There are plenty of great ideas created by others for delving deeper into the meaning of Lent and making a space at home and church for reflecting on this penitential season. Here are some of my favorites!

Lent in a Bag by Shawn Schreiner and Vicki Garvey involves distributing small bags (cloth, paper, or ziplock bags) with symbols of the season to assist individuals and families in practicing Lent at home. In addition to the items, you can include instructions, and reflections (on purple paper of course) to go with each item.

Lenten Giving Calendar for 2015 from Jenifer Gamber offers a colorful poster to download and print (free!). Jenifer shares, this Lenten Giving Calendar is an opportunity to practice the act of giving. Each day the calendar invites you to acknowledge and give thanks for God’s abundance in your life and return that abundance in gratitude as a gift of pennies, nickels, and quarters to others. This Lent, let’s clean house, replacing habits that keep us from new life in Christ to a practice of gratitude and giving.

The Prayer Book Guide to Christian Education offers lots of ideas on its website and even more in the actual book. Besides this “Lenten page,” subscribe so you can receive a posting every Monday of a reflection of the coming Sunday’s lections.

Stop, Pray, Work, Pray & Love. Subscribe to the Society of St. John the Evangelist’s Lenten online devotional this year and share it with your congregation. “So much of our stress and anxiety derives from our pollution of Time. God has given us the gift of time, and called it holy, yet we often experience time as a curse. In a series of short, daily videos over five weeks, the Brothers of SSJE invite us to recapture time as a gift. Join the Brothers as they wrestle with questions of time and discover how to experience the joy of the present moment.” Download the workbook to accompany the videos for your own devotions.

Interactive Prayer Stations by Theresa E. Cho (who offers a great website/blog with lots of other ideas) focuses on John 3:16 and Lent. This could be used at home, with toddlers, and intergenerationally with simple objects that you already have on hand.

Worshiping with Children is Carolyn Brown’s website that offers wonderful ideas. View her article “Three Reasons to Include Children on Ash Wednesday” and an Intergenerational Ash Wednesday Service (with Eucharist). A treasure trove of resources for all year long.

More Lent, Holy Week, and Easter ideas can be found on my Pinterest page.

And download my compilation of ideas and resources for Lent2015 (Year B) that includes a liturgy for Burying the Alleluia and a pretzel recipe,