Prayer Shawl Ministry

The Prayer Shawl Ministry of First United Methodist Church, Newton was begun on February 2, 2006. After a member of our church had experienced the grace and comfort of receiving a prayer shawl from a neighboring church, she began to think of ways to begin this type of ministry within our own congregation.  Within a few months, the Prayer Shawl Ministry had begun.

Prayer shawls are begun, worked on, and finished with prayer and love.  They may be given for any sort of occasion in a person’s life, including healing and recovery, protection, mourning, or celebration.  To date, we have given shawls to those recovering from surgery, to those who are mourning, to those who are homebound or in nursing homes, to our recent graduates, to new brides, and to new babies.  Shawls are distributed to church members and to members of the community alike. 

The Prayer Shawl Ministry meets every Thursday afternoon in the Gomedela Room, except in the summer.  This group gathers for several hours to work on the shawls, to fellowship, and to pray over the shawls and those who will receive them.  Once a group of shawls is finished, we have a short service of blessing wherein a passage of Scripture is read and every shawl is passed around the circle so that each member may touch it and pray for the person to whom that shawl is going.  When the shawls are distributed, we also provide washing instructions, a handwritten note or card explaining a special pattern or the chosen colors, a short note of our good wishes and the prayer of blessing.  Finally, we record who made the shawl and to whom it is going so that we may know who has received a shawl.  Also, one member of the group is keeping a scrapbook for this ministry.