Two months out
Workers pose for a photo after cleaning the Family Promise Day Center as part of their summer service.
Christenson said. They really got into it, she added, recall- ing the boy who last year earnestly asked his mother: “Mom, will you make me go to that again?” (His mother made him go the previous year.)
Calling all plungers J
Friday afternoon is spent on a ropes course or swimming.
Montana congregations call middle-schoolers into summer service
ust look for a plunger on the T-shirts and in other publicity. Yes, it works perfectly with middle school humor, said Lindean Barnett Christenson, a pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church, Boze- man, Mont. This July, for the third year in a row, sixth- through eighth- graders from the congregation she and her husband, Grant, serve will spend five days in service. It’s called “Middle School Service Plunge.” Also involved is Hope Lutheran Church, which is where the youth
director, Paul Goodman, started the plunge. The first year Hope and another ELCA congregation in nearby Livingston participated. When Christenson saw in the newspaper what they were doing, she said, “We want in.” The Livingston church opted out the next year, and Christ the King and the local Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation were in. Between 25 and 40 young people participate in the service plunge, this year scheduled for July 8-12. They begin the day with worship and an introduction to the day’s theme (using a variety of curricula the lead- ers have tweaked). Since there aren’t a lot of agencies in Bozeman that can accommo- date that many kids at one time on a project, they break into three or four groups. The youth go to the food bank (or work in community gar- dens that benefit the food bank), help an interfaith group called Family Promise of Gallatin Valley that supports homeless families, and last year they shoveled gravel for trails through Gallatin Valley Land Trust. After work time, participants return to the host church for lunch. Each of the Lutheran churches hosts two days and the Presbyterian congregation hosts on Friday. The afternoon time includes Bible study, crafts and games.
Last year they borrowed a labyrinth from the hospital, which resulted in “high-energy middle school boys praying the labyrinth,”
Nicole Anderson, a seventh-grader who will participate for the third year this sum- mer, enthusiastically listed off all the service projects she’s done and the final fun day activities. “If you add to all these things see- ing friends from other churches, the ‘Service Plunge’ is super fun!” she said.
For more information, email Christenson at
ctkprlindean@qwestoffice.net.
Good one! T-shirt transformation
Peace Lutheran
Church, Cold Spring, Minn., gathers each Wednesday to work on mission projects. One project is transforming old T-shirts into diapers for Lutheran World Relief baby care kits (www.lwr. org/getinvolved/babycarekits). The congregation asked members to donate extra-large T-shirts and got “hundreds of them,” said member Joyce
Anderson. Send congregational stories—both those for a specific month/holiday or your best timeless idea—to
julie.sevig@
thelutheran.org. May 2013 41
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