It started formally at Trinity UMC on September 11, 2012. This date was chosen as day to celebrate as a day of peace and to remind all of the the power of love and prayer. The scripture we base our ministry on comes from Psalm 90: vs 17, “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us, yes, establish the work of our hands.”

We open with a prayer to settle our minds, and as we work we stop and pray for each other with intercessory prayer for the individual concerns in our souls, we end each time of gathering with a benediction prayer to guide us as we go back into our daily lives. We knit prayers into each shawl. In each shawl the number three is intertwined within it, either by pattern, color, number of stitches or however the shawl maker decides. The number three is symbolic of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These shawls are never sold. They are always given hand-to hand, heart-to-heart.

They are given for marriages, confirmations, new members, illnesses, death, baptisms, friendship, “thinking and praying for you” and “just because”

As of today, the Prayer Shawl Ministry of North Pointe has a prayer shawl in EVERY state in the US except Alaska.

We started making a small version of a Prayer Shawl that is small enough to keep in your pocket. They are a small square of knitted yarn with an embedded pattern of a cross in them. A note attached refers to then as “A Cross in Your Pocket”. The attached note reads “each time you touch or look at the Cross in your pocket, feel God’s warm embrace and remember you are loved, thought of and prayed for and to remember that God is a God of abundance , not scarcity.”

A special shawl was made to remain with us. It has a bead for every person who received a Prayer Shawl during the year.  We continue to pray for each receiver and creator of each shawl.

Our Morning Edition meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month from 9 am- 11 am.