New Program Resources for 2009

Advent: A Season for All Generations

This two-part Advent program can be used by a group of any size. You’ll discuss various customs and explore the biblical figures of Advent (Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, Joseph and Mary, and more). You might use it with your regular study group or as a special Advent Bible study group. Each part takes about 20 to 45 minutes and includes prayer, hymns, Scripture, narration, and discussion.

Download your free copy.

Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls: Connecting with and Supporting Girls

Girls need the women in their lives more than ever as they search for deeper connections and for more than their peers can provide. Talking and being with them early in their lives will help us to help them navigate their most challenging life passages. This resource is designed to help women and girls build relationships and can be used by an individual or with a planning group. Allow about 60 minutes for the first meeting. 

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God Colors Outside the Lines: A Short Workshop on Diversity and God's Church

Diversity is one way God demonstrates genius at coloring outside the lines. Through scripture and simple, brief exercises, this short resource will help you demonstrate how diversity is a gift from God, as well as a trait of God, worthy of our exploration and embrace.

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The Three Stations: A Readiness Exercise

This 30-40 minute tool can be used as an ice-breaker activity at the beginning of a retreat, workshop, or other group time. Its meditative approach helps participants to clear their minds, to "do what they need to do" in order to become open and ready for their time together as a group. 

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Shared Wisdom: An Effective Style of Leadership

Are there occasional (even frequent?) differences of opinion at your meetings? Do tempers flare? This resource summarizes a group discernment model for decision-making built on the principle that every person has a piece of the wisdom, but not all of it. Try it at your next meeting to help move you in a new direction.

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I Am She

Our mission statement calls us to act boldly. What does this mean? A variety of things, for boldness has a range of voices: Some is bright and loud, some is firm and quiet.

Do you know what is your “best bold”?  I Am She will help you discover it and put it into action! Use this program in a congregational setting, as a conference event, or as part of a synodical convention. Conduct it over five to six weeks or as a weekend retreat. Boldly claim your boldness today, declaring, “I am she!”

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Paths to Wholeness

How is your spiritual life? Do you sometimes find it hard to connect with God or let God connect with you? Would like to try some new things?

Take a journey in spirituality and learn about the many different paths to God. Paths to Wholeness is a retreat experience that offers a holistic approach to spirituality. You will recognize your own spiritual paths as well as the spiritual paths of others. Conduct it over a period of several weeks or as a one-day retreat.

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Grace-Full Living

We continue our focus on women’s health in all its many facets. If we look at our complete and total health holistically, doesn’t it make sense to include financial health? When we consider health in mind, body, and spirit, do we ponder how financial health and giving are integral to our wellbeing?

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Lessons for Today's Disciples

This new resource will help you discover or recover the seven marks of discipleship: praying, studying, worshiping, inviting, encouraging, serving, and giving. Use it individually or as a group study.

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Sacred Spaces

Sacred Spaces is a helpful guide to creating a personal sacred space that enriches and supports your practice of regular worship within a community of faith. Learn how to select and create a sacred space, whether that space is a whole room, a quiet corner of a room, or your garden.

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Hospitality: More Than Warm and Friendly
True hospitality is a transforming way of life that changes our hearts and opens us to meeting the needs of others as a natural part of our discipleship. This resource is designed for individual study but can also be used by groups and will take about 60 minutes to complete. 

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A Bold Life of Faith

Katie Luther was a wife, mother, farmer, brewmaster, innkeeper, and more. In all that she did, she acted boldly on her faith in Jesus Christ. There’s a little bit of Katie in all of us. Learn about Katie while learning more about yourself.

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Rachel's Day: Taking action for children with a storybook project

This new resource offers step-by-step information on how you can carry out a service project that helps incarcerated mothers and fathers read to their children. Books, blank tapes, and recorders are donated by your congregation, and then volunteers help parents choose a book, record it, and mail the recording to their children.

Rachel’s Day is observed by Women of the ELCA annually on the first Sunday in May, though it can be observed any time of the year. It is a time set aside to mourn the loss of our children and to renounce the forces of violence and fear.

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Looking into the Mirror

You are invited to use the Lenten season to refocus your faith life and realign your relationship with God through 40 days of reflection. 

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