Sunday was the 25th Anniversary of the ELCA. To honor the mission of the church over the last 25 years, congregations were encouraged to do some kind of service project that demonstrated the themes “God’s Work, Our Hands,” (ELCA’s motto) or “All Things Being Made New” (the 25th Anniversary slogan). Here at Advent, we have our heads and calendars filled with things having to do with merging with another church and taking on a second campus. So fitting in a service project Sunday was going to be difficult. But I decided we could at least do something during the 11:00 Sunday School hour. As an extension of a service project that we began during VBS, and in partnership with the Women’s Group at Advent, the children, youth and adults who are in Faith Formation during 11:00 worked together to pack school kits and health kits for Lutheran World Relief.
We learned about Lutheran World Relief and the work of congregations in supporting others through making quilts, putting together school kits and health kits, etc.
Then we moved the conversation from the world to our church. We watched a video about the ELCA’s 25th anniversary, and we asked the question “What does a church do?” This is the word cloud that resulted from the answers (words that were used more frequently are bigger):
Then we got into groups and we asked, “What do we want to be said about our church in 25 years, when the ELCA is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the new Advent Lutheran Church (one congregation, two campuses) is celebrating its 25th anniversary?”
I found it to be a very powerful experience to say to these children/youth under 25 years old: living into these words and visions is what YOU get to do as part of God’s Work in your life and in the life of this church. Plus, it was very powerful to reflect on the phrase “Always being made new,” and be challenged to give God space to continue to create new-ness in this congregation. So many times I get frustrated because we’re not perfect yet…and I figure we should be by now. But this day of doing God’s work–both the service project and the reflection/visioning–was a positive reminder that this is part of being made new…and the work is not over yet.