Toolbox For Faith

Each year on Palm Sunday instead of a sermon, we read the story of the Passion as a congregation using a responsive reading with multiple readers. The response from the congregation is always very favorable. If you haven’t seen the booklets you can use for worship, you can get them from Augsburg Fortress. Here is the link for the Passion according to Luke.

In the Hands-On Holy Week service that I posted on Friday, I referenced a booklet for kids entitled, “Three Amazing Days”. The booklet is well done and focuses on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and an Easter Vigil. It is available in two formats: Pre-Reader and Young Reader. There is also a booklet that focuses on Lent and Easter. It too is available in Pre-Reader and Young Reader. The booklets were designed to support the current Lutheran hymnal, but they are very general and would probably support most liturgical hymnals.

Congregations are always looking for helpful ways to gather information about new worshipers. For a while everyone used the “Visitor Book” and then we all switched to the “Friendship Pad” at the end of the pew. At St. Michael we use a version of the “Welcome Sheet” that my father used in his ministry.

Each week, we place an insert in the bulletin that captures information from all worshipers. There is a spot for name, address and email address. There are places for prayer requests and communion information. There is also a box which is changed each week to gather information on short term ministry opportunities. You can see an example of the “Welcome Sheet” here. The “Welcome Sheet” allows everyone to have something to put in the bulletin and has proven to be a very useful tool for gathering information from both new and long-term worshipers.

About 18 months ago, St. Michael started a backpack feeding ministry.  The concept is very simple, but the impact is tremendous.  In every school, there are students who depend on a school breakfast and a school lunch for their main nutrition.  Over the weekend, these students often receive very little to eat.  Backpack feeding programs provide six healthy weekend meals to these students.  The food is placed in an ordinary backpack and given to a student as they are leaving school on a Friday afternoon.  The ministry is a partnership between St. Michael, other community churches, local organizations and the schools.  We started delivering 5 backpacks per week at one school and now deliver a total of 56 backpacks each week.  If you want more information about our backpack feeding ministry or would like help starting a backpack feeding ministry at your congregation check out: Micah’s Backpack. (www.micahsbackpack.org)

Like many congregations, we use email and electronic communication regularly as a part of our ministry.  At times, email is extremely helpful, but at times it can also cause problems.  The Alban Institute posted an interesting article this morning called “Is Email the New Parking Lot“.  If you use email regularly in your ministry, you might be interested in what they have to say.

I just came across this article entitled: “How a Mighty Church Falls: What it takes to prevent congregational decline.”  It has a few very interesting ideas.  If you would like to see it,  you can find it at the following link:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/visiondirection/howamightychurchfalls.html

Thanks to the South Carolina Synod, ELCA, I just discovered a link to several free resources from Herb Miller and the Parish Paper.  You can access those resources at: http://www.theparishpaper.com/free-resources .