Toolbox For Faith

Each year, St. Michael does a Blessing of the Backpacks the week before school starts. We gather all the teachers and students together before worship, offer prayer for them and for the year ahead and then give them something to place on their backpack or bag as a reminder of God’s presence. In addition, we usually offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the school supplies we have collected. The blessing is brief, but powerful. Here are the prayers I typically use Blessing of the Backpacks 2011. We usually order the backpack tags from Oriental Trading Company. If you are looking for another example, here’s a post on the Lutheran Confessions blog: Backpack Blessing.

Last week, I heard Marcus Miller, the president of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, talking about the texts for the season of Lent. As a part of his presentation, he spoke of Lent as a time of renewal for discipleship and a time of preparation for baptism. Dr. Miller’s focus was on adult baptism, but he got me thinking about how we resource parents as they begin to nurture the faith of their young children. At St. Michael, we give the newly baptized individual a Faithchest, a Bible and other resources, and now I think we are going to add the “Baptismal Feast” as a resource for families. There are still many details to work out, but essentially the “Baptismal Feast” will be a yearly luncheon where we invite all the children and families who have been baptized in the last three years. Over lunch, we will provide age appropriate resources to help families nurture faith, allow parents to ask questions and hopefully build community. My hope is this will be a helpful tool for families as they seek to live our the promises they make in baptism.

Pastor Philip Bottomley shared this idea with me a few weeks ago and I thought it was worth passing along. Congregations often talk about Vacation Bible School as a way to reach out to new families, but what if instead of asking the families to come to the church building, Vacation Bible School actually went out to the people you were trying to reach.

Apparently there is a church in Northern Virginia that runs a neighborhood Vacation Bible School. Host families agree to have a VBS team set up in their front yard and then they invite the neighborhood kids to come and take part in the crafts, music or lesson. As it was described to me, you’d have rotating teams each focusing on a different topic/activity and they would move around to each front yard station. If you scheduled it correctly, one team could lead the same one hour activity at ten different locations during a week. Just imagine how many new families could be touched with the good news of God’s love in just one week.

I came across this poster from Creative Communications called “The Bible in 50 Words” a while back and thought it was extremely well done. We gave the bookmark version of this poster to everyone in the congregation yesterday when we had “Bible Sunday” (a Sunday where we give away various translations from toddler Bibles to large print Bibles). I got very positive feedback, so I thought I’d pass the information along. You can find the bookmarks here.

Sydney, age 5 is a great older sister for Jorja, age 2. Sydney taught us all a huge lesson last week.

We have open communion where everyone, even the children, receive communion. We leave it to the parents to decide when a child should start receiving the bread and wine.

Last Sunday, we were distributing communion by intinction and I gave Sydney her wafer. Jorja was right behind her and I gave her a blessing since she has not started receiving the bread and wine. Sydney waited with her wafer until I had blessed Jorja and instead of dipping her wafer in the wine, Sydney broke it in half and gave one half to Jorja. She did not want Jorja to be left out.

My mind immediately went back to the Gospel for the day in which Simon, the Pharisee, was critical of the woman who was washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and putting ointment on his feet. Simon would have left her out but not Jesus. Sydney was looking out for her sister. It was a powerful sermon as she lived the Gospel in a wonderful way.

I had the opportunity this weekend to help lead a workshop which focused on Nurturing Faith in Children. Although we shared many specific examples, our discussion centered around the “Four Keys for Nurturing FaithLife in the Home” developed by Vibrant Faith Ministries. The Four Keys: Caring Conversation, Devotional Life, Service and Rituals and Tradition describe areas which help nurture faith in young people. You can find a fuller explanation of the Four Keys on the Family of Faith page on St. Michael’s website.

I have learned a great deal about faith in youth and families from the materials produced by Vibrant Faith and I have found their resources to be extremely helpful. There is a page filled free articles and downloads and they have a store which includes both the resources that Vibrant Faith has developed and the best youth and family resources they have found. If you haven’t taken a look at their site, I would highly recommend taking a few moments to check it out.

(Note: Vibrant Faith Ministries was formerly known as The Youth and Family Institute.)

This coming Sunday, May 9, our congregation is doing something that I have not done in 39 years of ministry. We are having a Children’s Sunday. The service will begin with a power point presentation during the prelude featuring pictures of all of our children along with pictures of the same children at their baptism. Our children are participating in a variety of different ways from the handmade paper banners that we are using in the narthex to giving special gifts for all the women on Mother’s Day. We will finish the service by going into the yard to plant a dogwood tree with families shoveling dirt around the base.

As we were preparing for the service, the passage from Matthew, Mark and Luke about Jesus allowing the children to come to him and forbidding the disciples from shooing them away figured prominently in our planning. Jesus put his hands on them and prayed over them. Following the example of Christ, we have written a Blessing of the Children which we are using. You can find it at Blessing of the Children.  Have fun using it. If you have any questions, email me.

Logan is a five year old member who enjoys coming to church and especially enjoys giving the pastor a big high five. At our congregation, we have open communion and Logan takes communion.

About six weeks ago when Logan came forward for communion, he did something different that mortified his mother. After I gave him the wafer saying, “The body of Christ given for you,” Logan reached up, gave me a high five and said, “Yeah!” I loved it but tried not to laugh as I moved to the next person, his mother, and saw her eyes squeezed shut as she clinched her hands. I knew what she was thinking—Am I going to survive this child?

Mom and Logan had a long talk after the service with him promising not to give me a high five during communion but, of course, being a typical five year old, he forgot. The next Sunday as he came to receive the bread, I was anxious to see what would happen. As soon as he received the bread, he gave me another high five but must have remembered the conversation with his mother so he gave me a very reserved “Yeah!” His mother, right behind him, nearly collapsed.

Now, I get a high five before and after worship but that was the last high five he has given me after receiving the bread. But we have reached an understanding. Now he looks ups and smiles when he receives the bread.. I know the smile indicates that I will get my communion high five and “Yeah” after the service.