Tool: Cultivate Awareness
Awareness is one of the primary ingredients in creating and maintaining a veterans’ ministry. The following questions are ways in which your congregation can begin to cultivate awareness of those who have served in your midst.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ways in which you can do this:
- Provide recognition
- Create a “hall of Veterans’
- participate in VA “Stand Downs”
- Begin community outreach
- Encourage youth and senior participation
- Provide prayer sponsorship for family members
- Conduct home visits
- Initiate small groups
- Share in meals together
- Provide educational opportunities for congregants through meetings and literature
Articles
- Moral Injury Shows the Limits of Forgiveness – an article by Max Lindenman posted on Patheos
- Richmond Times Dispatch – In rural Loudoun, a refuge for combat vets and their families
- FOX News Health: US veterans find combat-related stress relief in holistic-medicine retreat
- The Atlantic – Healing a Wounded Sense of Morality
- The Huffington Post – Moral Injury
- 7 Practical Things the Church Can Do for Veterans
- Formed by War
- Art Therapy, Gets to the Soul of the Matter
- United Methodist Endorsing Agency: War and the Soul – Book Review
- General Board of Higher Education and Ministry: From Warrior to Citizen
Organizations
- Make the Connection
- REZVETS
- Military Outreach USA
- Boulder Crest Retreat
- Military and Veteran Caregiver Network
- Wesley Theological Seminary – Health Ministry
- Caregiver Community Program
- Soldier’s Heart
- Combat Trauma Support Group
- Minnesota National Guard: Beyond the Yellow Ribbon
Curriculums
- Bible Study curriculum: A Theology of Exile for Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan
- Returning veterans. Returning hope.
- Evangelical Lutheran Church of America: Care for Returning Veterans (Workshop and DVD Resource)
Congregational Resources
- Soul Repair Center: Moral Injury Worship Guide
- Memorial Day Sunday Worship Celebration
- Veteran Spiritual Mentoring
- UMEA: Empowering Ministerial Reintegration and Resilience
- Vet to Vet Peer Support
- Veterans Day Sunday Worship Celebration
- Service of Healing, Experiential with Non-traditional Liturgy
- Service of Healing for Combat Veterans, Experiential with Liturgy
- Service of Healing (Experiential) – Preparation and Process
- Service of Remorse, Resolution and Restoration – Experiential, non-traditional liturgy
