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Tips to Help Kids Through A Move
By Emily Cook The craziest thing happened today. It was a mini-miracle in my own living room, during our family devotion time. It almost made my heart stop. My son, with hands folded and head bowed, said in his prayer, “Thank you God for calling us here.” It’s happened with each of us, but I wasn’t sure it would happen with him. It’s been seven months since The Big Move. The changes were huge and sudden, and the Big Feelings came like waves pushing all of us around at different times, in different ways. Denial, Anger, Excitement, Fear, Sadness, Bargaining, Pouting, Acceptance. And finally, gratitude. I wrote this to him later…
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Nine Lessons Learned In Our Recent Move
By Emily Cook In the fall of 2015, my husband took a call to a new church in another state. We packed up our children and our stuff, said a million tearful goodbyes, and left the place we had called “home” for many years. It is now spring in the new place, and we are on the other side of the upheaval. Here are some things God has been teaching us as He dragged/carried us through these past few months. I hope it will be helpful to others who are unsettled today! It’s OK to be sad A move means saying goodbye to a season of life, a place full…
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Missing Your Church Home
By Holly Scheer I share something in common with many of you– the church I attend now is not the church I grew up in. Our society is increasingly mobile. We move for jobs, for college, when we get married. Sometimes we move so far away that going “home” is hard. And for those of us reared in the church this means that not only are we apart from childhood friends and family we are apart from the church of our youth. New churches come with new experiences. New meals at potlucks, new holiday traditions. New hymns the congregation prefers. I grew up with the liturgy. I can close my…
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Call Week
By Holly Scheer This is “Call Week” for the LCMS. This is the week when Vicarage placements, Deaconess assignments, and first Calls for seminarians are issued. The services started Monday night and continue through the week. You can view them in real time or check out the lists after the fact — here and here. For anyone unfamiliar with the gravity of this week, here’s a bit of background. Most of the pastors and deaconesses in our Synod, after completing their bachelor’s degree, are trained at one of two seminaries — Ft. Wayne and St. Louis. This involves uprooting the family and moving. That’s move number one. After their second year of study,…
