Prayer Shawl Ministry update

It's been so long since I posted about the group. We been making leaps and bounds into the direction we want to go.

Due to lack of storage space, growing yarn and project stash I moved all of the goodies to the church, once I found a spot. Our church, which is older and has a huge Sunday School extension, was considering sharing space with another smaller congregation for awhile and the extra rooms that we had available were on hold until those issues were ironed out. Three weeks ago we were assigned our official room (pictured below)!

The past two weeks have been spent clearing out the old tidbits and remnants from the previous usage. As I'm only at church on Sundays and Wednesdays and occupied for most of that time, this was a slower process than I'd hoped. Our most recent meeting was the last Sunday in March and we were unable to meet in our room because there were still lots of craft items to be relocated. However, I finished that up last week and we'll be able to use the room fully now! (Special thanks to Linda S. and Lauren T. for helping move all of our goodies from our old spot to the new room.)



Remaining stash





Bins laden with finished projects!



To date we have 20 people signed up in the ministry and most are very active. We have 18 shawls, 5 lap robes, 19 scarves, 4 children's hats, and 4 baby blankets turned in! Phenomenal, especially if you consider that 1/2 of the participants maintain a full-time position and a few are suffering from illnesses themselves.



Finished projects




As we won't be limiting ourselves to shawls, we've decided to take on a more descriptive name for the ministry. We're a Moravian (not Mormon - that's a little different) congregation and our motto is:

In essentials, unity;

In non-essentials, liberty;

and in all things, love.

Jesus said that the greatest of these is love and since we're attempting to share that love with others we decided to name the ministry "Wrapped in Love". It's very apt, don't you think?


Our first blessing is scheduled for Sunday, April 26th, at which time we will bless our work alongside the entire congregation during worship. The following week members will begin dispensing the projects to our sick, shut-ins, and anyone else that we find in need in the congregation.



Our goal is to eventually be able to branch out further into the community. Perhaps we can team up with some nursing facilities, Hospice, cancer treatment centers, and the like. We're looking into this now. If you have any ideas or links, please let me know. I'd also love to hear about the great things you're doing or wish to do in your work.

The 1st Prayer Shawl Ministry meeting...

Today was the day! We had about 14 people there today and 4 that couldn't come but wanted to sign up. 3 of those have never knitted or crocheted before and are willing to learn! I thought that was wonderful. I was like a kid at Christmas this week - so excited and couldn't wait for today!

I had our first prayer shawl blessed by the pastor Wednesday because I wanted to give one away today at the meeting. One of the first people to sign up as a participant is actually the person that inspired me to knit and, unfortunately, she was diagnosed with cancer almost 3 years ago. She has been very sick lately and had her last chemo cancelled due to an extremely low white blood cell count. Since she's the reason that I knit and truly in need of some extra love right now I thought it befitting that we open the ministry by a gift back to her.

We set a rough plan in place to service our church this first quarter and potentially expand the ministry to other agencies outside of the church in the next quarter. We've decided to do shawls, lap robes (thought this was good for men), and scarves for our group of high school graduates this year.

We're going to "package" the projects with a notecard about the ministry, a prayer and care instructions. The packaging will be a simple ribbon and bow. Our church has a visitation pastor and he normally visits people in the hospital and soon after their return home. They decided to allow him to take some items with him and the rest will be delivered by ministry volunteers. They thought privately dispensing them would be the best, due to some people not wanting everyone to know when they're not well.

We want to hold a blessing ceremony during the regular Sunday service once every quarter so the whole congregation can participate. We also considered presenting the graduates with their scarves during our normal graduation service in the summer.

I did forget one thing a the meeting. I forgot to ask what we wanted to name the ministry. I thought that Prayer SHAWL Ministry was kind of limiting since we want to provide the scarves and lap robes, too. Anyway, I guess I can bring that up at our next meeting.

We decided to meet once a month, the last Sunday of the month right after church, as many of the participants are heavily involved in other ministries and work full-time. We also have a few people gathering Wednesday nights during the school year already.

I know we've probably left alot out, but it's a start. What do you think? Oh, I found out this week that one of our sister churches has a Prayer Shawl Ministry that meets Wednesday's at 3pm. I think I'll try to visit them this week and observe.

What a truly wonderful way to start the New Year...

First Prayer Shawl meeting scheduled!

Yay! I finally scheduled our first Prayer Shawl meeting at church. I compiled a lot of information over Christmas vacation with free pattern links for knitting and crochet. Some of these have already been shared with you, but I did find 2 more that I really like - Crochet Pattern Central which also includes a tips and tricks section and Knitty Chick offering everything from patterns to recipes and a blog!

Our first meeting will be on Sunday, January 25th, immediately after church. It's an organizational meeting, so we won't actually work on our projects that day. We'll be deciding on a name for the group and picking our future meeting dates. We will also decide how we will choose recipients and how we will package the shawls.

I can't wait to get started! Keep us in your prayers, please, as we need all the help we can get to be sure and head in the right direction with this ministry.

Stay tuned for more photos of completed projects. I have a fleece prayer shawl that I've put together for those not inclined to knit or crochet. With fleece you can do everything you need with a pair of scissors. You can even do this if you have arthritis courtesy of a pair of electric scissors! I'm adding an embroidered cross to one end, just to jazz it up a little bit. As soon as the embroidery is finished I'll post a picture for you.