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A little background: I changed calls in December 2020 to Bethlehem Lutheran Church – Twin Cities to be the Family Pastor. I love the Bethlehem’s vision statement of “Becoming Together: Sharing in the work for God’s vision of a healed world.”  And we do that by connecting people to God, to people, to place, and to planet. So that will be the framework for 5 Things Friday, 4 connections plus one good quote!

Each email contains stuff I have either created, or given permission to share from someone else, or what I am reading. Here is what it looks like:

People to God: Consider doing a Faith Walk for you confirmation students who will be confirmed this year. We do it the Wednesday before the Affirmation of Baptism service. Families come up together, the confirmand is blessed in five different ways, and at the end the student receives a cross to wear at the confirmation service. If you are interested, here is a video of last year’s service, and the bulletin is below

People to People: This past week I got to be the family camp pastor at Camp House, part of Green Lake Lutheran Ministries. Camp House is located on Lake George in the North Woods of Minnesota. The adult curriculum used for family camp was written by Tina Magner, and it was awesome – four days to talk about how we as God’s people are Guided by the Light. Check out the curriculum here. It could be used for a retreat with students or adults, youth ministry, confirmation, independent or adult Bible study.

People to Place: Do you have dead spaces in your church? By dead space, I mean places that are no longer of use or outdated? Check out what this one church did with their church library. Their library was filled with outdated materials that no one was using. They cleaned it out and launched a new space based on their mission partners. 

People to Planet: Start an urban or suburban garden. Both my current congregation (urban) and my previous congregation (suburban) started gardens to better off the food shelves and local community. One church has used this organization in St Paul, MN to help get them started, and at the other the garden is cared for by the young adults. One will take produce to the local food shelf, and the other will share the food in this onsite food box. 

One Good Quote: “All are welcome [signs] should come with an asterisk, and we know it: All Are Welcome* – *if you don’t challenge us, *if you don’t question the way we do things, *if you don’t sing, act, pray or worship like us, *if you don’t make me feel anything that isn’t positive for this hour, *if you don’t make me question anything I have built my life around.” (Dear Church by Lenny Duncan)

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