Print Entire Image).” Each page contains “crop marks” that guide you as you cut margins off around the image. You can get an idea of how they work by looking at the below image:

Mosaic Poster Tiles Crop Marks

Assembly

Cut: When it’s time to assemble, use the crop marks to guide you through cutting off the margins. Please be careful not to cut into the image. This format is designed to meet together when placed side by side, and there is no overlap of images on the paper.

Arrange: Piece together the poster by arranging the images on a large table or floor, as you would a puzzle. Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t line up 100%…this is a fun project, remember?

Alleluia Butterfly Mosaic Poster Tiles
The photos in this blog post are included for instructional purposes only and do not reflect the actual sizes offered in the products themselves.

Tape: We recommend focusing on one page at a time as you begin to tape the pieces together. When two pages match and line up to your satisfaction, tape them together. Match the next page, line it up to your satisfaction, and tape them together. Continue until you complete taping all the pages together and make a complete poster.

Create and Share!

One of the joys for us on the Illustrated Ministry team is seeing your tweets, Instagram Stories, Facebook Posts, and MySpace updates (okay, no one is really on MySpace anymore…right?) where you share with us your beautiful creations! We think this new format of Mosaic Poster Tiles are going to allow even more groups to take advantage of our coloring posters, and we can’t wait to see your creativity unleashed!

Be sure and use the hashtag #illustratedministry or tag us in your posts – we’re @illustratedmin on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Order Mosaic Poster Tiles

As of the time of this post, we currently have the Mosaic Poster Tiles format available for the following coloring posters:

Shop for Mosaic Poster Tiles Now!

Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life

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Ash and Starlight

One of our fantastic contributors, Arianne Braithwaite Lehn, wrote a beautiful book of prayers that accompany us on all of life’s journeys. Her book, Ash & Starlight, is available now.

Would you like to download a sample chapter and enter to win a copy of Arianne’s book? Download your PDF and enter our drawing by clicking here!

Arianne, we are so excited about your book’s release! Tell us a little bit about your dream for this book and how it came to be.

When I was a parish associate at Highland Park Presbyterian, still in my last year of seminary, I started composing a weekly prayer to go out to the congregation every Friday. I incorporated prayer requests from the congregation and slipped them into a more extended prayer to hold and guide our hearts for the day. It became a way to both deepen our prayer lives as well as our vulnerability with one another. An unexpected gift for me was how writing prayers uncovered my authentic voice – and specifically my writing voice – in fresh ways.

When my husband and I moved to Fort Wayne and began ministry at First Presbyterian, I continued the prayer practice there – sending out prayers every Friday. And then, in the spring of 2015, when I needed to step away from my pastoral call, I began a blog for prayers and other writing. It had become such a life-giving practice for my heart, one that helped me navigate some of the rockiest waters I’d encountered – death, birth, loss, multiple moves, and a complete upending of my plans.

Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of writing a book someday. Books have been an essential and life-changing part of my journey. But only God in God’s goodness and leading could have brought this about. Eight years ago, when I started writing prayers, I wasn’t telling myself, “someday, this will become a book of prayers.” It was indeed a case of fumbling toward faithfulness in the next thing, and then the next. I think of one of my favorite prayers by Thomas Merton:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself…but I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you…And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.”

Tell us about the significance of the name of your book.

The name “Ash and Starlight” holds multiple threads of meaning. I connect with the Celtic Christian tradition, which grounds itself in the goodness and presence of God in creation. There is a term in Celtic Christianity called a “thin place” – a space where heaven and earth co-mingle, and the “veil” feels paper-thin. I wholeheartedly believe these places are in our everyday lives, and they are within us.

The poetry of Genesis in the Bible centers us in this beautiful idea – we’re made of earth, and we’re made of heaven. The creation poem says God created humans from the dust or ash of the earth, then blew divine breath into them. The same breath and spirit that created the stars are embedded within us. We are made of earth and ash, we are made of starlight and heaven, woven seamlessly together.

And so are our lives. I was 31-weeks pregnant with our first child when my dad died. As he sat in his big green recliner, taking his last breaths, I remember holding his hand in one of my hands, and placing my other hand on my pregnant belly, kicking with life. Following his death, his brother commissioned a musical piece in remembrance – not just of my father, but of the message his life spoke. My father and his brother were and are very musical and loved singing together.

My uncle asked a favorite composer of theirs to write the musical score, and he asked me to write the text/lyrics. The piece ended up being called, “Ash and Starlight” – a hearkening to the wholeness God brings to our lives and very selves, with all their mess and glory.

This is such a unique book of prayers, curated for just about every season and twist and turn of life’s journey. How do you envision people using this collection of prayers?

I hope this book will be a prayerful companion for people amid their everyday lives. A book to pull out after getting off a tough phone call, while feeding the baby, when pouring that first-morning cup of coffee, or in an intentional two minutes of centering after crawling into bed at night. The prayers are purposely named and written for the chaos and grace of life – “When I want to avoid, numb and block,” “When I’m struggling to accept my life right now,” “When I’m headed to work,” “When I can’t sleep,” “When I’m in the messy middle of something,” and more.

The prayers can be starting spots for peoples’ own prayers – a springboard to use in offering God their unique thoughts and feelings they need to let loose. Or the prayers can be a place to rest. I have been so thankful for the prayers of others when I didn’t have it in me to pray – or didn’t want to.

Following each prayer are a few scripture references. These connect with the themes of the prayer and provide nourishment for further meditation if people want to go deeper.

Ash and Starlight is meant to help people see how the experiences and emotions we often want to leave behind are integral to who we are and are becoming. I pray this book empowers people to approach life with grace and curiosity, to surrender and trust amid fears, to rejoice in their current lives, even as they’re moving toward something else.

I believe we all need to be grounded in the deepest promises of which we all need the most reminding: We are loved as we are. We are not alone. We are instruments of blessing, even when we don’t realize it. This book will hopefully help be a source of that reminding when people pull it out during the day.

Would you like to download a sample chapter and enter to win a copy of Arianne’s book? Download your PDF and enter our drawing by clicking here!

Will you share some wisdom or experience you’ve had for integrating prayer into the everyday rhythms of life?

I am continuing to learn how prayer is not something separate from our lives – it can be woven into the fabric of our everyday rhythms and routines. One way to think about prayer is a recognition of God’s presence in the midst of whatever it is we’re doing or feeling. Simple breath prayers have been helpful for me – “God, I know you are with me.” “God, center my heart.” “God, give me courage.” “God, this person is driving me crazy!!!” It’s recognizing what you’re holding within you and holding that in the presence of God.

As a parent of a two and four-year-old, our home is chaotic and noisy. But prayer does not have to be peaceful, focused, or solemn! I try to take some early morning time for reading, prayer, and/or journaling (I’m talking 5-10 minutes – not long), but I am also learning more and more the grace and benefit of prayer throughout the day. When I’m out on a stroller walk with the kids, we might take turns naming things we want to thank God for – a fun playground to visit, the flowers we see in someone’s yard, the chance to be together.

When I’m driving in the car and not too distracted by the chaos in the backseat, I might think of some people I want to hold in light. When I run, I take a chunk of that time to listen to and see my surroundings – an exercise in being present to God’s world. And sometimes, I will pull out prayer books that are meaningful for me, and read those aloud with the kids. Even as all the layers of those prayers don’t register – and they might not pay attention at all – they are taking it in, even in their own way.

What other resources inspire you in your prayer life and with your two young children?

Some of my personal favorites:

For prayer as a family:

And a couple of books that just help me connect faith with parenting in general:

Thanks so much for this, Arianne. We are so grateful for your gift of prayers here. Where can we find out more about your work?

Links to purchase Ash and Starlight: