Our Faith Growing Chest Tradition
As many of you know, several years ago St. Paul Lutheran began a tradition of presenting a Faith Chest to all Baptism recipients. (A sample is located in the vestibule at our church.) The tradition has been dearly received by many families of the baptized as another sign of our congregation’s love and our deep belief in the centrality and “grace-full” significance God’s promise and claim made upon each of our lives by Jesus Christ. In our baptism seminars with parents of the baptized, parents often express amazement and surprise when they learn that this is a gift from members of this church. Sometimes we witness tears of gratitude and amazement in parents. We tell the family of why we do this and how the Faith Chest may be used to store important faith formation materials, certificates and pictures related to their child’s baptism. Over time the Faith Chest may store important devotional books, study Bibles, faith journals and pictures of important teachers and friends who have been a part of their personal Christian faith experience and development at church, retreats, camps and mission trips.
Our Faith Chest tradition originated in our Men’s Club under the leadership of Emery Nelson who did the planning for and locating of component parts for the completion of each. For a time, Warren Creager did the large part of the assembly and finishing. In these last several months the Men’s Club’s Faith Chest working crew has been reorganized and enlarged by the leadership of Ron Kuehn and now includes Dennis Breu, Roger Harris, Al DeFore, Eldon Johnson, Orville Schettle, Leon Siverhus and Jim Schuster. These people are not only doing assembly and finishing, but are providing increasing amounts of funding for the costs of the materials. As members of St. Paul Lutheran we can all be grateful to these men who team to make these Faith Chests a gift to each of those among us we baptize in Jesus name. This is also another sign of our congregation’s serious commitment to rebuilding through our congregation the finest possible children and youth ministries for Christian faith and life formation within our children and their families. And it all begins in our practice and understanding of the gift of the Sacrament of Baptism.
