Ideas for Observing Rachel's Day

Rachel's Day began in one congregation in the Chicago Metropolitan Synodical Women's Organization when concerned women at Bethel Lutheran Church stood up for children at risk for violence. In a neighborhood where violence and insecurity were all too well known, these women chose to act boldly for children and offer hope. The effort then spread to the synodical women's organization and ultimately to the churchwide women's organization where the first Sunday in May was established as Rachel's Day by delegates to the Women of the ELCA Triennial Convention.

The day and preparation for the day mean listening to children's fears and hopes. In one synod, Sunday school children were asked to draw a two-part picture. On one-half of the picture they were to show what children fear and on the other half what children hope for. Such pictures might be displayed in your home congregation and then taken to your synodical women's organization convention or synod assembly, if you coordinate plans with the planners of these events. (Be sure to let parents or guardians know how the pictures will be used before children contribute. Some may choose not to take part, depending on the use.)

Or consider one or more of these possibilities for Rachel's Day and for efforts throughout the year:

• Invite a panel of professionals who deal with children's issues to speak at a Sunday forum or other gathering. Consider a police officer, detective, social worker, educator, nurse or doctor, pastor or youth worker, parent, and mayor, council person or other city or town official. Provide them with three or four questions on which to focus their comments. You may choose to focus on needs of children, services currently available, or both.

• Ask your pastor to use Jeremiah 31:15–17 for the sermon text on Rachel's Day. This is the text from which the day takes its name.

• Use the Rachel's Day litany or responsive reading in your worship.

• Gather a Thankoffering to be used for women and children in crisis. Send your Thankoffering in full to Women of the ELCA, 8765 W. Higgins Rd., Chicago, IL 60631–4101.

• Wear a blue ribbon of hope on Rachel's Day. Give one to each member of the congregation. The colors of the church year helped Rachel's Day planners choose the color of the ribbons they gave to each participant. Blue is the color used in Advent. The color represents hope.

• Ask your town or city officials to consider naming the first Sunday in May Rachel's Day. Provide them with background material.

• Make a donation of tangible items — such as sports equipment, books, bedding, clothing, and so forth — to a local library, shelter, youth center, hospital or other agency that supports children at risk. Check with them first to see what is needed before promoting this idea. (See the article on page 5 of the November 2005 issue of Interchange, the Women of the ELCA newsletter, for help on setting up an in-kind or tangible gifts collection.)

• Ask your women's group, social ministries committee or evangelism committee to determine the greatest need of children in your congregation's immediate neighborhood and try to meet it during the year.

• Offer a class on anger management.

• Provide a parents' or caretakers' day out service.

• Post the phone numbers of crisis center hot lines or other phone services for children in your church classrooms and restrooms.

• Consider linking with Big Brothers and Big Sisters programs in your area.

• Pray. Pray. Pray for children — all children — and the adults who care for them.

• Be positive with all children in your life.

• Contact Search Institute for resources on building assets in youth or to be put on their mailing list. Write: Search Institute, Suite 210, 700 S. Third St., Minneapolis, MN 55415; or call: 800/888-7828.

• Join the Children's Defense Fund and plan to take part in Children's Sabbath.