God’s Work Our Hands

You may have heard this theme a time or two by now (we hope you have!). We have adopted this ELCA theme for our congregation and soon we will have two new banners keeping these words before us. Also, we have taken these words on guiding theme for our Sunday School year. And in Sunday School it has been wonderful to see the ways many little hands have been doing God’s work. Here are some of the highlights.

Faith Garden: A member of the congregation walked out into the courtyard one day in September and said, “Wow, this garden looks so beautiful to me today, it’s as though it just came into bloom over night!” In a way it did. The children had just trimmed and tended the garden and filled it with new plants. We call it the Faith Garden and it is a way that the children are able to use their hands actively caring for and being a part of God’s creation. The children tend the garden on a weekly basis, watering, weeding, pruning, and tending.

Theme Song: If you know the song “The Farmer in the Dell” you could quickly catch on to the Sunday School “God’s Work Our Hands,” theme song written by Karen Diehl. Karen taught the children how to sing the song, and then several weeks later Katie Diehl Cateenwalla taught the children how to use their hands by signing the words to the song. Katie Canteenwalla is a sign language teacher in the public schools and uses her hands in doing God’s work in a very literal way.

Canned Goods: You might notice some bright orange tubs in each of the classrooms. The children decorated these bins with their handprints and have been bringing in canned goods each Sunday. The food will be given to families with children in need. They also come to Sunday School with their usual offering money and this money goes toward buying food for the same purpose.

As the year continues the children will use their hands in many more ways of doing God’s work creating centerpieces for the Thanksgiving Home Alone dinners, making communion bread, acting out the Christmas story, singing and signing, praying and serving. We are thankful for these little hands and all of the ways they are about God’s work in our midst!

God’s Work Our Hands,

Pastor Shelly