Created With Love and Prayers

This shawl was created for you with love and prayers;

May God who formed your being, who knit you together in your mother’s womb,

who gave you the breath of life,

renew you this day and give you hope to sustain you.

May this prayer shawl be a sign of Christ’s healing presence.

May it warm you when you are weary;

May it surround you with comfort to ease your suffering;

May it encircle you with caring when you are in pain.

Wear this shawl and pray in Jesus name.  Amen

I found this prayer several years ago in a Lutheran magazine.  Since then, our church has used various forms of it in the cards that we gift the shawls with.  It is such a beautiful prayer that it goes nicely with gifting the shawl.

Many of you have ask for a prayer to begin your time as a group knitting.  I found this in the same article, there was not an author to give credit for.

Prayer for healing as you knit or crochet:

In the name of the Father, the Creator, the Giver of Life, the Holder of Time; in the name of Jesus: the Savior, the Healer and the Lifter of Pain; in the name of the Spirit:  the Comforter, the Consoler and the Sustainer of Life.  I knit this shawl as a mantle of caring.  I knit a mantle of protection.  I knit a mantle of wholeness. I knit a mantle of strength.  I knit a mantle of healing.  I knit a mantle of patience.  I knit a mantle to enfold you.  I knit a mantle to encircle you.  I knit a mantle to empower you.  May this prayer shawl warm and comfort you when you are weak and weary.

O Christ, who healed the broken in body and spirit, be with all who suffer today.  Be with the doctors, nurses, technicians and all that car for the sick.  Be with the families and friends of those who love and comfort the sick.  May your gentle yet strong touch reach out to heal all the broken and hurting people and places in our world.

I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  Amen

Decisions, Decisons!

“Decision determines destiny“-Frederick Speakman

It is amazing how many decisions you have to make when you decide to start a prayer shawl ministry!  How do you decide who will get a shawl?  Should you include baby blankets?  What should you do about the person who has  requested six shawls during the last six months?  Could they possibly have that many people they know who are experiencing difficulty?  Will you meet together to create the shawls, or do it independently?  Should they be given to people outside the congregation or just for your congregation?  What are your goals, what is your purpose for this ministry? What do you do about the person who smokes and everything she creates smells like a cigarette?  These decisions are a sampling of what our health ministry team has struggled to try and answer.   Without a team,  these decisions seem overwhelming.   I have  found every prayer shawl ministry needs a team to help with these decisions.  Our team is composed of three women.  We meet about twice a year and make the hard decisions. We start our meetings with prayer asking the Spirit to guide us and lead us.  One of us is considered our bookkeeper, keeping track of all the shawls we have given and who it was given to.  Another person, promotes the shawls and does the public blessing, and another  is our quality control person.  She is an expert craftsman and knows what is wrong with a shawl if the stitching isn’t quite right. She gently and expertly communicates with the creators of the shawls on what we would like to have. I hate to think of where our ministry would be without our team.  There have been times when I thought a decision was the right one.  I have ask the team about it, and they have said  no, that is just not a good idea and given me the reasons. If they are in agreement, we go for it.  If not, I put it on the shelf.  I trust their wisdom, and realize I don’t see every angle of a situation.  This is not about your ego, it is about being a source of comfort to others, and how to best accomplish that.  A team keeps the ministry balanced and prevents one person from “running the show”. If you have ever seen that situation happen, you know it is not a good thing.

I noticed some prayer shawl ministry teams have a scripture or a motto. Of course, that is one more decision!  Do you know the best thing about a team?  If you have a difficult decisions, and you will, you are not in it alone.  There is a group making the decisions with you, and helping you move in the direction you feel the Spirit is leading you. For our team, women with a gift of mercy just arose and offered their service.  Who could you get to help you with this ministry?  What gifts could they bring?  Just remember…you don’t have to go it alone.

Let’s talk about it, do you have a prayer shawl team and how do they help with the tough decisions?  Pass what you have learned along and leave a comment!

Starting a Prayer Shawl Ministry

This summer I helped a man name Fred and his wife start a prayer shawl ministry for their congregation.  Fred and his wife don’t knit or crochet but they have been wanting to start this ministry and somehow got my email and wrote to me for more information.  Their congregation has just given their seventh shawl and he is so excited! When he first began he had no clue where to begin and seemed a bit anxious about the process.  I thought for this coming week I would share what I have learned  the last three years, and what I shared with Fred as he began a prayer shawl ministry.

If someone would have told me three years ago that I would head this ministry at our congregation I would have laughed.  After all, I don’t knit or crotchet, and I really don’t have much time from my busy life to volunteer.  I also knew nothing about doing that.  I had never “read the manual” on how to start a ministry like this.  But sometimes God has a way of weaving people into your life, and you end up doing something that you never imagined doing.

I had been given a handout on  a prayer shawl ministry at a health ministry conference I had gone to.  I thought it was really cool, and thought I may do this someday when I learn to knit.  I did share it with some of the ladies who knit in our congregation, and we had visited about it.  A few weeks later, one of the ladies who attends our Bible study came to class and told us how she had come home from work and found the EMT’s at her next door neighbors home.  She rushed over and found the family in a state of grief as their baby had just passed away from SIDS, and they were unable to revive him.  We shared this families grief with tears of prayer for them.  The next week, one of the ladies knitted her a prayer shawl and brought it to me and tentatively ask if this was what I meant by the prayer shawl.  I held this lovely handmade shawl on my lap and looked at it.  It was so soft, so sweet, it reminded me of the little angel that waited for this grieving mother in heaven. I looked up at the face of the lady who made it, and saw the love and prayers she had poured into this shawl.  I just knew she had knit this for the mother but didn’t want to say it. So I ask her, if this was made for the mother we had prayed about.  She replied “if you don’t think she would mind us giving it to her”. Suddenly it didn’t matter if we knew how to do this, we would simply do our best, and give her this shawl.  Since I make cards, I made a handmade card and wrote a prayer inside the card and then I bought a plain white gift box. I stamped it to match, and found some lovely ribbon to tie it up with.  I took the shawl to our Bible study and we each held the shawl the shawl in our circle and took turns praying a blessing over it. The shawl was then wrapped and the member from our congregation who was her neighbor took it to her.  Sometimes the best way to swim is just to jump in and try, and that was how our prayer shawl ministry was launched.  We had a need, we had a giver, and we simply did our best, sending it out with love and prayers.

We had several older ladies in our congregation that heard about us giving the shawl and wanted to be a part of this ministry by knitting.  They came to me to as they needed someone to put the ministry together.  I talked with our pastor about starting a prayer shawl ministry and received his approval.  One Sunday I presented it to our congregation along with a shawl to show.  In the foyer I had set up a table with a prayer shawl on it, a sample card, and several of the handouts of a magazine article I had run off with the instructions.  The response was enthusiastic from the entire congregation. With the congregations help, I soon found resources through the Prayer Shawl Ministry internet site, and a folder with instructions that Lion Brand Yarn does on prayer shawls.

So for the fist thing, I would say simply find a pattern and begin to crochet or knit a shawl.  You have to have something to show your congregation or faith community what it is.  Make the shawl large enough to enfold the person, and soft to symbolize the comforting presence of God.  As you knit, pray for the person who is to receive it.  Pray for healing, strength, comfort and hope. For some formal and excellent prayers, again, check the prayer shawl ministry official website. (It’s on my blog roll, simply click it).  When the shawl is done, you bless the shawl through prayer one final time before it is given.  This can be done as a group of shawls, or individually as we did with our first shawl.  You can give it any number of ways, tie a ribbon around it, put it in a gift bag, but do something to honor the specialness of the shawl. Include a card telling them that they have been prayed for and this shawl is a token of your love and prayers and may it remind them of the comforting arms of God when they wear it. I sign it with the name of who is giving it, and the congregation.  It is then like all gifts, given without obligation.  It is theirs to receive it as a precious treasure, or to use for the dog to lay on (yikes!).  We release any expectations with the gift.  Sometimes they are overwhelmed with gratitude, sometimes we never even receive a thank you.  It is given by the member of our congregation requesting it, and in turn becomes a part of their ministry to the person.

I hope to hear from others starting a prayer shawl ministry and how you began to it!

Baby Card and Prayer Blanket

This lavender baby blanket was crocheted by the ladies at our church and then blessed in prayer at a service. They are given to babies within our church and by request for sick babies, or a baby who for whatever reason needs to be wrapped in prayer. I make the card to go with the blankets. This simple card was made in the same lavender colors with Stampin’Up’s Lovely Labels. I used the punch to frame it with the scallops. I love plaid for babies and found paper to coordinate, and just cut a strip of the lavender paper for the middle to kind of anchor the circle. I just make the cards, I don’t knit or crochet for this ministry. I have no idea the pattern of this blanket, it appears to be a shell design and the yarn has a lovely sheen to it. Any ideas what pattern this is from those who crochet?

Baby Prayer Blanket

We had been having our prayer shawl ministry for about a year when I was sitting in a service where the focus was the sanctity of life.  In our denomination, this is a Sunday where the focus in on honoring life. Life in the womb, for the newborn, as well as the sick and elderly.  My daughter had a friend who had just found out she was pregnant.  She was a not married and was from a rather dysfunctional family. I knew she had to be feeling alone and scared.  I thought it just isn’t enough that we say “honor life”.  We need to do more, to let these women know that they are loved, that we care.  I then thought of our prayer shawls.  Why couldn’t we knit one for babies?  Do the same thing, knit them with love and prayers and give them to babies who may be coming into the world with not all of the advantages of being a longed for and cherished blessing? It would be a simple act of kindness to show the mother we cared. They could also be given to the babies we baptized, and to any little ones who might be ill or hospitalized.  I talked with our knitters about it, and presented the idea to our pastor. The response was enthusiastic.  We have since given many blankets to babies.  Babies whose mothers were alone and confused, given by a member of our congregation with their love and care. They have been given to babies who have been ill, as well as welcomed into the family of God by our congregation.  The baby prayer blankets has been one of the sweetest parts of our prayer shawl ministry.

There are many different forms of this ministry done by many different organizations.  I am a pediatric nurse and one day a little girl I was working with had just come home from the hospital.  She was a beautiful child with a sharp mind, but her body was paralyzed. She had a tracheotomy  to aid her in breathing and because of that, speaking was difficult for her.  She communicated with an expressive face and eyes, speaking very clearly through her expressions.  Like many seriously ill children, her life was often difficult and full of limitations.  She was in the foster care system living in a group home, and rarely saw her parents.  We all loved and adored her, and I was no different.  It was bedtime and I was doing a breathing treatment for her when I noticed a lovely pink quilt laying on the side of the bed.  I ask her if that was her pink quilt and her face lit up like a Christmas tree and she nodded yes.  The quilt was given to her when she was released from the hospital from an organization that makes quilts for sick children.  Later I held it and we looked at how lovely it was. I explained that it was handmade for her with the pieces sewn together, and the top quilted by hand with thoughts of her as the person made it.  Her joy in the quilt, the happiness that someone made it just for her was something I will never forget.  This was a prayer blanket done by a stranger for this little one.  I don’t know who she was, but it made a sick little girl very happy to have a new quilt to take home from the hospital.

For these little ones who may never have someone knit a baby blanket for, to have a small handmade quilt made just for them, it is an act of love in a world that is not always easy, not always welcoming.

The Little Details of a Prayer Shawl Ministry

It has been said that God is in the details.  Well, the details are what often snag you up when you begin a prayer shawl ministry.  Here are a few things we learned in the last several years.

We don’t make a habit of it, but you can wash the shawls if you have to.  Occasionally we will have a shawl come in from a knitter and the smell is not quite as fresh as we would like it to be.  Worse case scenario, wash the shawl by hand in the sink, and dry it on low.  It will turn out fine.

That brings us to another dilemma we had to learn the hard way. Only accept new yarn that is soft and suitable for the shawls.  We have made shawls with a sturdier yarn for certain situations, (like our young people who will take it to college) but we always use new yarn.  You will have people wanting to donate  yarn stored in the attic from Grandma’s house or in a dusty closet.  It will smell like the attic and won’t produce the lovely shawls that you want to give.  If you are taking the time to make the shawls by hand, use quality yarn.

Have someone keep track of the shawls that are given out and who from the congregation requested one for someone.  This helps when you do a report back to the congregation at the end of the year.

Include the person receiving the shawl into your church prayers for that week.  The heart of the prayer shawl ministry is prayer, so pray for each person through many different channels.

Find a uniform pattern that works and in the beginning stick with it.  If you have several very capable craftsman they can do different patterns later, but in the beginning, just keep it simple. It may help to have one person in charge over the knitters as a “quality control person”.

Think about having a donation box for yarn similar to a food bank donation box.  Have a handout attached to the box with what kind of yarn you want, and have them pick out say three skeins of the same kind and color of yarn, enough for one shawl, to donate.  Our knitters are all on a fixed income and donations are what keep this ministry going.

Think about how you will give the shawls.  I have several examples of how our congregations gives them under the heading “prayer shawls and cards”.  We have bought in bulk plain white gift bags and colored tissue paper.  We use a matching colored ribbon to tie them up with.  I make the cards to go with the prayer shawls so each shawl gets a card and a gift bag.  Not every person is gifted in presentation, don’t assume everyone who gives one to someone is good with that. The gifting of the shawl should be as thoughtful as the shawl itself.  Some congregations have cards made up by a company with a picture of their church on the front,  some just buy a box of cards with a place to write a  message inside.

There are many different jobs in this ministry, you don’t have to knit or crochet to be a part of this. You definitely shouldn’t try to go it alone.  Find people who have a gift to contribute and are willing to give.  It could be prayer, crafting, organizational skills, or just a gift of mercy.  As a team come together to work out the details of this ministry.