The Friendship Ministry is a new ministry that is part of Mountain Shadow’s Gathering Priority area with Elder Pamela S as moderator.
Mission Statement — Loving our neighbors as ourselves also means we get to celebrate one another. Marking life together, taking time to celebrate significant life events, inviting one another to laugh, dance, cry and sing with us, and sharing meals together are ways we love our neighbors (based on sermon on Matthew 22: 36-40 by Rev. Laura Munroe).
This ministry will focus on helping to coordinate activities outside Sunday Fellowship hour and/or the Mountain Shadow’s campus, such as Table of Friends, or others that are organized as our friendships grow and areas of common interests are discovered. We may host 2-3 events per year to which the whole congregation is invited.
Table of Friends will return January 2026.
- “We all know that good things happen when we gather together – around a table, around a fire pit, sitting around in a circle at any location. It doesn’t make any difference the time of day or the type of activity or the type of meal that we share. The important thing is the friendships that come when we get together.”
- Groups of 8-10 people are formed from those who sign up to participate. If you don’t drive, want to be paired up with a particular person, or have mobility limitations, please include these concerns on the sign-up sheet, so we can accommodate everyone who would like to participate.
- Leaders will be requested from each group, and they will notify the group members about the first get together in January. At this first meeting you’ll become acquainted and together plan your next three get-togethers. You will be asked to choose a date to coordinate an activity. Examples: Go out for lunch or dinner; tour an exhibit: read and discuss a book: play a game: go to a movie and discuss afterwards, have a potluck, etc.
- Still not clear what it’s all about? Please ask Pamela S, Karen K, or a congregant who participated in the past.
- Sign up on the ramada will take place on the following Sundays in November and December. If you are not in town to sign up, please email our office manager, Judy at mspcoffice@gmail.com, with “Table of Friends” in the subject line.
- November 16
- November 23
- December 7
- December 14
Friendship Ministry events since its formation:
- Friendship & Refreshments Time, held prior to the Maundy Thursday worship service on April 17, 2025. Attendees were invited to submit their ideas for friendship ministries to explore. We received 61 ideas from 21 people. Thank you! Many had common themes to be explored moving forward.
- Brown Bag Lunch and Ice Cream Social, on July 11th. It was designed to be an opportunity for people to begin to get to know one another more in depth, and to provide an example of how one might seek out, greet and meet (really talk with) others that one does not know at Mountain Shadows church. We had a “Crowded Table” and a wonderful time.