Projects completed (and ongoing):
1. Online connections:
"Digitally enabled" is the phrase used to emphasize that worship, activities, events, classes and all that encourages faith, empowers life and love, and happens in church ought to be extended onto the web via the church website, FaceBook, and other digital means.
Curating is a key way of doing this. Grace doesn't need to create things but rather to post links to high quality, faith forming information that others have already made. Much of what is on the web is neither good nor helpful. Much of what is claimed as being Christian or Biblical is more law than love.
This was the first emphases in Vibrant Faith's "Faith Formation in the 21st Century". People increasingly explore through the web, spend time surfing the web, and discover on their own rather than follow lectures.
Please explore and "like" the following. "Liking" and "sharing" are great tools for pointing others to what is happening at Grace.
Please let us know how to improve what we have on the web - this is a major means and tool for reaching people today!
Please let the church office or I know if there is a page or area you are interested to overseeing and updating on the web.
Note the following on Grace's website - www.gracelutherantomahawk.org:
Curating is a key way of doing this. Grace doesn't need to create things but rather to post links to high quality, faith forming information that others have already made. Much of what is on the web is neither good nor helpful. Much of what is claimed as being Christian or Biblical is more law than love.
This was the first emphases in Vibrant Faith's "Faith Formation in the 21st Century". People increasingly explore through the web, spend time surfing the web, and discover on their own rather than follow lectures.
Please explore and "like" the following. "Liking" and "sharing" are great tools for pointing others to what is happening at Grace.
Please let us know how to improve what we have on the web - this is a major means and tool for reaching people today!
Please let the church office or I know if there is a page or area you are interested to overseeing and updating on the web.
Note the following on Grace's website - www.gracelutherantomahawk.org:
2. Cross+generations connections:
"Relationships" are the means and most effective tool for teaching and growing faith today.
In the 20th century memorization and gathering children in Sunday School and youth in Confirmation were the key ways of teaching faith. The cell phone has re-wired our brains and culture. We are inundated with information. Anything can be found in a moment.
What not only children and youth but increasing numbers of adults want is not information but relationships.
We want to know does this matter? Is this important? How do I apply it?
The only way to know is to see it and to experience someone authentically living it and encouraging us to live it.
Please participate and help Grace move into becoming increasingly inter-generational in our worship, fellowship, service, learning, and all we do! The 2017 Congregation Retreat began this with the June "Gardening with Grace" event. The ministry staff is willing to assist. We realized the First Wednesday Worship is a tool and time that can be changed and transformed for this purpose.
Note every First Wednesday Event:
In the 20th century memorization and gathering children in Sunday School and youth in Confirmation were the key ways of teaching faith. The cell phone has re-wired our brains and culture. We are inundated with information. Anything can be found in a moment.
What not only children and youth but increasing numbers of adults want is not information but relationships.
We want to know does this matter? Is this important? How do I apply it?
The only way to know is to see it and to experience someone authentically living it and encouraging us to live it.
Please participate and help Grace move into becoming increasingly inter-generational in our worship, fellowship, service, learning, and all we do! The 2017 Congregation Retreat began this with the June "Gardening with Grace" event. The ministry staff is willing to assist. We realized the First Wednesday Worship is a tool and time that can be changed and transformed for this purpose.
Note every First Wednesday Event:
- will be interactive and for all ages
- will vary as we explore what works
- will include worship but finding ways to make it more participatory
- will encourage and guide you to connect with other generations
3. Families
"Home" is where faith is best formed. It is in our conversations and specific faith practices that we do with family and/or friends where faith is most deeply formed.
A key or perhaps most important ministry of Grace is to teach, show, encourage, and prod parents and families into exploring and developing these faith practices and habits. Milestone and First Wednesday events are effective times for doing this.
We introduced this in the June, 2017 newsletter.
A key or perhaps most important ministry of Grace is to teach, show, encourage, and prod parents and families into exploring and developing these faith practices and habits. Milestone and First Wednesday events are effective times for doing this.
We introduced this in the June, 2017 newsletter.
Exciting, Helpful and Relevant
The book of Judges is an ancient story. It’s the seventh book in the Old Testament and tells the story of the people of Israel after they were freed from slavery and had entered the Promised Land. It begins with the first generation of those to grow up in that new land. Judges 2:10 sets the stage:
“Moreover, that whole generation (the ones who first entered the land) was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.”
That describes increasingly where our time and culture today are:
The decline in family religious teaching and socialization in the families of Generation X and millennial parents has serious implications for the future of faith and congregational life. We are seeing the first generations of not religiously affiliated parents (Generation X and Millennial) raising their children to become the second generation of not religiously affiliated. If these trends continue, we can forecast declining levels of the importance of religion and the Christin faith, faith practice at home, and participation of families in church life. (John Roberto, page 51, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016)
But how can this be? Church and faith are all about good news, in fact the best of “Good News”! It is about that which is most trustworthy, life-giving, love-filled and hopeful for all eternity and given and promised by the very Creator of life.
What can be better and more important than God’s Good News? Well, over time that good news gets institutionalized and conformed to human rules and desires. A new generation comes along and says, “We do not want to be sent someplace our parents don’t go, to learn something our parents don’t use, to memorize old stuff no longer relevant, and do activities that aren’t fun.”
What can we do? The church has gone through this many times. In fact it is always being reformed. But there are times, such as in this 21st Century that the church needs to take a greater leap of reform. Such leaps are already happening. Where such reform happens, results show that congregational life is dynamic and growing and families are not only participating but fully engaged and embracing faith forming activities and practices.
Now the specific reforms or actions must be unique for each person, family, and congregation. That is the first key learning in this 21st Century. What works in New York, Chicago, Irma or Harshaw will not necessarily work in Tomahawk at Grace or your family.
But there are general outlines to guide those actions and reforms that lead to dynamic congregational life that engages families. Vibrantfaith.org has summarized the many books and research, carried out their own survey and interviews with nearly a thousand parents and grandparents of children ages 0-30, and examined the analytics from four years of clicks on their vibrantfaith@home website. Leif Kehrwald states from this study they see promising results in congregations that attempt the following (page 91, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016):
Kehrwald also states that there are three key reasons when and why families will engage in faith practices and find their congregation to be exciting, helpful and relevant (page 89, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016):
The ministry staff at Grace – Wendy Black, Patti Gaedtke, Margie Welke and Pastor Mark – invites you to join us in developing a comprehensive plan for deepening faith in our families. Talk with us about this. Or come, see, and hear John Roberto, Leif Kehrwald and other leaders at Vibrant Faith. Through my sabbatical they speak right in my office for three hours nearly every other month - call the church office or note in the bulletin or newsletter for the time and date of the "Live Presentation."
There is also a “Faith Practices Research Survey” we invite you to complete.
“Moreover, that whole generation (the ones who first entered the land) was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.”
That describes increasingly where our time and culture today are:
The decline in family religious teaching and socialization in the families of Generation X and millennial parents has serious implications for the future of faith and congregational life. We are seeing the first generations of not religiously affiliated parents (Generation X and Millennial) raising their children to become the second generation of not religiously affiliated. If these trends continue, we can forecast declining levels of the importance of religion and the Christin faith, faith practice at home, and participation of families in church life. (John Roberto, page 51, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016)
But how can this be? Church and faith are all about good news, in fact the best of “Good News”! It is about that which is most trustworthy, life-giving, love-filled and hopeful for all eternity and given and promised by the very Creator of life.
What can be better and more important than God’s Good News? Well, over time that good news gets institutionalized and conformed to human rules and desires. A new generation comes along and says, “We do not want to be sent someplace our parents don’t go, to learn something our parents don’t use, to memorize old stuff no longer relevant, and do activities that aren’t fun.”
What can we do? The church has gone through this many times. In fact it is always being reformed. But there are times, such as in this 21st Century that the church needs to take a greater leap of reform. Such leaps are already happening. Where such reform happens, results show that congregational life is dynamic and growing and families are not only participating but fully engaged and embracing faith forming activities and practices.
Now the specific reforms or actions must be unique for each person, family, and congregation. That is the first key learning in this 21st Century. What works in New York, Chicago, Irma or Harshaw will not necessarily work in Tomahawk at Grace or your family.
But there are general outlines to guide those actions and reforms that lead to dynamic congregational life that engages families. Vibrantfaith.org has summarized the many books and research, carried out their own survey and interviews with nearly a thousand parents and grandparents of children ages 0-30, and examined the analytics from four years of clicks on their vibrantfaith@home website. Leif Kehrwald states from this study they see promising results in congregations that attempt the following (page 91, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016):
- Provide a myriad of options and resources on your church website and through social media for all ages and all life’s stages
- Focus as much or more energy on adults as on children and youth
- Offer well-designed intergenerational activities and events.
- Integrate faith forming activities with other key ministries of the congregation, especially worship.
Kehrwald also states that there are three key reasons when and why families will engage in faith practices and find their congregation to be exciting, helpful and relevant (page 89, Families at the Center of Faith Formation, Lifelong Faith Associates, 2016):
- It lowers the internal anxiety they are feeling (Millennial parents more than any other generation feel the pressure of being “the perfect parent”).
- It assists in prioritizing the myriad external expectations, possibilities and resources that are overwhelming them (Millennial parents seek the best possible childhood for their children and use online parenting information twice as much as other generations but find these contradictory and overwhelming).
- These faith practices improve and empower their family life.
The ministry staff at Grace – Wendy Black, Patti Gaedtke, Margie Welke and Pastor Mark – invites you to join us in developing a comprehensive plan for deepening faith in our families. Talk with us about this. Or come, see, and hear John Roberto, Leif Kehrwald and other leaders at Vibrant Faith. Through my sabbatical they speak right in my office for three hours nearly every other month - call the church office or note in the bulletin or newsletter for the time and date of the "Live Presentation."
There is also a “Faith Practices Research Survey” we invite you to complete.
- Let us know how Grace is doing
- Let us know what is most helpful for you that Grace might do