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ELCA Worship

An Introduction from Jennifer Baker-Trinity, Program Director for Resource Development

 

Greetings! My name is Jennifer Baker-Trinity. As a Deacon in the ELCA and the new Program Director for Resource Development here in the ELCA/Augsburg Fortress, I am excited to share with you a bit about this shared position and a little about me.

 

About this new position…

 

“Program Director for Resource Development.” After managing the 12-syllable title, you might wonder, what is that? This new position is creative in that it is shared between the ELCA worship office and Augsburg Fortress, part of 1517 Media. Since Augsburg Fortress works closely with the worship office in publishing materials for the church, it makes sense to have someone working in both worlds. On the Augsburg Fortress side, my position will include editing Sundays and Seasons and other worship/music related resources. With wonderful colleagues, I look forward to visioning together about resources to serve the church.

 

In the ELCA world, I will be helping to lead events and teach, thereby connecting leaders to resources that will help them along the way. For example, my first task will be in working with the upcoming Worship at the Center event: “Journeying from Ash Wednesday to Easter.” I am thrilled to be working with a talented team of presenters who will engage us in why and how we keep The Three Days (shameless plug: Registration goes up in mid-September at www.elca.org/Worship so stay tuned!)

 

About me…

 

I come to this position with a background in liturgy and church music and a love for interdisciplinary work. I found the training of musicians with pastors at the then Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia to be especially formative for my call as well as my involvement with the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM). Since seminary, I served as a writer and church musician, most recently from Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania.

 

Another hat I wear is serving as Co-Director for the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University. This Institute has continually been a source for my spiritual renewal, first as a college student in the previous millennium!

 

I am discovering a few of this state’s ten thousand lakes as I make my home with my spouse, three children and one cat in Shoreview, Minnesota. I work out of the office at 1517 Media in Minneapolis. I even got to see the eclipse out the 8th floor window on my first day!

 

I look forward to good conversations and partnerships in this church and beyond.

 

Engaging Children in Worship

 

Today’s post is from Shelly Satran, a pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Vero Beach, FL.

 

How can we engage children in worship when we don’t know if there will even be any?

 

We regularly ask ourselves this question at the congregation I serve. We have families and children in our congregation, but spread across our three worship services, and given our demographic in a Florida coastal retirement town we never know if we might have two kids (“kids” used broadly here, one might be a toddler and one a teenager) or ten at a worship service.

This question presented itself to us eight years ago when we realized children’s sermons weren’t working in our context. We decided to drop them, but committed to involving kids in worship in any way we could. We still have work to do, but here are some things that have been successful.

The first simple way we engage kids in worship, is to ask them! This one is a no-brainer, but still worth stating. We wear ourselves out texting, calling, asking in person, instant messaging, anything we can think of to involve young people in worship. As a result, not counting the youth acolytes, there is rarely a Sunday service that we don’t have youth or children involved as ushers, greeters, readers, musicians (from talented high school instrumentalists to an eight-year-old playing the rain stick), or worship leaders. It is definitely harder work to get youth to commit versus an adult. We have more issues with no shows than we do with adults, but it is worth it. The more we ask our young people to participate in the regular roles in worship the more they feel worship is for them.

Secondly, and this falls into an important category for us of ideas we can add or omit depending on whether children are present, is to have a “kids’ question” in the sermon. This works similarly to how a children’s sermon question might work, but the kids are less on the spot, they can choose to raise their hand from their seats or not, and they are never on their own to answer because there are always adults who may whisper the answer or can’t help but blurt it out themselves. Plus we fold the questions into the sermon so that it isn’t a separate kids’ moment, but rather they are a part of what everyone else is participating in—God’s Word.

Our kids’ questions might involve an activity like: “Look through your worship folder/bulletin and count how many times the word “peace” appears.” As they are looking the sermon continues, but at some point I ask the kids for the answer and fold it into the rest of the sermon. Another kid’s question might be to circle all of the animals (or plants, or towns, or disciples, or anything that forms a small category) in the readings and show me after worship. Sometimes, not always, I have stickers or candy in my pocket as a prize.

The kids’ question might be some very basic Bible trivia that even the youngest would know or it might relate to the bulletin cover art—“Listen to the Gospel reading and see if you can name the three people depicted on the bulletin.” The great thing about the kids’ question is that it works if there are 20 kids in worship or two or zero. We have a Saturday night worship service that is usually not attended by kids, except for one not-shy boy. I will often call the kids question the “Gregory question” at that service, or if no kids are present I will make the kids’ question into an everybody question. We don’t have the kids’ question in the sermon every week. Then it would lose some of its novelty, but regularly enough that the kids know to listen up and wait for it.

Third, and also in the category of easily added or omitted, during the sending hymn we gather up any youth in worship (again they may range from toddler to teenager) invite them up front with the pastors and worship leaders. By “gather them up” I mean one of us pastors walks out and gets them. Or at a service with more children, we send older kids out to do the gathering. Once the young people are all up front, two or twelve of them, we all recess out of worship together and then the children lead the final “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord.” sending from the baptismal font. We’ve never had any trouble recruiting kids for this role probably because being first to the back of the sanctuary positions them to be first in line for cookies after worship.

So if you are like us and you may only have a smattering of children in worship, don’t be discouraged. Wear yourself out to include them. It will be worth the effort. To them and the congregation, their presence will feel larger than the actual numbers. Hear it in the voices of children: “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord!”

 

 

A Ministry of Free Prayer

 

Today’s post is from Marie Sager, Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, Hays KS.

 

Have you ever been to a coffee shop and seen people working on their computers? How about reading a book? You probably answered yes to both of these questions, but have you seen someone praying? A ministry that is starting to take off is Free Prayer.

I first heard about the ministry of Free Prayer via Facebook in a post that featured an article about The Rev. Thomas Rusert, a pastor in Pennsylvania. The article talked about why he offers “Free Prayer” at different places. The idea sounded interesting to me, so I decided to try it. I requested a Free Prayer sign, and I was off to the local coffee shop near me.

I have been doing Free Prayer, at a local coffee shop, since April 2016. It has been such an amazing ministry. I have received lots of inquisitive smiles, and those who do venture over to pull up a chair have had many different prayers. I have had a request from a kid eating lunch with their family about safety in an upcoming storm, to requests for family members in the hospital, to safe travel on road trips. There are no “small prayers” prayers.

Besides praying for people, one of the reasons I do Free Prayer, is to offer a ministry to the community. I sit in my clerical collar most Thursdays with my sign offering Free Prayer. In a predominantly Catholic and non-denominational community, I am one of the only female pastors. Therefore I also view my Free Prayer ministry as an evangelism tool, to let people know that women can and have been Lutheran pastors for around 45 years.

Lastly, I post on Facebook about this ministry as well. I have a pinned post on my PastorMarie Sager page with dates of upcoming Free Prayer times. I also post in real time as I am doing Free Prayer asking what I may pray for.