Stephen Ministry Program is Growing!
By Denise Emery
On Sunday, January 28th, Mary Schmidke and I traveled to Corpus Christi, Texas to attend the week-long Stephen Leader's Training Course. On that cold and stormy morning we inched down the highway toward Chicago's Midway airport, and left behind nearly 8 inches of new snow that had already fallen in a storm that would eventually tally more than 30 during our week away. We arrived in Texas to sunny skies, green grass, and palm trees, even if slightly cooler than ideal temperatures. With weather reports of what was going on back home in Michigan, we greatly appreciated our 40-60 degrees, and knew we had it lucky with a mix of sunshine and drizzle instead of relentless snowfall.
Once at our hotel we collected our conference materials which consisted of nearly 45 pounds of books, folders, and study guides we would be using during the coming week. It was very nice that we were situated just across the street from the bay with easy access to sidewalks along the sea wall, because breaks from our study sessions were brief. Our typical day began by 8:30 am and ran into the evening, some as late at 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm.
Stephen Ministry is a national program that is growing! There are approximately 450,000 Stephen Ministers who have provided care to 1,125,000 people in their congregations. There are 9,635 congregations, representing 150 denominations currently with their own Stephen Ministry program. And these statistics are already out of date with the addition of nearly 300 newly trained Stephen Leaders who completed this newest round of training in Corpus Christi.
Hard at work in Corpus Christi: Mary Schmidke shown
here with Nancy Adams, Stephen Leader-in-Training
from Trinity Episcopal Church of New Orleans.
There were a diverse cross-section of gifted people in attendance, including pastors and lay-people, Lutherans, Catholics, and many denominations; and those who had traveled from all across the country from the East to the West coasts and even Canada. This diversity was evidenced at our table where we had the chance to share stories of challenges and successes in our Stephen Ministry programs with folks from Louisiana, Utah, California, and Colorado.
Many ideas, tips, advice, and celebrations were shared among our groups as we moved from our table to others in a variety of training exercises. We left after this long week of studying with our heads jammed and much to digest as we prepared to return to Michigan, adjust to seeing our community under its new blanket of snow, and prepare to offer our best efforts to support our Stephen Ministry program here at home. As Stephen Leaders, Mary will serve as the Team Coordinator, and I will serve as the Awareness Building Coordinator. We join Norm McPherson, Supervision Coordinator; Sheila Kroonblawd, Training and Continuing Ed Coordinator; and Carol Pelan, Referrals Coordinator.
Meanwhile, the nine Stephen Ministers currently serving at Trinity are all assigned providing Christ-centered, one-on-one, confidential care with their care receivers. Since we began last July, this lay ministry has provided more than 120 hours of care and support to those in need in our congregation that had before been provided only by our Pastor Batsky. Serving as our Stephen Ministers are Kim Cooper, Juli Gast, Barb Karstens, Jan Kizer, Barbara Kruggel, Marcia Molter, Nancy Pedde, Mary Schmidke, and Bev Ruis.
Five additional Stephen Minister's have stepped forward to join this team and nearly completed their 50-hours of training, which has been conducted in conjunction with First Church. Terry Anderson, Kurt Hatteburg, Suzan Hatteburg, Scott Kizer, and Rick Rynearson are preparing for their commissioning service to be held on Sunday, April 22.
At Stephen Ministries, we serve as the "Care-Givers", but it is Christ who is the "Cure-Giver". If you or someone you know could benefit from the help of a Stephen Minister, contact the Stephen Ministry Referrals Coordinator, Carol Pelan at 927-3313.