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Wrapped in Christian Love:
ChristCare Groups'
Prayer Shawl Ministry
at First Congregational Church,
Greeley, Colorado

Stephen Ministries' ChristCare Groups are "circles of care with Christ at the center." One church in Greeley, Colorado, is widening these circles--and giving them a whole new meaning--through a number of its ChristCare Groups' unusual missional service.

"The program, called Prayer Shawl Ministry, began in 1998 in Connecticut. The ministry involves the knitting or crocheting of prayer shawls," explained Barbara Whitcher, a ChristCare Equipper at Greeley's First Congregational Church. "The shawls are very substantial, about 5 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide. You pray for the recipient while you knit them."

Group members can make shawls for anyone, inside or outside the congregation, for whom they want to pray and show support. If they don't have a specific person in mind, they can receive a name from the prayer shawl ministry team at the church. Once the shawl is finished, the team blesses it before giving it to the person who is sick, suffering, or in need of comfort.

"We also have shawls that are knitted without someone in mind so that you can pray for healing, pray that the recipients would know their God. We have those to give in the name of the church," Barbara explained.

"You can commission a shawl if you don't knit," Barbara said. "We'll knit a shawl specifically for that person and pray for that person's needs. It is very powerful.

"We now have over 50 people who meet in eight small groups, combining caring for one another, prayer, and meditation with knitting shawls for those in need of healing and God's love."

Reaching Out with Tangible Comfort

Two Connecticut women, Janet Bristow and Victoria Galo, conceived the idea for knitting prayer shawls and began teaching workshops on shawl-making in 1998. Barbara brought the program to Colorado from her church in Massachusetts, which is also a ChristCare congregation.

Both of Barbara's churches have found prayer shawl ministry an outstanding missional service for some of their ChristCare Groups.

"Women can knit while they share, and then they will pray," Barbara said. "We have time for people to lift names up and time for quiet knitting. People will just listen to music and pray for these people.

"I think the beauty of it is that there are so many times that we want to help and we can't," Barbara said. "If someone is really ill, there isn't much we can do. This ministry allows you to do something by praying for that person. There are times when it is obviously bringing comfort."

The shawls can provide encouragement and assurance of support in times of joy as well as sorrow. "Most shawls are given to people who have health concerns such as cancer or who are facing surgery, but shawls are also given to people in times of celebration--such as a pregnant mother-to-be," Barbara said.

Care That Touches Both Care Receivers
and Caregivers

"I have received some wonderful letters," Barbara said. "Someone in the church knit a shawl for her husband's aunt, who was dying of cancer, and the uncle was so thankful to see her comforted by this shawl while she was still alert. It brought him such peace that she died in that shawl. We call it being wrapped in prayer or being wrapped in the arms of God. The nurse was so moved by what she saw, she wrote to me and asked for the directions to knit shawls for her two premature grandsons.

"Another time, there was one family in our church where the little girl, their daughter, was having serious seizures. Everyone in that family was given a prayer shawl. We wanted them all to feel wrapped in prayer."

Prayer is central to the ministry: not only other-directed prayer, but also prayer that the activity itself may be grace-filled and pleasing to God. Shawl-makers pray that their work may be connected to that of other knitters "whose hands have been instruments of creation and beauty; who have used humble tools and hand-spun wool in order to provide cover and warmth for themselves and those they loved."¹

"The pattern of the shawl is to knit three, purl three. The number is for the Trinity," Barbara explained. "There are just so many parts of it that are beautifully spiritual."

Providing such a meaningful missional service encourages people--especially women--to attend ChristCare Group meetings faithfully.

"I think that people who work are more apt to come out to do something more meaningful than just visit," she said. "In many of our churches, the women's fellowships are fading because women went to work and fellowships kept meeting during the day. I've seen in several churches where this prayer shawl ministry has re-created a women's ministry in the church. It gave them a different focus."

Meaningful Ministry by Youth

Prayer shawl ministry has not only revitalized First Congregational Church's women's ChristCare Groups, it has inspired even the youngest churchgoers to minister to others. A group of girls from ages 8 to 11 have begun meeting as a ChristCare Group. Together they learn to knit prayer shawls for babies' baptisms.

"These shawls are about 3 feet by 21 inches. The girls take part in the baptism service. They bring the shawl forward and wrap the baby, and there is a card that goes with every shawl that explains it," Barbara said. "People just go 'aww' when you walk up with a baptism shawl. It is given to them to have as a permanent reminder of their baptism."

What about the young knitters themselves? "They're very excited about it," Barbara said with a laugh. "They talk just like older women!"

One young girl even challenged her father, one of the parents who sit with the group, to join in and learn how to knit. "The last time I was there, he was knitting," Barbara said.

Bringing Solace and Comfort

Prayer shawls exemplify a very basic level of Christian care. Christian tradition lists clothing those who need warmth among the works of mercy--Jesus said, "I needed clothes and you clothed me" (Matthew 25:36). The prayer shawls provide both physical and emotional warmth to their recipients in a way that is simple and ageless.

"I do workshops for churches to help them get the ministry started, and I bring my daughter's baby blanket," Barbara said. "To me, that's the image. It's that child who's got that blank, happy 'I'm somewhere else' face. It's easy to identify with a baby blanket; just picture and visualize what that means to the recipient. The prayer shawl is the same thing. Everyone involved in it is comforted by it, and it does bring people closer to God."

You can find more about prayer shawl ministry, as well as instructions for making your own prayer shawls, at http://shawlministry.com/instructions.html on line.*

1 Janet Bristow, "Beginning to Knit Dedication" on Prayers page, Prayer Shawl Ministry Web site accessed August 8, 2006, at http://shawlministry.com/prayer_page.html.

*Note: Clicking on this hyperlink will take you to another organization's Web site. Stephen Ministries St. Louis provides this link as a service to you but has no control over the content you will find there. Click here for more information.

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