Our Missions

Prayer Quilt Ministries

 

            From babies with cancer, only weeks old…to the lonely elderly, in their sunset. 

 

From St. John’s parishioners known to this congregation for over forty years…to other neighbors, either nearby or a country away, of every race and creed.

 

It started in July 2008 and, as of January 2009, more than twenty-five, gravely-ill persons in need of prayer and help and compassion have received personalized prayer quilts made by loving hands at St. John’s, as a blessing from God.

 

The prayer quilt ministry is a strong, vibrant, and dedicated missionary effort led principally by Ann Taylor and Barb Arnold, meeting on Monday evenings in the Parish Hall, starting at 6:30 p.m.   This informal group’s activity includes shopping trips for appropriate textile material, and then gathering for a quilting “assembly line”:  some folks cut material, some bring their electric sewing machines and carefully sew the quilt blocks, some press the material with steam irons, and some teach techniques to the others.

 

Once a quilt is finished and a recipient identified, it is blessed during the Sunday service.  Parishioners stop at the quilt on their way to or from the altar for Communion, tying their prayers of hope and healing into the knots which they tie to bind the quilt together.  The delivery of these quilts and the frequent receipt of handwritten notes of heart-felt thanksgiving to God and to St. John’s has been a particularly powerful experience for not only those involved in this ministry, but to the entire parish.

 

It is not necessary to be a quilter…come and join in this ministry.