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How can we know the way to heaven? While on earth, the Lord said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). We need the Lord to show us the way to heaven. But we also need to feel and be truly free to choose heaven for ourselves or not. So the Lord gives us what we need to find our way without taking away our freedom - He gives us the Word. Each truth in the Word helps show us how to live if we would choose the path of life.

READ: "The Path of Life" by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Kline

PROJECT: Follow the Footprints (all ages)
Here is a fun way to illustrate the important concept of following the Lord by looking to the commandments and other teachings in His Word. Make 5 pairs of footprints and write one of the Ten Commandments on each one, then mount on the wall as if someone is walking upward by obeying the Lord.

ACTIVITY: Walking with the Lord
Make paper footprints (or other shapes). Each day - perhaps at bedtime or during family worship - talk with your children about choices they made to walk with the Lord by doing what He has told us is good. These activities can be written or illustrated on the footprints, then put by the worship center, perhaps making an arch on the wall behind the Word.

ACTIVITY: Focus on Angelic Qualities (teens and up)
Reflect on the qualities that you would associate with the "angelic character" and look for ways to embrace these qualities in your life.

ACTIVITY: Dramatizing Angelic Characteristics (for small groups of all ages)
Take turns drawing a card with an angelic quality or characteristic and act it out, letting others guess which angelic quality is being displayed. A variation (for older children and teens) is to dramatize the opposite quality and then guess what the angelic counterpart would be.

FAMILY WORSHIP: Angelic Qualities
Read stories from the Word that illustrate various angelic qualities: obedience, kindness, courage, honesty, generosity, mercy, thoughtfulness, loyalty, forgiveness, humility, etc.

ACTIVITY: Ways of Walking (a group activity)
Think of different ways that we walk through life: happy, angry, sad, proud, etc. Dramatize each way of walking, then walk as if you are "walking with the Lord." Given that religion is "walking with God" (see Coronis 40), discuss what we must do to walk with the Lord. 

 Acknowledgment of the Lord, faith in Him, and love to Him
are the way to heaven; and the Word is what teaches the way.
(see Last Judgment 55)     

READ: "The Way to Heaven" by the Rt. Rev. George DeCharms

FAMILY WORSHIP: Finding the Way to Heaven
Whether you read the Word with your children at bedtime or during a family worship service, look for truths that help point the way to heaven. Ask your children to help identify some of the "sign posts" that we can use as we walk on the journey of life. One option would be to work on drawing a "road map" to heaven, noting some of the truths your family finds especially helpful.

READ: "Secret Roads on Earth" by the Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss

COLORING PAGE: Ways to Heaven and Hell

PROJECT: Make a Path Stone (ages 9-up)
Use a kit to make a special path stone or improvise with plaster of Paris, an aluminum pie plate, and beautiful stones or colored pieces of glass ("gems"). Find a special place for this path stone in your garden.

PROJECT: Following the Lord to Heaven (ages 5-9)
Cut out this paper spiral, then attach the color picture of the Lord at the top, and make a picture of yourself to put at the beginning of the pathway - looking upward to the Lord!

PROJECT: Find Your Way through the Maze (ages 5-10)
Follow the pathway to heaven, avoiding any paths with snakes along the way! You might also try making your own maze, drawing a "pathway to heaven" maze for a friend or family member to navigate.

 FREEDOM TO CHOOSE HEAVEN OR HELL

Every person is in freedom either to look upward to God or downward to hell.
(see True Christian Religion 69:3)   

The Lord invites each of us to live in heaven. But we must choose whether or not to accept His offer and allow the Lord to lead us to heaven.

READ: "Choice" by the Rev. Douglas Taylor

ACTIVITY: Looking Up and Down a Stairway (ages 8-14)
See heavenly qualities when looking upward and hellish qualities when looking down a stairway.

ACTIVITY: Pair Angelic Qualities with Their Opposites (ages 8 through teens)
Match angelic qualities (or activities) with qualities (and activities) that seem to be their opposites. These show us the choices we have each day to act in ways that make the angels happy or to act in ways that make evil spirits happy. 
  

 MY YOKE IS EASY

It is not so difficult to live the life of heaven as some believe....
(Heaven and Hell 533)

The Lord reassures us that His yoke is easy and His burden light.

READ: "My Burden Is Light" by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose
The path which leads to heaven is far easier than most people imagine. If we want to walk along the path to heaven, we can. The only thing which would prevent a person from walking toward heaven with ease is a desire to remain in evil.

POSTER PROJECT: It Is Not So Difficult to Live the Life of Heaven (for teens)
Make a poster that illustrates or "advertises" this idea. You might picture someone rejecting what he knows to be unjust or someone "living the life of heaven" by finding ways to make the world a better place. Feel free to use pictures from magazines, clip art found on a computer, your own drawings, etc. to enhance your poster. Then add a fitting quotation from the Word.

ACTIVITY: Play Follow the Leader (for younger children)
The way to heaven is following the Lord. Play follow the leader to practice being led by someone else. Then talk about the Lord as the One we should all follow.

ACTIVITY: Challenge Yourself! (teens)
Think of something you've really wanted to do and challenge yourself to do it every day for a week. You might choose to get up every day and read the Word. Or make a point of helping a sibling each day. Whatever challenge you select, don't give yourself any outs - any backdoor to slip out of your commitment. At the end of a week, reflect on whether it was easy or hard to meet this challenge and whether it became easier or harder as the week went on.  

 THE BROAD WAY AND THE NARROW WAY

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction,
and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life...."
(Matthew 7:13-14)

The broad way - following the path of least resistance - may seem to be the easy way, yet it doesn't lead to long-term happiness. The path to heaven - the narrow way - may seem more difficult at first, but the Lord is always ready to help us travel the path to heaven.

READ: Where Does this Path Lead? by Vivienne Riley
This is a useful book for children, with color illustrations showing paths in the spiritual world.

ACTIVITY: Dramatization of Broad and Narrow Ways
Use existing doorways in your home or chairs arranged to concretely illustrate a "narrow way" and a "broad way." One suggestion is to let each person try getting through the narrow doorway (or chairs set close together) carrying possessions or "baggage." Each will have to let go of these in order to walk along the narrow way. If we insist on holding onto these things, only the broad way will let us enter.

DISCUSSION IDEA: Is the Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions? (for teens)
Is this well known saying true or false? In what way might it be true? In what way is it false? Consider whether the Lord cares most about our thoughts, our actions, or our intentions.

PROJECT: Picture the Broad and Narrow Ways to Heaven (ages 6-10)
Contrast the paths to heaven and to hell by picturing some of things that might be seen along these paths by someone who can see clearly in the spiritual world.

As Geoffrey Childs writes in his sermon on "Coming Home," "If we follow the path of life, the Lord after death will disclose to us our own unique path...And when we arrive there, we will be coming home - home to our conjugial partner, home to a most loved use, home to our closest and dearest friends."

DRAMATIZATION: A Pageant about Heavenly Life (for all ages)
Designed for children to dramatize for a church congregation, this pageant can be easily adapted for different situations and settings.

PROJECT: Angelic Garments (for young children)
Make a picture of an angel with a shining garment, perhaps adding "crystal" glitter to the clothing.

ACTIVITY: Pretend that You Are Visiting Heaven (ages 3-7)
Ways to help children imagine what it is like to be an angel in heaven.