09216
March 17, 2009

Pillows talk

Sunday School project provides comfort and transforms a church

by Erin Dunigan
Special to Presbyterian News Service

Editor’s note: This is the eighth in a series of stories about congregations engaged in significant outreach and evangelism ministries, reflecting the General Assembly’s commitment to “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide.” ― Jerry L. Van Marter

Pillow-makers are now also blanket-makers at First Presbyterian Church of Sandusky, OH, thanks to a $500 grant from Kohl’s department stores. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Kimberly Ashby.

SANDUSKY, OH ― “We are in the middle of a transformation,” explains Pastor Kimberly Ashby of First Presbyterian Church (FPC) here in Maumee Valley Presbytery.

“We had to realize that our relationships with our wider community were not what we wanted them to be,” she explains, “and our church was facing a situation where it was going to die, or it was going to live.”

“I will be your pastor no matter what you choose to do,” Ashby says she told her flock. The people of First Church decided it was time to try doing ministry in a new and fresh way for their changing community and world, in keeping with a new initiative of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly to “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide.”

It’s not an accident that FPC Sandusky’s efforts seem to resonate with the Deep and Wide initiative, which was overwhelmingly adopted by last summer’s 218th General Assembly. One of the congregation’s members was a commissioner to the Assembly and served on the Assembly committee that developed the initiative, which emphasizes renewed effort in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, servanthood and diversity.

“If we worry about ourselves, there is no way we are going to make it,” says Ashby. The church realized that if it were to begin with a focus on itself that is all that it would ever deal with.

“It’s not about us,” explains Ashby. “We may still die — but at least we will die doing what we know God wants us to be doing, and more than likely, we will live doing what God wants us to be doing.”

Though the choices to allow themselves to be transformed and to try something new were both intentional ones, the catalyst for much of that transformation happened almost by accident.

“We have been seeking out new ways to engage our community in ministry — to help people live their faith through engagement in the world around them,” Ashby says. But the largest part of that engagement came out of nowhere.

Two years ago, in March 2007, Sunday School teacher Lynne Hunsicker, in a lesson about kindness, had the children make comfort pillows. Each child participated to the extent that his or her age level allowed.

The pillows were then distributed in worship, given to those whose names were drawn. It was meant to be a sign of kindness. Two of the people whose names were drawn really needed that sign — one who had been very ill, and another who had just lost her brother. 

“I have never been so deluged as I was for the following weeks,” remembers Ashby. People loved the idea, and wanted to extend the pillow project. Now, two years later, the church has given out nearly 3,500 pillows. Each pillow has a poem, and a note to let its recipient know that God loves them and that the pillows have been made by the Sunday School children — with a bit of adult help.

Pillows have been distributed to the local community through the fire department and a cancer treatment center, and they have gone as far as Africa, Mexico, and even some to the office of General Assembly Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow.

“It has been a transformational project for us,” explains Ashby, adding that it has been a group effort by a team of people. “It started so small, but we have seen what a difference it can make in a huge way,” she says.

The difference it can make is not just in the lives of those who receive the pillows.  What began as a simple Sunday School lesson has been a lesson of transformation for the church as a whole. “People began to say, 'Wow, how amazing is it that we can do something like this for people' and to realize that they were getting such joy from serving in this way,” says Ashby.

“We are trying to change the ‘What’s in it for us?’ mentality to one of ‘Let’s give what we can and trust that God will reap the harvest from it,’” she explains.

Next on the agenda for First Church is a project to open their church to visiting youth groups as a host for mission within the local community.  The church is working with local agencies that will be able to provide volunteer opportunities for the visiting groups.

The church is also near Cedar Point, proudly rated as the number one amusement park in the country.

“We are trying to take advantage of the greatest needs and opportunities where we are,” Ashby explains. “We want to help our community locally, but to give an experience to groups that want it.”

The new venture, set to begin in July (with spaces available for interested youth groups), is underway with funding from the church, the presbytery and the Synod of the Covenant, while still awaiting a response from the General Assembly to a grant proposal.

“It is so hard for churches to transform — it has not been easy,” admits Ashby. “As much as we worked to discern God’s will, sometimes you can see it better when you look back.”