Product Updates

Illustrated Ministry Unveils Groundbreaking New Summer Curriculum: An Illustrated Leviticus

We weren’t sure that we were going to announce our summer curriculum yet – but after talking with our team at Illustrated Ministry the past couple days – we just couldn’t contain our excitement about it any longer. We have spent the past couple months preparing, designing and creating what we think is probably going to be one of the most groundbreaking children’s ministry curriculum to date: An Illustrated Leviticus.

Now…before you leave, just wait. I know what probably all of you are thinking: no one could find enough material in the book of Leviticus for a children’s ministry curriculum. But that’s where you’re wrong. Once we really got into the book of Leviticus – it was…amazing. It was like we couldn’t get through one chapter, one paragraph even, without seeing some of the amazing ways in which God could use this curriculum in the life of a young child.

Nadab and Abihu

My son Caleb is 4 years old. And I like to think he’s a pretty smart kid. You should have seen the way his eyes lit up last night when I read to him about burnt offerings and grain offerings. And when we got to the story of Nadab and Abihu – it was amazing. The story is short, and can be found in Leviticus 10:1-2:

1 Now Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons, each took an incense pan. They put fire and incense on them and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 Then fire flew out from before the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

You should have seen his face after I read these two verses…JUST TWO VERSES. I didn’t even have to explain anything to him. He was speechless. He didn’t know what to say. He just sat there. I think I may have even seen a small tear form in his eye. It was clearly a meaningful story for him.

But I didn’t stop there. These stories found in Leviticus are just SCREAMING to be illustrated. It’s like the writer knew that one day, Illustrated Ministry would create a curriculum based on the book. So, after I read the story to Caleb, I sat down and drew an illustration of the story. I know you want to see it – but it’s going to be included as one of the Illustrated Children’s Moments in the Church Edition…and this is a spoiler free blog post. But again…he was so absolutely dumbfounded by the way in which I was able to convey such convicting biblical truths on paper with just a pen and some watercolors.

It was a very profound spiritual experience for me to be able to share with Caleb and I can’t wait for you to be able to have similar experiences with your children – both in the faith communities that you serve and with the children that you are raising.

Learn More

If you want to learn more – just watch the video below to see what An Illustrated Leviticus is all about.

An Illustrated Lent for Families

Adam Walker Cleaveland 7 Comments

Our new 2018 edition of An Illustrated Lent for Families is now available. You can download a sample and purchase it here.

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AnIllustratedLent

Many customers have been asking for details about An Illustrated Lent and I apologize for not getting that online for you sooner. It’s been a little crazy the past week as we’ve gotten off to a great start with our Lenten Coloring Poster pre-orders. Over the past week, we’ve received more than 236 orders! I can’t wait to see how all of you get creative with these posters and integrate them into your churches and families this Lenten season.

An Illustrated Lent is going to launch next Wednesday, January 27. Like we did for Advent, we are releasing two editions of An Illustrated Lent: a Church Edition and a Family Edition. Below I want to share with you what you can expect to find included in both of those editions.

A complete listing of our products for Lent is below – we hope they will help your community and family live into the season of Lent.

An Illustrated Lent: Church Edition

Illustrated Children’s Moments: The core of the Church Edition is what Illustrated Ministry focused on back in the day (you know, because we’ve been around for so long): Illustrated Children’s Moments. For Lent, we’ll be including illustrations and leader guides for the five Sundays of Lent, for Palm Sunday and then for Easter as well. The Illustrated Children’s Moments will be based on the Gospel texts from the Revised Common Lectionary for Lent.

These illustrations will come in a variety of different formats so that they are ready-to-print and use when you open them up. They also make really good bulletin covers as well as coloring sheets to print out for kids for during worship or Sunday School. An sample of the Illustrated Children’s Moment for the first Sunday of Lent can be seen below:

JesusInTheWilderness

Worship Activity Sheets: For Advent, we released our first Worship Activity Sheets. These are additional tools and resources you can use during Lent and Holy Week. They will include a variety of activities on them, including Complete-the-drawings, Word Searches and more coloring opportunities. Also – if you used An Illustrated Advent last month, if you could take 1 minute to fill out this survey about the Worship Activity Sheets? It really is just 3 very short questions.

Lenten Poster: We know many of you have bulletin boards, classrooms and nurseries that need decorating – and we’re also aware that most people don’t have a lot of time for things like that. Well, maybe we can help you out a little bit. This Lenten Poster will include themes, characters and drawings from throughout the resource, and you can share it on your bulletin boards or classrooms to help remind people about An Illustrated Lent, especially if you’re going to be encouraging families to get involved, and perhaps sending the Family Edition out to them electronically.

What are we missing? It’s probably a little late for any large additions to this resource – but if there is something that you would find super helpful, please let us know and we’ll see what’s doable for our team before the launch date of January 27.

An Illustrated Lent: Family Edition

Family Devotions: We heard some great feedback about our Family Devotions from An Illustrated Advent and so are glad to be able to include them in An Illustrated Lent. For An Illustrated Lent, the devotions are written by Rev. Erika Marksbury, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church of McMinnville, Oregon. There are devotions for 7 weeks, starting with the 1st Sunday of Lent.

We know how busy families are and so we wanted to provide you with a way to connect with the Lenten season, but do so in a way that could fit into your daily routines. Our devotions are meant to be done over a family dinner, or before bedtime. Each devotion is 1 page and includes a scripture, some questions (a few very accessible ones and some Going Deeper questions as well), a suggested activity/practice to focus on during the week, and a short prayer.

Each of the devotions has a theme word for the week – and these are based off the Narrative Lectionary readings for Lent, and connect with the Lenten Coloring Posters.

Weekly Refrigerator Sign: Also included are weekly signs that correspond to that week’s devotions. On the sign will be a space for the family to write in what they decide to try and work on during the week, based on the activity/practice from the week’s devotion. Then the sign can be placed somewhere visible in the home, so everyone remembers what they are working on.

An Illustrated Lent Lenten Coloring Poster — This poster design goes with the story of the woman anointing Jesus from Mark 14:3-9.

Lenten Coloring Sheets: Because the devotions connect with our Lenten Coloring Posters, we thought it would make sense to provide you with a smaller version of those coloring sheets, which you can use together with the devotions. These are meant to be printed out at 8.5×11 size and your kids will have fun coloring a different sheet each week.

You can also hang them up and watch the design come together over the course of Lent.. If you want something larger, or just want more flexibility, you can also always purchase the vector files here.

What are we missing? We still have some time, so if there is something else you think would be helpful for your family, please let us know and we’ll see what’s doable for our team before the launch date of January 27.

One More Thing

While the Lenten Coloring Posters are included in the Family Edition (in the 8.5×11 size) – we are going to be selling those a la carte as well starting January 27. We know not everyone may want or need to buy the Family Edition, so we wanted those smaller versions to be available to everyone.

Lenten Coloring Posters Available to Pre-Order

Adam Walker Cleaveland 28 Comments

In case you missed it over the weekend, our Lenten Coloring Posters are now available for pre-ordering. Instead of five 4’x3’ posters, for Lent we are offering nine 2’x3’ posters. These nine posters come together to tell a story of a journey through the Lenten season. As you can see in the image below, when you put all of the posters side by side, you’ll see that they are all connected together.

I loved seeing so many of the creative uses that everyone had for their coloring posters – and so many of them were intergenerational activities! I think this photo does a pretty good job of summing up the success of the Advent Coloring Posters (which is what the people in the photo are coloring below – you just can’t see it).

Here’s what one pastor said about her experience with the Advent Coloring Posters:

Within moments of setting out the posters, I had people clamoring to do some coloring–young & young at heart, men & women, boys & girls. When I asked a few people to pick it up to put down another poster, I heard groans of “But it’s not done yet!” The posters were beautiful and well designed, and the customer service stuck through some pretty tedious mailing issues. We had a wonderful few weeks of coloring through Advent!
Pastor Megan Thompson
Mt. Vernon, Champaign & Bondville United Methodist Churches

Each of the Lenten Coloring Posters is based on one of the texts from the Narrative Lectionary for 2016. So, you can see the scripture that will be used for each poster – as well as the focus word for each of the posters that comes out of the passages:

Poster 1 for Ash Wednesday – Mark 9:30–37: Focus word is Welcome.
Poster 2 for 1st Week of Lent – Mark 10:17–31: Focus word is Give.
Poster 3 for 2nd Week of Lent – Mark 10:32–52: Focus word is Serve.
Poster 4 for 3rd Week of Lent – Mark 12:13–17: Focus word is Listen.
Poster 5 for 4th Week of Lent – Mark 12:28–44: Focus word is Love.
Poster 6 for 5th Week of Lent – Mark 13:1–8, 24–37: Focus word is Watch!
Poster 7 for Palm Sunday – Mark 14:3–9: Focus word is Risk.
Poster 8 is divided into two parts. The top portion is for Maundy Thursday – Mark 14:22–42: Focus words are Take. Eat. The bottom portion is for Good Friday – Mark 15:16–39: Focus word is Forsaken.
Poster 9 is for Easter Sunday – Mark 16:1–8: Focus words are Go. Tell.

Naturally, this is great fit for those of you who are using the Narrative Lectionary. But what if you’re using the Revised Common Lectionary? Can you still use them?

I certainly think so. Each of the stories that these posters are based on come from life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so, these posters take people on a journey of Jesus’ life and teachings, and so while that could be a Lenten them on its own, I think it can be something to compliment whatever Lenten plans and programs you may already have for your congregations or families.

How to Use Your Lenten Coloring Posters

Regardless of whether you are using the Narrative Lectionary or Revised Common Lectionary, I think these Lenten Coloring Posters can very easily fit into your Lenten plans in a variety of ways:

Perhaps the children could color the posters during worship each Sunday.
Maybe various Sunday School classes could color them as they talk about each of the stories.
The posters would be great activities for children to do during a Wednesday night Lenten service – or an intergenerational activity to do after your Lenten Soup & Salad dinners.
Since these posters are 2’x3’, they are a much more manageable size for getting completely colored during a shorter period of time – or you could send a poster home with a different family each week, and they could color them during the week as part of a family Lenten practice.

However you end up using them – one of the fun parts about the posters this time around, is seeing them all displayed together – as I think that will help give people a sense of the journey of Lent – the progressive movement of the season – always getting closer and closer to the events of the last week of Jesus.