I love to listen to our customers.  I do a fair amount of that through traveling and engaging with CE directors, pastors, seminary professors and others all across the Church.  We also do a great deal of formal market research, gathering data about what is working & what isn’t, trends in faith formation, worship, and higher education in religion and theology courses.  And, as you might imagine, I receive a fair number of emails, Facebook, and Twitter messages that help inform our work.  But, one of my favorite ways to engage with congregational customers is to listen in on calls being made by my colleagues who serve as our Comgregational esource Representatives.  While I don’t have the opportunity for this type of listening as often as I would like, Recently, I spent 30 to 60 minutes listening in on calls with each of our dozen representatives.  I learned a lot, as I always do!

One of those calls was between my colleague, Elizabeth Schoenknecht and Donna Haberland, CE Director at First English Lutheran Church in Appleton, WI.  After listening to what Donna shared about their children’s Sunday School program, Elizabeth recommended that they test our new faith formation resource for tweens (approximately grades 5 & 6) with our free samples.  Donna agreed that this would be a great way to see if it would be a good fit for their context.

After trying Connect, Donna sent this note back to Elizabeth:

“We just finished test the Connect lesson with the 5/6^th graders on Sunday; we opted to divide the lesson into two weeks, which worked very well. The responses from the teachers at both sites were varied, to say the least. The teachers and students at our Downtown Site (which is the more traditional site) really enjoyed the curriculum and would like to do it in the fall. I actually had a 5^thgrade boy tell me he hopes we do the Connect curriculum in the fall because he thought it was “Awesome”!!

• They liked the fact that it was big on Bible use, and learning how the New Testament and Old Testament connect
• The kids thought the video clip was pretty funny and of course loved playing the warm up game making field goals with paper footballs and cereal!
• Teacher thought the video gave them a great starting point for more discussion.
• Another thing the kids really enjoyed was the closing ritual of putting a blue plus sign on their hands.
• Both teachers and kids were thankful they didn’t have to do leaflets/teachers thought the material was very age-appropriate.”

It is so gratifying to my colleagues and I to hear that faith formation resources we create are helpful…especially with tweens!

Thanks for sharing the feedback from the teachers & students at First English Lutheran Church, Donna!

For those of you reading this blog post, if you (or someone in your congregation) would like to learn more about Connect! or any of our terrific sparkhouse-produced faith formation resources, our Congregational Resource Representatives would be very pleased to assist you in learning more, obtaining samples to test in your context, etc.

Blessings,
Beth

 @bethalewis

ceo@augsburgfortress.org

 

Beth A. Lewis, President & CEO Augsburg Fortress

This past Thursday, we published a resource that I’m especially proud of!  It is the Prayer Book for the Armed Services.  There are so many reasons that I am excited about this new resource.  Primarily, because I know that it will be such a help to people in a wide range of challenging times and circumstances.  Partially, of course, I’m pleased because it illustrates the partnership between my Worship & Music team colleagues at Augsburg Fortress, the ELCA churchwide Worship team, Pastors Lowell Almen and Paul Schreck,  and the ELCA federal chaplains.  (Plus many more individuals who worked behind the scenes to bring this to fruition!)

Earlier today, I had fun sharing a copy with my friends, Bishop Michael Rinehart, who serves in the Gulf Coast Synod of the ELCA and Pastor David Hansen, who serves at St. John Lutheran Church of Prairie Hill in Brenham, TX.    They even indulged me by allowing me to take their photos holding a copy!  (Thanks, Mike & David!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m also delighted that we are offering it because we have not published this type of resource to support those serving in the military since World War II!  That is a very long time!

Among the many helpful features of Prayer Book for the Armed Services, you will find:

•Morning and evening prayer for individual use

•Prayers for many service-related contexts, including preparation for missions, confronting crises, grieving fallen companions, life circumstances during deployment, etc.

•Corporate worship services with resources from Evangelical Lutheran Worship and the ELCA’s full-communion partner churches

•Affirmation of baptism for returning veterans

•Prayers for congregations whose pastors serve as chaplains or whose members are deployed

•26 psalms for a variety of circumstances

•The words to 65 hymns and songs, including an expanded section of national song

In addition, It is a pocket-sized  companion and has a durable cover.   And, I’m pleased that we are offering it at only $8 per copy to encourage synods, congregations and individuals to purchase multiple copies as gifts for service people.  If there are students in your congregation or community who graduating from high school who will be be joining the military after graduation, this would be a particularly appropriate and meaningful gift for them, as well.

If you would like to order copies and have them shipped to service members stationed internationally, simply supply the APO/FPO address when you place your order and we will be pleased to  handle that delivery.

Please join me in thanking and praying for all of the women and men who give of themselves through military service.

Blessings,
Beth

@bethalewis

ceo@augsburgfortress.org

 

Beth A. Lewis, President & CEO Augsburg Fortress

As a ministry of publishing that is also a business, we often walk around a circle that begins with creating resources to serve the Church then moves to selling resources to the Church so that we will have the financial means to create new resources to serve the Church…and around and around we go!

But, sometimes we create resources to serve congregational leaders to assist them in their ministries.  That’s it.  They are free.  No cost.  Gratis.  Of course, we hope that in finding these free resources helpful, these church leaders will try out some of our high quality, innovative salable resources since that is what provides a sustainable future for this ministry of publishing!

Here are several free resources for church leaders that you might or might not know about!

1.  THQ (also known as The Hardest Question), a free lectionary-based blog from sparkhouse that invites those who preach (or listen to those who preach) from the Revised Common Lectionary to think about the challenging (hardest) questions one might ask about Sunday’s lessons.  The most recent post, for Sunday, April 28, was written by Pastor Clint Schnekloth.  And, you’ll find postings from a wide range of other preachers, teachers and thinkers!  If you are on Twitter, you can follow The Hardest Question @HardestQuestion

2.  We have recently launched an amazing new worship music planning resource that is getting rave reviews from church musicians across the country, PreludeMusicPlanner.org In addition to offering a free 14-day trial and free “get started” webinars, we have a free Prelude blog just for church musicians!

3.  In addition to the free PreludeMusicPlanner.org webinars, we offer free webinars on a wide range of faith formation topics.  Whether you care about creating dynamic faith formation opportunities for children, youth or adults, these educational opportunities for leaders and teachers will help!

4.  Many books published by Fortress Press now have “Google Previews” available.  Just go to the book you are interested in reviewing on the FP website and if you see an icon for “Google Preview” near the book cover picture, click on it and you will have the opportunity to peruse sections of the work for free!  You can see an example on the page describing Moral Issues and Christian Responses, 8th edition, edited by Shannon Jung and Patricia Beattie Jung.

We all have days when a bit of outside advice would be welcome as we think about our work.  When you have one of those days, check out these free resources we offer in collaboration with creative partners from across the Church!  You might find just the new perspective that you need!

Blessings,
Beth

@bethalewis

ceo@augsburgfortress.org

 

Beth A. Lewis, President & CEO Augsburg Fortress