Mission Yearbook: ‘Coldest Night of the Year’ 3K walk raises funds, awareness for Wisconsin warming shelter

The Rev. Dr. Matthew L. Sauer of Manitowoc Cooperative Ministry
is pictured with his dog, Gus. (contributed photo)

Cold weather kills.

When mid-January brought days of near and below-zero temperatures and wind chills approaching minus-40 to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the local Warming Shelter had to turn away people because of limited space.

Manitowoc Cooperative Ministry is partnering with others to bring warmth and hope to those in need.

On Feb. 22, a “winterrific” family-friendly fundraising Coldest Night of the Year 3K Walk helped raise money to expand the shelter’s services, install clothes washers and dryers so that no one must wear dirty clothes, and provide showers for guests.

The Rev. Dr. Matthew L. Sauer is pastor at Manitowoc Cooperative Ministry, an innovative partnership of the historic Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and United Church of Christ congregations serving the community for more than 170 years. The city is located on Lake Michigan, south of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee.

The church’s long-term goal is to raise $1.2 million to purchase and remodel a building for a shelter that will serve 24 people daily, Sauer said.

“Never give up on God! We are a small congregation, 40 in worship,” he said. “But we listened, and God spoke a dream on our hearts and now we are leading a community to live out the Matthew 25 gospel. We are frightened, we don’t know how we can fund this, but our faith is stronger than our fear.”

The Manitowoc Warming Shelter provides a safe, warm refuge for neighbors facing temporary homelessness during the harsh Wisconsin winters. It is more than just a shelter — it’s a place of compassion and connection, Sauer said.

The facility’s permit and space provide shelter for a maximum of 12 people — but on cold nights they may have to turn away double that number, Sauer said.

More than 125 volunteers help run the Warming Shelter, open nightly from November through April, when temperatures can drop into single digits or colder at night, and sometimes the daily high is still below freezing.

“The Manitowoc Warming Shelter is an emergency low-barrier drop-in warming shelter with a simple mission, ‘No one deserves to freeze to death at night,’” Sauer said.

“We operate only in the coldest months, but we also provide two program-based homeless shelters in town: Hope House for single women and families and The Haven, for single men. Folks in our community understand the Warming Shelter stands in the gap and have been very supportive.”

John C. Williams for the Presbyterian Foundation, Special to Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Kirstie Johnson, Administrative Assistant, Director’s Office, Theology, Formation & Evangelism, Interim Unified Agency                                                      
• Melissa Johnson, Mission co-worker, Zambia, World Mission, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, help us to keep our focus on you and on what we have in common through Jesus Christ. Keep our eyes on your mission so that we will see what is possible and what is already happening when we work together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Children’s ministry that forms faith

Jill Benson

Jill Benson, a curriculum coordinator for the Christian Reformed Church, put on a workshop during this year’s APCE’s Annual Event  focused on children’s ministry that forms faith.

“Why do we have children’s ministry available at our church? It’s important to start with the why,” Benson said to workshop attendees meeting in person at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, and online. “For me, I love children, and I learn from them.” Alongside that is the privilege “to see them grow in their faith and form a lifelong faith.”

While Benson took workshop attendees back 85 years to survey the history of children’s ministry, “it goes all the way back to Deuteronomy and the Shema,” she said. For this portion of the presentation, Benson drew from Scottie May et al, the authors of “Children Matter: Celebrating Their Place in the Church, Family and Community.”

The years 1940–1965 saw content-centered children’s ministry, when “ministry was done to children to encourage this process of faith formation,” she said. Children were seen as sponges, and the teacher was “the expert, the boss, the funnel holder and the evaluator.” The traditional Sunday school setting dominated.

The strength during that era was the promotion of biblical literacy. “You could rest assured you were an emerging disciple of Christ,” Benson said. “But biblical literacy didn’t turn into lifelong faith formation.”

From 1965–1990, children’s ministry was student-centered. The goal was to make sure children enjoyed Sunday school, and programming “became elaborate,” Benson said. The teacher was seen as “the coordinator, customer service representative, ringmaster and planner,” Benson noted.

Processed-centered children’s ministry has dominated since 1990. The goal is to help the child to encounter God and God’s story in ways that form faith. The emphasis is on the relationship between the child and the adult and the process by which learning takes place. Children can be seen as a plant, a sheep, a pilgrim or a scientist “who learn and investigate together to find truth,” Benson said. The teacher is seen as a shepherd, farmer, fellow pilgrim or co-learner.

The strength of this model is “the emphasis on more authentic engagement with the biblical story,” while a weakness is “we focus on the quiet, contemplative moments and don’t include enough fun activities,” she said.

“This history does not mean that earlier views were wrong or bad,” but “they were less effective than once thought,” Benson said. “As we learned more about children, we altered the way we did children’s ministry.”

It could be a new era of children’s ministry has begun — one in which educators and other grownups are spiritually formed by children.

According to Benson, May says there have been “many times” she’s been ministered to by children, “but it has usually happened unintentionally. What if we made it intentional?”

Benson asked workshop attendees to break into small groups to discuss questions including, “Are you comfortable with what children’s ministry looks like at your church, or are there aspects of another model that you would like to include?”

“We noticed that the ‘entertainment model’ is often associated with the large numbers and ‘glory days’ of our churches,” said one workshop participant. “But we appreciate now functioning with the ‘with/by’ models, often with fewer numbers.”

Through Visio Divina, Benson then used “The Book of Belonging” and art by A Sanctified Art to tell the story of The Daughters of Zelophehad, reading the story as she might to a child.

Then she asked those in the workshop: Anything you wonder about this story?

Benson called wondering questions “a fantastic way to engage children. They don’t have a specific answer, or a right answer. The point is to help children put themselves in the story.”

Among her favorites is the one she had just asked: What do you wonder about this story?

“Kids jump right in and answer that one,” Benson said.

A link to a 10-question tool for choosing curriculum is here. Lists of five ways to help families grow in faith, help kids to worship and to pray with kids, can be found here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Alonzo Johnson, Coordinator, Self-Development of People, Interim Unified Agency
• Carlton Johnson, Director, Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we give thanks that you multiply our small and humble offerings and efforts as we work to care for those in need. We ask that you sharpen our focus on you and on ways we may serve. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: ‘Along the Road’ podcast explores the global Presbyterian family

The Rev. Dr. Mofid Wasef

When it comes to what it means to be Presbyterian and why it matters, it turns out that which country you come from makes a big difference.

In January, the “Along the Road” podcast hosted a conversation with Rev. Dr. Mofid Wasef, associate pastor of Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in San Diego, and his daughter, Ruling Elder Dr. Mirna Wasef, about their experiences as Presbyterians in Egypt and in the United States.

Speaking with “Along the Road” host valerie izumi, a ruling elder in the PC(USA), the two were quick to clarify that the cultural expectations around denominational identity are vastly different in the two countries.

Mirna described finding that in the U.S., “there seems to be a fear of offending somebody if you talk about your own faith.” People don’t feel comfortable saying they are Presbyterian or Christian. In Egypt, however, it’s the opposite, she said. “It’s legally recognized that you’re going to talk about your religion because even on your ID card it says your religion.”

Mofid went further, explaining that in childhood in Egypt, there was a sense of competition even between various faiths and especially different Christian traditions, which motivated young Presbyterians to know the specifics of their tradition inside and out. He said that by middle school, young Egyptians were articulating their beliefs and representing their faith to others. This culture motivated them all, whether Coptic Orthodox or Presbyterian, to study and learn even more about their denomination.

“Along the Road” is a weekly podcast designed with mid council leaders and congregational leaders in mind and hosted by izumi, Manuel Silva-Esterrich, and Martha Miller. New episodes are typically released on Wednesdays and alternate between “Nourish” episodes geared toward ruling elders and deacons, and “Encounter” episodes geared toward mid council leaders. This season has focused on the theme of Presbyterian identity.

In the Jan. 15 episode, titled “Encounter: We Are Part of a Bigger Family Around the World,” izumi reminded listeners that the church — made up of its members, deacons, ruling elders, and teaching elders or ministers — is called “to go forth as agents of God’s mission in the world” (Book of Order, W-3.0502).

Dr. Mirna Wasef

Mirna shared that her journey of coming to understand and embrace her own Presbyterian identity was borne out of her experiences teaching Sunday school as a high school student in the U.S. and recognizing herself and her own upbringing in those teachings. This sense of identity was further deepened as she traveled back and forth between Egypt and the United States and saw what shared beliefs connected the Presbyterians she interacted with in each place.

Both Mirna and Mofid emphasized that understanding one’s Presbyterian identity isn’t just important for knowing how you are different from other Christians, but also how you are connected to other Presbyterians around the world.

“There is a history behind Presbyterians that’s rich and deep,” Mirna said. “Sometimes we lose ourselves in the U.S. context of Christianity. We think being Presbyterian is just about being in the U.S. and the Bible was written for us right now in the U.S. context. But we take out the richness of the culture of Scripture, and the richness of the people who read their own lives into Scripture, too.”

Mirna went on to point out that the Presbyterian Church is global and “every culture has their own experience with Scripture that we should be able to take into account.” Doing so is what it means to be a family, she explained.

Mofid said he believes the pulpit provides a crucial opportunity to teach churchgoers what it means to be Presbyterian.   

“If we teach our people, our members, what we believe and that we are part of a bigger family around the world, that will help the people understand. It’s very important to know that you’re a Presbyterian church and what you believe and who you are.”

All episodes of the “Along the Road” podcast are on the PC(USA) website or on Spotify, Apple and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Reginald Jean-Mary, Building/Tech Support, Stony Point Conference Center, Interim Unified Agency 
• Ellie Johns-Kelley, Ministry Relations Officer, Presbyterian Foundation 

Let us pray:

Generous God, we give thanks for new opportunities to hear your word and see your grace transforming our lives. Your abundance bridges our cultural chasms and connects us in new communities of discipleship. In Christ’s service we pray. Amen. 

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