I was surprised to learn that some of the good friends I was worshipping with at church every Sunday had, years ago, served in the military. It was a pleasant surprise; I wish I had known that about them long ago. But they don't tend to talk about it.
Other good friends at church have relatives – even sons and daughters – who are serving on active military duty right now. I’d like to know about them too, so that I can join their prayers for the safety of their loved ones.
In the “great wars” – WWI and WWII – congregations published lists of members who were serving, along with news updates about them, especially if they had suffered harm. Without such a declared war, it becomes too easy for the rest of us to take for granted the military service of those who risk and sacrifice to protect the freedoms we enjoy.
That’s why the Evangelical Lutheran Synod is establishing the DMR (Digital Military Recognition) service for its churches and schools.
DMR offers the following:
The system was employed on a small scale by two Mankato, Minnesota, congregations, Peace Lutheran Church and Mount Olive Lutheran Church. Peace showed slides of active duty and living veterans on the Sunday closest to Veterans’ Day 2018, and both congregations showed slides of deceased and ancestor veterans on the Sunday closest to Memorial Day 2019. The ELS has installed a “home” screen for the system at the Ottesen Museum at synod headquarters in Mankato.
Invitations have been issued to all synod congregations to submit information to recognize their service members. Slides can be easily produced using the free Adobe Photoshop Elements software and then stored in a private searchable database on Flickr. Once the system is fully functional, churches and schools can request sets of slides, such as “all active duty service members from Iowa” or “ELS members who have served in the U. S. Navy,” for display on suitable occasions. Display on flatscreens is made easy by inserting slides into a PowerPoint or Keynote show, and exported as a video to a flash drive, which is then inserted into the flatscreen port.
Since some costs are involved in processing slides and maintaining the database, at some point donations might be requested from those submitting information and others.
The result is a highly personal, highly individual recognition and appreciation of service “to God and country” by our fellow Christians.
For more information, or for templates for creating slides and forms for gathering service member information, contact Tom Kuster.
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Discussion
This is a great idea and I’m glad someone is making a move to get churches and schools involved with people in the military. I have a close friend in the military and it was always heartwarming to see how much his congregation did to support him and others in the service as well.
What would you suggest as the best way to keep service members close to home and their congregation and keep them as involved as possible to what’s all happening at home?
Thank you for your contribution to the conference.
I was intrigued by you article. It was very interesting. I’ve never heard of this digital program before. I definitely feel that this should be much more prevalent in our churches today. This could be a big help to other members to recognize and become familiar with what is going on in other members lives. It gives them a look into someone else’s lives. I really like the portion about knowing their status of being injured and where they are stationed. One question I have is how well known is this program? Is it being used in churches? I belong to a very large church body and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like this and there are definitely a few people in my congregation involved in some sort of military.
Thank you for your contribution to this conference!
I liked your proposal for a military recognition service in our church and schools. As you mentioned, it is easy to forget the military personel when there is no major war currently being fought. We need to support our troops and having a powerpoint database will provide us with more opportunities to help our troops.
I have one question about this article. So far, it appears that the military recognition service is just a powerpoint slide. At some point is there a plan to expand the program and allow for churches to get in contact with and support the active duty soldiers?
Thank you for supporting our soldiers through the military recognition service.
I appreciated your article bringing my attention to the Digital Military Recognition program that has been implemented in the ELS. My younger brother is a member of the Army National Guard and is considering active duty military as a career so I am pleased to hear that churches are doing what they can to support and appreciate military service members in their congregations and church bodies. I also was pleased to see that the DMR program includes deceased, retired, and active military personnel. Most importantly, a service like this will allow believers to include soldiers in their prayers, which is invaluable for those serving our country.
After reading your article, I had a few questions. Are you aware of programs similar to this one in other synods and churches? If not, how might one go about raising awareness for this cause of military recognition? I have no doubt that positive Christian encouragement and prayers for our military brothers and sisters in Christ would be rewarding and edifying for all involved.
Thank you for your contribution to the conference.
Thank you for your consideration of my comments. This is the first such program that I had heard of so I think it's true that other church bodies have not yet adopted this idea. As you remarked, since it is new it may take awhile to implement this technology, but I am encouraged to see a program like this setting a good example. God-willing I will be able to advocate the recognition of military service members through technology in my future congregations as well. Thank you again for your contributions and attention to my ideas and questions.
I appreciated your article a great deal and how much concern you show for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are serving our country. I had not heard of this program until reading your article and it brings me great joy to see this gain awareness.
Towards the end of the article it was mentioned that the system is not yet fully functional, is there a date in which it is set to be active? What all needs to happen before data is able to be requested?
Thank you for supporting our troops and for creating more ways for us at home to help these brave men and women as well.
I admire that you have made this possible for congregations to use because many people serve in the military or have family serving in the military that most people do not know about. I love the idea of using a slide to not only inform people about them, but give people the opportunity to pray for those serving our country.
When you digitally recognize people serving in the military, is it common for you, or someone else, to contact them to let them know that their church is praying for them? In what ways are people reaching out to encourage them through this recognition?
Thank you for your help and prayer for those serving!
Thank you for your response! I like this new idea and I am interested to see how this grows in the future and how congregations can use this to help people in service.
I really enjoyed reading about the changes that are being made to allow us to recognize, appreciate, and thank those who have served our nation in the armed forces. The formation of the DMR by the ELS was particularly intriguing to me, since it has the potential to be such a powerful tool in recognizing members of the armed forces, past and present, who are members of each individual church.
One question I have for you after reading through your article is this: Do you foresee this project becoming a large undertaking? If it catches on, it has the potential to become a large asset to manage. Would this require bringing on more people to assist with the project?
I would like to thank you for contributing an amazing article to this conference. Thanks for your work!
Thank you for your response to my question! I think it is great that you are already thinking this will expand to the synod as a whole. This would be such a useful tool for our congregations. Again, thank you for responding!
We have a question though, and that is do you think it would be more beneficial to have this service done more than just twice a year, on Veterans Day and Memorial Day? Making it more available and readily accessible to those outside of the service could help honor the fallen heros and help others to remember their loved ones.
I think this is a really cool idea. I think it is a great way to acknowledge those serving and help those at home feel supported by their church community. It is unfortunate that this could end up costing the church down the road financial to upkeep it. However, I do think it would be worth it! As someone who has close family and friends actively in the military as well as veterans I think this is really cool and very heartwarming to know. I would really like to bring it to my church in southern MN as well. There is a significant portion of our congregation that has military relatives or is themself a veteran. I think this would be a really cool way to help thank them and their loved ones as well as make us closer as a congregation. I also wonder if you couldn't even take this Digital project a step farther, if you haven't already. In the past I have worked with volunteer groups to help organize care packages and letters to send overseas to active military. I think it would be really cool to be able to do "Prayer Hands" (or a form of thank you/prayer cards that are interactive). Unfortunately, this would probably also come with a cost for postal services. This is even something that maybe the kids could do for a project to help them get involved. I think that it would be a nice way to not only tell the active duty service members, but also make action to show them as well as they may not see the active efforts. Overall, I think this is and was a great idea. I look forward to looking out for these messages again this year!!
Maddie Hart
Maddie Hart
The cost for upkeep might be an obstacle to overcome and I think with the donations of members and those in the community, the upkeep of DMR can be beaten.
I want to start by thanking you for coming up with this concept as we all should recognize the men and women who have put their lives at risk to serve each individual in this country. People who have served should have a network of support within their local church and should be recognized (if willing to disclose) for their service. With today being veteran's day, it would be fitting to pray for those that we all know in the military and to those who have been in the military.
Thank you