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8 Simple Ways to Celebrate The Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi

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Icon of St. Francis of Assisi drawn with a white outline surrounded by illustrations of birds, flowers, and leaves with a dark background.

October 4th is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi.

As the patron saint of Italy, ecology, animals, and archaeologists, St. Francis of Assisi is remembered as a kind and gentle man who loved animals, nature, and people. He inspired many to embrace the wonder and beauty of all things and beings created by God as he advocated for the equality of the more-than-human world and humanity.

There are many fun ways to celebrate this holy day—with perhaps the most adorable being a Blessing of the Pets worship service. So, we tried our best to narrow it down. Here is a list of eight simple ways for humans of all ages to connect with nature and celebrate the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi.

1. Create a zoo featuring your favorite animals

Use simple craft materials, play dough, or blocks. As you build and create, explore the different biomes your animals live in and talk about what things they need to thrive.

Two children sitting at a table in a library reading a book. One child points at a picture in the book, both children look engaged with what they are reading.

2. Visit your local library to learn more about animals you think are weird, creepy, or gross

How does learning more about them change the way you feel towards them?

3. Learn about endangered species

Look up the list of endangered species. Are you surprised to see any animals on this list? How does reading through this list make you feel? 

4. Remember species that have gone extinct

Light a candle or hold a moment of silence for species that have gone extinct. What role did humans play in their extinction?

Three children sitting in grass. Two children cuddle a puppy with short black fur while one child cuddles a kitten with fluffy gray fur.

5. Show your pets or stuffed animals they are loved

Find special ways like extra cuddles, playtime, or treats. For pets who have died, remember them. Say their name, look at pictures, and tell stories.

6. Spend time outside

Make a list of creatures you notice, or draw the nature patterns you see.

7. Make a nature-friendly craft

Check out these window decals that help migrating birds stay safe.

A warm, vibrant mosaic of St. Francis holding a scroll in one hand and a bird in the other. He stands between a bush full of birds on one side and a sheep and wolf on the other. The moon is near his head on his right and the sun is near his head on his left.

8. Read, listen to, or sing along with some of the nature-inspired prayers, poems, and songs St. Francis wrote.

Two examples are The Canticle of Creatures or All Creatures of Our God and King (these are two of my favorite versions: Rain for Roots, Gungor).

Free Epiphany Lesson from our Lectionary Curriculum

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FREE EPIPHANY LESSON: Click here to download your free Mini Revolutions lesson for Epiphany.

Illustrated Ministry’s Mini Revolutions is a weekly lectionary-based curriculum. Hundreds of churches around the world use this curriculum resource, and we’ve received positive feedback from folx who are using it with their communities.

Epiphany Lesson

You can use Mini Revolutions as your traditional Sunday School curriculum, in a one-room Sunday School model with mixed ages, or in an intergenerational setting. You could also take the content and adapt it for youth ministry and other ministry programs and settings.

Mini Revolutions can be implemented as a completely virtual, hybrid, or in-person experience—endless options are available to suit your needs. Lead as much or as little of the content as you like. Each section of Mini Revolutions is simple and requires just a little prep to have a meaningful experience with your group.

Free Epiphany Lesson

Included in this downloadable PDF lesson is:

  • Scripture: Matthew 2:1–12
  • Questions: Imagining and wondering questions that are open-ended and connect more deeply with the scripture.
  • Look It Up: We highlight a moment in history, an interesting fact, or a person who made an impact that connects with the scripture’s theme.
  • Two activities: We provide a fun mix of activities that help participants think creatively about the scripture through building and design, earth care, social justice, self-care and compassion, social/emotional learning, science, technology, and art.
  • Micropractice: A simple practice/ritual anchored in daily activities to help form healthy, spiritual, and mindful habits, with access to a graphic you can share with your community through social media.
  • Coloring page: The coloring page includes an illustration of a short phrase from the selected scripture that invites reflection on the scripture.
  • Bible Story Booklet: A child-friendly paraphrase of the scripture, accessible for all ages, with colorable illustrations that help tell the story.

This free lesson for Epiphany will help give you an idea of what our Mini Revolutions curriculum is like, and perhaps you’ll want to consider signing up for our monthly subscription to Mini Revolutions.

To download the free Epiphany lesson, click here.

For more information, and to purchase a monthly subscription to Mini Revolutions, click here.

Creating a Virtual Stations of the Cross Worship Experience

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The Stations of the Cross are a popular and meaningful way to journey through Lent and Holy Week, and we have created tools that you can use to create a virtual Stations of the Cross experience for your community. Learn more and order here.

Learn More: If you’d like to learn more about our Stations of the Cross Worship Videos, how you could use them in your community, and see a sample of the Liturgical Script and Reflection Booklet, click here to receive a FREE PDF with all the details.

We are now in our second Lent and Easter season amid a global pandemic. Pastors and church leaders now have a year’s worth of experience doing digital ministry. And yet, there’s still a challenge to walk through Christmas, Lent, and Easter when people in faith communities have such strong connections with the liturgical seasons.

Last year we asked the Illustrated Ministry Community Facebook Group what they most needed from us for Lent. The most popular request was for family devotional resources for Lent (which we already create, so that worked out well!). The second most popular request was for a “virtual Stations of the Cross.”

Illustrated Ministry has a variety of resources for the Stations of the Cross. Over the years, thousands of churches, schools, and communities have used our Stations of the Cross Coloring Posters, Coloring Pages, and Devotional Guide. You can check out those three products below:

We try to listen to our customers and provide them what they’re looking for, so we started dreaming up what a virtual Stations of the Cross might look like.

Virtual Stations of the Cross

Our Stations of the Cross Worship Videos provide you with everything you need to create a meaningful Stations of the Cross prayer and worship experience. You can create a virtual Stations of the Cross experience this year, but you can also use it in the future for in-person worship gatherings, Good Friday services, or retreats focused on the Stations of the Cross.

These Stations of the Cross are based on the 14 Scriptural Stations of the Cross, which Pope John Paul II introduced on Good Friday in 1991. They are presented as an alternative to the traditional stations and as a way of reflecting more deeply on the Scriptural accounts of Christ’s passion. We have added a fifteenth Station, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which you may want to save for Easter or omit altogether.

When you order our Stations of the Cross Worship Videos, you’ll receive the following:

  • Liturgical Script: This script guides participants through this virtual experience and accompanies the videos. You can read the script while showing the videos in a live (in-person or virtual) worship service. You can also use the script to create a voice-over (read by one person or many different voices) to add to the videos.
  • Worship Videos: These 15 videos feature the full-color Illustrated Ministry Stations of the Cross illustrations with music, sound effects, on-screen scripture, and prompts that directly tie in with the provided liturgical script. We include 15 videos for the fifteen Stations (with background music and sound effects), and two additional videos that include only the sound effects (in case you wanted to add your own background music in, but still wanted the sound effects). If you use the videos for all 15 Stations, your service will run for about 45 minutes.
  • Stations of the Cross Reflection Booklet: This booklet is designed as an add-on to accompany the virtual experience. It includes a modified version of the script, with additional space to write notes and reflect. You can give the booklet to participants to enrich their experience of the virtual Stations of the Cross. However, you don’t need to use the booklet for your virtual Stations of the Cross to be a meaningful experience.
  • Media Kit: We have included graphics to help you advertise your virtual Stations of the Cross experience on social media, in emails, and on your website and newsletter.

Liturgical Script and Reflection Booklet

How to use this resource

There are a variety of ways you could use these worship videos. Here are a few ideas we had in mind as we created the Stations of the Cross Worship Videos. We know, from experience, pastors in our community are amazingly creative, and we can’t wait to see all of the additional ways they end up using this resource to create Lenten experiences for their communities.

Zoom Good Friday Service

We imagine many will decide to use these videos during a live worship service, most likely on Good Friday. To give you an idea of what that might look like, our team recorded Station 3 on Zoom, and you can watch it below:

This option allows for the most amount of participation from people in your community. You can have multiple people read the different scripture passages from each Station and potentially have different people read the scripts that go along with each Station. If you run through all fifteen (or 14 Stations, saving the fifteenth Station for Easter morning), this service would run around 45 minutes. In addition to having people go through a guided experience of the Stations of the Cross, you can also provide them with the Reflection Booklet, which they could use during the service, and have for additional reflection after the service is done.

Individual Prayer Experience

Another option for using these worship videos is to take the videos, import them all into your video editing software of choice, and create a custom prayer experience for your community that could be shared on Facebook, used during a Zoom worship service, or premiered on YouTube/Vimeo for your community.

You could also invite people from your community to submit audio recordings of the scripture readings or narrations of the script for different Stations. You could import those voice-overs and use them to create your prayer experience.

This allows you the most flexibility. Whether you want one person or multiple people to read the scripts for each Station, you have the option to go either route. You can also choose to use the background music we provide, or just cut out the audio tracks from the videos, and add in your own background music (perhaps music from your own context and congregation members).

Making a virtual Stations of the Cross worship experience available online for your community allows people to go through the experience whenever it is convenient for them. You could also plan a time to gather together to reflect on their experience with the Stations of the Cross.

Outdoor Prayer Walk with QR Codes

Over the years, we’ve seen churches set up outdoor prayer walks using our Stations of the Cross illustrations. That opportunity is an excellent option right now, as it allows you to create a safe, socially-distanced worship opportunity for people in your community. Below is a photo from one church that has chosen to offer this to their community this year.

One option would be to create voice-overs for each of the Stations of the Cross videos, upload them to YouTube or Vimeo, and then create QR codes that would direct participants to each of the videos and guided reflections. Whether or not you use the full-color poster illustrations (as seen in the above photos), you could create a walking prayer experience for people to experience throughout Lent, especially during Holy Week, as they remember Jesus’ death and prepare for his resurrection.

Why you should use this resource to create a Virtual Stations of the Cross

Engage with your community in a new way

Perhaps you’ve never used the Stations of the Cross with your community. This would be a great opportunity to try something new with your congregation.

One of our editors who reviewed this product wrote the following after reading through the script:

“You all have redeemed the Stations of the Cross for me. Thank you for the solid theology, the beginning with beloved-ness, the beauty of the writing (seriously gorgeous), and the overall pastoral sensitivity the team exercised in the creation of this resource. It’s lovely, and I would totally use it whereas I have been turned off by other presentations of the Stations of the Cross in the past.”

We obviously can’t use this as an official testimonial for the product since it came from someone on our team. But we still wanted to share it with you because their comments meant so much to us and to how we attempted to translate the Stations of the Cross for our community.

Recruit volunteers from your community

Because there are so many opportunities to help lead this Stations of the Cross experience, it provides a wonderful opportunity to involve many different people in creating this meaningful prayer and worship experience. You could invite multiple people to read portions of the scripture passages or even the narrated scripts for the Stations. This could also be a great youth group project for Lent. Invite your youth group to work on putting this service together and allow it to be a gift to the entire church.

Provide multiple experiences with one program

Depending on how you end up creating and sharing your service, this resource could provide you with many different touchpoints for your community during Lent. If you end up creating a 45-minute video/service, you could use it for a Good Friday service and share it live over Zoom. However, you can then make the link available for folx in your community who could not watch it live, and they can watch it on-demand.

You could also create the videos as standalone Stations and release them daily on Facebook or Instagram (using IGTV), leading up to Easter morning.

Learn More: If you’d like to learn more about our Stations of the Cross Worship Videos, how you could use them in your community, and see a sample of the Liturgical Script and Reflection Booklet, click here to receive a FREE PDF with all the details.

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