"Shine on, Missouri!"

April 2021 was a very bright month in the Show Me State! For the first time ever, the Missouri District held a statewide servant event and based it on Matthew 5:16. Dubbed “SHINE!”, the initiative took place April 16-25, 2021.

The concept was simple: All churches, schools, ministries, RSOs, etc. throughout Missouri were welcome to register on the District’s website. Groups were then free to assess the needs of their community and find a project that worked for both the size and skillset of their group. Teams could then safely work side-by-side or complete larger tasks as individuals. Service could last for an hour or all ten days, whatever fit into the schedules of participants. To add to the brightness of the initiative, the Missouri District was blessed to work with generous sponsors to provide participants with an official yellow SHINE! t-shirt to wear as they served.

“Because this had never been attempted before, we didn’t have any sense of how this would be received,” says Missouri District SHINE! coordinator, Leah Sieveking. “God already had everything planned, and His ideas are always bigger and better than anything we could have imagined.”

In the end, more than 5,100 men, women, and children from approximately 130 teams served their neighbors and were a witness to Jesus Christ. Given the large participation numbers and the joy experienced in sharing Christ with others, the Missouri District knew it had to seriously consider the possibility of holding SHINE! again. Making that decision wasn’t difficult.

Mark your calendars for SHINE!—The Sequel—happening April 22-May 1, 2022. Once again, groups are able to select their own projects and be outfitted in the official SHINE! t-shirt. (Everyone will be wearing green next spring!)

Registration is now open and can happen at mo.lcms.org/shine.