Dive right in
Use these activities to discover how ministry happens in the
everyday lives of God's people. Gather a group and immerse yourself in
conversation. Use these Activities to discover how ministry happens in the
everyday lives of God's people. Gather a group and immerse yourself in
conversation.
Select an activity:
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Daily Places
Affirm the varied gifts and opportunities for ministry
of those present. Note: Daily Places is an ideal first SPLASH! activity.
Other activities and devotions will refer back to the chart you create in
Daily Places.
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Five Cards
Show the far-reaching impact of participants'
ministries out in the world.
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Bubble Map
Chart where members are during the week.
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Artifacts
Characterize your congregation.
How might you use these activities?
What about using all of them in a series of sessions with a Sunday School
class, a committee, or a small group? Or maybe choosing a couple as periodic
exercises to keep the council tuned into the congregation's daily ministries? Or
even as a one-time experience for a Bible study group?
For the benefit of all participants, pair each activity with an
appropriate devotion.
DAILY PLACES
Purpose
Affirm the varied gifts and opportunities for ministry of those present.
Note: This is an ideal first activity for a group beginning to work with
SPLASH! Other activities and devotions refer back to the chart you will create
in Daily Places.
Goals
Resources
Newsprint and markers
Setup
Tape together four large pieces of newsprint. Draw a large circle
surrounding the title "Daily Places," and add some occupation categories:
Place this on a table or wall in or near the place where
participants will gather for the first session. (For subsequent sessions, hang
the circle in the meeting room before participants arrive.) Scatter markers near
the newsprint.
Steps
Ask arriving participants to sign in on the circle. The Daily Places Circle
may be used in future sessions to provide information and help people get
acquainted.
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Encourage each person to choose one
category on the circle that best represents the place and type of work they
do most days of the week. The chart is not intended to show the multiplicity
of roles people fulfill each week, but the primary arena in which they spend
most of their time. This is also where they are likely to have the most
influence.
-
Add new categories of occupations if
none printed on the circle fit. Retirement may fit under “home,” but some
may prefer to put it in its own category. Tailor the categories to the
setting as needed.
FIVE CARDS
Purpose
Show the far-reaching impact of participants' ministries out in the world.
Goals
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Participants grow in awareness of
their daily ministries.
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Participants are affirmed and
encouraged in the continued use of their gifts.
-
Participants realize the wide-ranging
impact of their collective ministries.
Resources
Five 3”x5” cards for each participant; note paper and pen for each
participant; Daily Places Circle; “Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk” handouts;
newsprint and markers.
Setup
Scatter clusters of four to six chairs throughout the room. Place five 3”x5”
cards, note paper and a pen on each chair. Hang the Daily Places Circle in a
prominent position in the room.
Steps
1. (10 minutes) Recall the past week in participants’ lives. This process
helps strangers become acquainted and builds awareness of the variety of
ministries and gifts. It begins by focusing on real, recent events in their
lives.
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Ask everybody to recall five events or
activities in their lives this past week. Have them jot down the first five
that come to mind on 3”x5” cards — quickly. Give no other explanation or
information at this time.
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Invite them to share these events or
activities with at least one other person in their circle. Allow five
minutes for this.
2. (15 minutes) Choose the week’s most and least
satisfying times. This step relates daily activities with ministry.
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Ask each person to arrange the five
cards in order from most to least satisfying. Pause a moment to let them do
this. Then tell them to discard the middle three cards.
-
Tell them to describe the remaining
events or activities. Have them turn the remaining two cards over and jot
down answers to the following questions. Ask the questions slowly.
> Where were you?
> Who was with you?
> What were you doing?
> What did this have to do with your ministry?
● (Ignore protests about this fourth question.
> Let them struggle with their two events and their ministry.)
> Invite the groups to spend 10 minutes discussing their
● responses to the fourth question.
3. (25 minutes) Connect daily life with ministry. Help
participants identify and articulate the connections between daily life and
ministry.
-
Interrupt the conversations to ask for
discoveries, problems or questions they may want to share. This is a brief,
check-in point, not time to draw conclusions. They can continue to track
their thinking on their note paper.
-
Hand out “Talk the Talk, Walk
the Walk.” Ask participants to read this and spend 10
minutes sharing their insights and new understandings about ministry,
especially ministry that occurs Monday through Saturday, away from church
buildings.
-
Interrupt after 10 minutes. Summarize
the discussion. Gather the insights emerging in each group. Record comments
on newsprint and encourage people to make notes on their own paper. Pose
questions like these:
> What are we saying today about ministers and ministry?
> What’s a new understanding for you or one that has a slightly
● different ring?
> What’s the connection between your faith and your daily life?
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Look for signs that participants
comprehend that:
>
All baptized Christians minister. It is our rite of ordination.
>
Most ministry occurs away from church buildings, in everyday places.
>
The whole world is God’s place. It has many rooms.
>
Our work is what occupies us most of our time. It is our
● arena/room of ministry.
>
God gives us the gifts we need to do our ministry.
4. (10 minutes) Connect ministry to the world. Help
people see that not only do they have an impact on people they see face-to-face,
they also make a difference in the lives of people they never see.
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Ask the group to consider the number
of lives they touch daily. Direct the group’s attention to the Daily
Places Circle. Mention some of the categories under
which participants’ names are grouped. These are their ministry rooms. Ask
for a show of hands for those who see at least one other person each day.
Then five other persons. Then 10, 20, and so on. Together, we are in contact
with many persons daily.
-
Ask if all those persons are aware of
God’s love. Some of the lives we touch daily are untouched by the church —
or are ones for whom the church was bad news, not Good News. They will not
come to church, but the church can come to them through the daily ministries
of its members.
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Ask how far their influence goes
beyond the people they contact directly. The things we do may make a
difference in the lives of people in our counties, states or other parts of
the world. Show this with examples from the Daily Places Circle. The way we
do our work, stand for justice and treat people with compassion may make a
difference half a world away. An illustration may help:
A school principal talked about Arthur Benjamin, a
teacher who died in the explosion of TWA 800. “The noble thing about
teaching,” the principal said, “is that the work keeps fanning out. You
touch one student, he touches another, and she touches another, too. The
impact, theoretically, is infinite.”
Or mention our care of the environment, entering data accurately into
computer records, providing food products that are healthy to eat, and
so on.
Ask about the potential impact of all congregation
members. Multiply the ministry opportunities each person has daily by
the number of members in your congregation. This is the power of “The
Ripples of the Baptized.” The caring actions of Christians, their words
of hope, their competence and their concern for justice make a big
difference in God’s world.
Thank participants for sharing and affirming their daily ministries.
BUBBLE MAP
Purpose
Chart where members are during the week.
Goals
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Demonstrate that the “ripples of the
baptized” move out in the world when Christians scatter from Sunday
gatherings to the places where they live the rest of the week.
-
Recognize the daily places of people
in your congregation.
-
Appreciate what they do in those
places — thinking about how people spend their time, not necessarily where
they live.
Resources
Theological and Biblical Perspectives on the Laity, an essay by
Herman G. Stuempfle; newsprint and markers
Setup
Prepare a seating arrangement conducive to group discussion.
Steps
To begin, have someone read aloud the following paragraph, which appears in
an essay by Herman G. Stuempfle:
"The time has come to make the ministry of the laity
explicit, visible and active in the world. The real battles of the faith
today are being fought in factories, shops, offices, and farms, in political
parties and government agencies, in countless homes, in the press, radio and
television, in the relationship of nations. Very often it is said that the
church should 'go into these spheres'; but the fact is, that the church is
already in these spheres in the persons of its laity."
This paragraph is an excerpt from the 1954 Evanston Assembly of
the World Council of Churches, an important statement a half century ago. Ask
and discuss:
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What significance does this statement
have today?
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In what ways, if any, does it ring
true to your experience?
-
Where are the “real battles of the
faith” in your daily life?
-
Where are they for others in your
congregation?
Next, using your congregational membership directory, identify
the daily places of individual members. If you’re not sure, talk over ways to
discover how members spend their time.
Working together, draw a “bubble map” on a large piece of
newsprint. The bubble map is to show clusters of occupations (including
retirement) of members of your congregation. You might visualize the church in
the middle and then surround it with various size circles. Each circle
represents a group of “occupations” (healthcare, education, volunteerism, etc.).
Write names of members on the circle that best represents their
daily life. Or draw spokes out from the church to show the daily places members
inhabit. You might even draw circles that show how near or far away from each
other members are during the week. You also could cluster names around
occupational symbols.
Spend a few minutes studying the bubble map together. Ask
participants to share observations and surprises.
Finally, go back to page 9 of Stuempfle’s essay. In the
paragraph at the top of that page, begin reading at the second sentence:
Read the rest of that paragraph and that next one about the
housemaid’s work. Then respond to these two questions:
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How do members of your congregation
view their daily occupations (that is, the way they spend their time)?
-
Do you think most members of your
congregation understand their daily life as a calling from God, or would
this be a new idea to many of them?
"All Christians, whatever their office
or status in church or world, lived out their lives under God's call.
Further, church offices were not thought of as in any way superior to
secular offices. Each could equally be the place of service to the neighbor,
and thus to God. Luther, I think, would have liked the man who, when asked
by a fervid evangelist, "What do you do to serve the Lord?", replied without
blinking, "I bake bread." Luther's own way of stating the case was, "The
housemaid on her knees scrubbing the floor is doing a work as pleasing in
the eyes of Almighty God as the priest on his knees before the alter saying
the mass."
The housemaid's work was seen by Luther as holy because God
had given her the opportunity in her particular place to serve her neighbor
-- in this case the household in which she was employed. In like manner, the
mistress had opportunity to serve the housemaid by dealing with her kindly
and justly. Indeed, both were under the necessity of serving each
other.
ARTIFACTS
Purpose
Characterize this congregation. (Or yourself ... a possible adaptation of
this activity is to have individual participants assemble artifacts about their
own faith and life. This can be an effective way for a newly formed group to
become acquainted. It also can open individuals' eyes to how their personal
journeys have equipped them for daily ministry.)
Goals
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Gain skill in identifying and
inferring values and behaviors embedded in congregational artifacts.
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Discover hidden or undervalued
characteristics of your congregation.
-
Cherish in your congregation the
assets of values and behaviors, and the artifacts that result from them.
Resources
Newsprint; note paper and pencil for each person
Setup
Prepare a seating arrangement conducive to group discussion.
Steps
Session One: Introduce the Concept of Artifacts
Offer the following introduction to the group:
Archaeologists gather artifacts (tangible items created by
humans) to tell them how early civilizations lived—what people did and how
they related to each other. Remnants of practical objects become symbols for
the culture of whole communities. With this image in mind, think about
objects that might introduce your congregation to others.
How can you describe what your congregation does or the ways
members relate to each other or what makes this congregation special?
Allow one minute for individuals to contemplate this question.
Then, brainstorm as a group for a few minutes:
What is a characteristic of this congregation? Record ideas on news print for
all to see. (Save this sheet and post it again at the next session.)
Next, invite the group to imagine how they might use objects to
depict these characteristics. Spend just one minute tossing out examples of
artifacts that would give the truest picture of this congregation.
Finally, challenge the group with a homework assignment:
How could we introduce our congregation, not with history
reports or statistics, but with a water bucket (or paper bag, or some other
easily obtained container) containing three to five objects?
Please bring a water bucket to our next meeting. The bucket
can be old or new. Put the name of this congregation on the outside and
decorate it as you choose. Then fill it with artifacts. The objects you
include need not be real objects. They could be replicas or pieces or even
words written large on construction paper. The important thing is that they
become clues that help identify this congregation. Decide what to put in
your bucket, and put it all together to bring to the next session.
Session Two: Explore the Artifacts
(10 minutes) Remind the group of the discussion from Session One—about how
archaeologists use artifacts to learn how others lived. Announce that in this
session, the group will explore some real artifacts to gain some understanding
of the congregation.
Encourage individuals to look into their own buckets and
consider the items they have prepared as the congregation’s artifacts. Give them
two or three minutes to contemplate independently, making notes if they desire:
(10 minutes) Organize participants in pairs. Ask them to
exchange buckets with their partners. The “receiving” person must go through the
artifacts from the other person’s bucket, trying to interpret the meaning of the
objects inside. Each receiver will be called upon to give a one-minute
interpretation shortly, and so should plan how to present findings or
impressions. (The bucket "giver" does not offer commentary on his or her
artifacts at this point.)\
(30 minutes) Spend the rest of the session allowing time for
both feedback and show-and-tell for each person.
Begin the artifact interpretation with one person. Ask the first
“receiving” person to explain the meanings he or she has given to the objects
seen. This will take more than one minute, but let people know you will stand as
a signal for them to wind up their presentation.
Have the partner respond, inviting him or her to comment on and
correct the receiver’s interpretations of the bucket artifacts. Allow about 3
minutes for this.
Repeat this cycle until all buckets have been explored.
Conclude with a group discussion of the questions you posed to
individual participants at the beginning of this session: