I was recently blessed by visit from an old friend. While being a great encourager she inquired about my studio work. She wondered how our style was developing, the type of hours I worked, and how many stoles pastors typically had. So I shared that I was really enjoying creating stoles that had a feel of a collage created from using batiked fabrics and interesting fibers in combination with exciting colors and the appliqué process we've used for years. I added that I was thankful that my in studio hours were able to vary due to the season of the year and the needs of my family. But the question that got ME thinking was how many stoles do pastors have or need? I chuckled because I have one pastor friend who wears the same stole every Sunday. But of course there are many others that "collect" stoles and each week wear something new or different.
This has caused me to remember a workshop I led on "Spirituality and Learning Styles." The time in this workshop had the participants examining seven different learning styles--such as kinesthetic, linguistic, and logical/mathematical, etc. The participants first touched base with their own learning style. Then we thought about how this applied to those whom they ministered to. Among other things we learned that:
- varying an approach in ministry connected the leader to more people because not everyone has the same learning style,
- knowing your own personal strengths and way of learning can better match you to someone else when doing one-on-one ministry, and
- learning someone you are ministering to's strengths will help you encourage them in their faith walk.
And of course this reinforces that in worship you can't ignore that some of the congregation is visual/spatial. These people think in pictures! So if you tend to think that your stole is not important or wearing the same one every week has become a habit we think you should change it up a bit. Stoles are a visual message that enhance the Word and might even give a parishioner a little something extra to think about.
The green stole shown is our bargain buy on eBay this week. Find out more here!
