3 minute read
Households of Faith Impact
by MEGAN MCDANIEL
How Christians order their days and connect with relatives and housemates is a critical aspect of spiritual growth. Households of Faith, the second in a series of studies produced in partnership with Barna Group, presents a vivid portrait of the domestic lives of U.S. practicing Christians. During a year of everyone spending more time at home, our timely Households of Faith materials resonated well with individuals and congregations.
Pastors Aaron Gehrke and Kevin Bender at Saints Peter and Paul Lutheran Church in Houghton, Michigan, shared how they used the stay-at-home orders as an opportunity to strengthen the households in their congregation. “In some ways, this has been a time of real challenge (we need community!). But it has also opened doors for investing in the home,” shared Associate Pastor Bender.
Every year Saints Peter and Paul has a four-week sermon series in the fall. Last fall, they focused their series on households, basing the sermons on LHM Content Development Manager Don Everts’ book, The Spiritually Vibrant Home: The Power of Messy Prayers, Loud Tables, and Open Doors. Week one examined households, while week two looked at messy prayers, followed by loud tables, and ending on open doors. Participants of the small group Bible studies, who met in a hybrid of in person and online sessions, used Everts’ book as a conversational book study using prompts from the readings.
Although stay-at-home orders contributed to the need to adapt programs to virtual spaces, Saints Peter and Paul pastors wanted to make households a priority. For example, the Sunday school program went digital, and households were encouraged to use that time to have devotions together. Instead of breaking up into groups based on age, members of households would stay together for what they call an education hour, which was also hosted online. The lessons were based on the biblical text for the week with conversations and activities surrounding the text. The goal was for individuals to have spiritual conversations with those in their households.
“Our pastors started a podcast to model how to have spiritual conversations, called Conversate,” says Senior Pastor Gehrke. “We look at, again, the theme, the biblical text, and the sermon, and then simply engage in conversation on those themes trying to model to people what it can look like to let the themes from Sunday live on in our daily conversations.”
LHM Ambassador Jill Tetherow also shared how her church used Households of Faith materials in a few different ways. On Wednesday nights, Our Savior Lutheran Church in Valentine, Nebraska, hosted an evening Bible study open to everyone, but since it was held at the same time as confirmation class, parents of confirmation children were encouraged to attend the study while their children were in class. In addition to the Wednesday evening class, they held a Bible study during the Sunday school hour using Households of Faith as the curriculum.
Tetherow also led a Bible study in her home with two other women. Working with everyone’s schedules, they met bi-weekly to explore the material together. By examining their households during the Bible study, the ladies decided one area they wanted to strengthen in their individual households was daily family devotions. They are working on making daily devotions a part of their family rituals as a priority moving forward.
As an LHM Ambassador, Tetherow looks for ways to get LHM materials in the hands of her congregation members. They have devotion books and Project Connect booklets displayed for members to see and pick up a resource. Tetherow also encourages her pastor to remind members of the free LHM resources available to them.
Visit lhm.org/households for more information about Households of Faith and its available resources. Have you used Households of Faith resources in your congregation or household? Send an email to marketing@ lhm.org explaining the resources or steps you have used to nurture your household of faith. Your story might be featured in an upcoming issue of The Lutheran Layman! =
Far left: Saints Peter and Paul Lutheran Church members hold up their books during the sermon series. Left: An impressive display of Project Connect booklets at Our Savior Lutheran Church.
Kids Booklets from LHM!
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Looking for timely resources for Vacation Bible School or summer activities? These fun booklets cover a variety of faith topics in a memorable way that is easy for kids to understand.
