Have you ever watched those highway mile markers tick by on a long road trip?
Lately my husband and I have been driving a lot to and from sporting events and my son’s college, and on one such trip I wondered what purpose these signs might have. Google brought me to a website called DriveSafeOnline, which lists four benefits of mile markers:
Navigation and Orientation: Mile markers provide drivers with a sense of location and progress, helping them stay on track and navigate unfamiliar routes.
Travel Planning: By noting the mile markers at key points along a journey, drivers can estimate travel distances, plan rest stops, or anticipate upcoming exits or services.
Emergency Situations: In case of breakdowns or emergencies, drivers can provide accurate mile marker information to emergency services, ensuring timely assistance.
Communication and Reporting: Highway authorities and transportation agencies use mile markers as a standardized reference system for reporting incidents, road conditions, and maintenance needs.
—Patrick M., “Decoding Highway Mile Marker Signs: Understanding Their Meaning and Evolution,” August 22, 2023, www.drivesafeonline.org/traffic-school/decoding-mile-markers/.
As I read that list, I was struck by its connections to the milestones that churches sometimes mark.
Milestones of Faith
For the last eight years, my work has been to resource congregations around the U.S. Midwest on behalf of my denomination. I’ve had countless conversations with church leaders about any number of “churchy” things, but the conversations I love most are the ones about faith formation. In the past few years, many of these conversations have centered around faith formation in the home and how churches can better support families, and these talks always seem to include what we call the “ministry of celebrating milestones.”
When I started this job in 2016, I had a lot to learn, and faith milestones were one of the first faith-formation ideas I was introduced to. In their book Celebrating the Milestones of Faith, Bob and Laura Keeley say:
The milestones in our lives can be baptisms, professions of faith, birthdays, retirements, or any other time where we come together as a community of believers to intentionally acknowledge God’s provision, grace, and care. Congregations can and should celebrate many milestones together. Each milestone celebration enriches our community and builds up the body of Christ by helping us all remember that we travel this journey together.
—Bob and Laura Keeley, Celebrating Milestones of Faith, Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2009, p. 8.
Joshua’s Mile Markers: Stones
The idea of celebrating milestones is seen in Scripture multiple times, but perhaps the most vivid example is when Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan River on dry ground and then were commanded by God to erect a stone marker to commemorate this moment of God’s great faithfulness to the people. God wanted them to stop for a moment and mark the time and space where God poured grace, provision, and care on them. What a faith-building moment for Joshua and the Israelites! And because it’s in the Bible, we know this story of that miraculous dry-ground river crossing made possible by a faithful God was told over and over again for generations! In the same way, marking milestone moments as the family of God gives space for congregations to stop, look back at where God has been leading and working, and then look forward, trusting in the faithfulness of God they just witnessed together.
It turns out that the benefits of marking milestones as Joshua did sound very similar to the benefits of roadside mile markers.
The Benefits
Benefit 1: Mile markers provide drivers with a sense of location and progress.
I love using the map app on my phone. Even if I’m going somewhere I’ve been before, I like to look at the map to see where I am and to mark my progress. Sometimes
I want to go back into the app and see if the path marked out for me is the one I want. Every so often, I want to see the big picture of where I started and where I currently am, and think through how I want to get to my destination.
Milestone celebrations provide a similar kind of road map through which individuals and whole communities can track their location and their progress. They give opportunities to reflect on previous faith milestones and maybe even think about the next milestone that might lie ahead and how they want to get there.
Benefit 2: Mile markers help drivers estimate distances, plan rest stops, or anticipate how to find the services they might need.
When people in a community regularly mark milestones, they are aware of what rest stops and services are needed for those experiencing each milestone. They have the foresight that comes from experience to help individuals know how to get to each milestone and what to do when they get there. For example, a community that communally marks young people’s professions of faith will be aware of the education and accountability needed to help them get to that point, such as Sunday school classes, chats with elders, and mentorship. These invaluable rest stops and services along our faith journeys have the potential to build deeply connected intergenerational communities of faith.
Benefit 3: In case of breakdowns or emergencies, drivers can provide accurate mile marker information to emergency services, ensuring timely assistance.
Our faith journeys are not always an easy walk in the park or a quiet, scenic drive. Sometimes we find ourselves in a terrible blizzard and can’t see where we’re going, or we’re broken down on the side of the road. Navigating our faith together as a community gives that community the opportunity to encourage, support, and walk alongside each other. We get to say things like “Look how far you’ve come!” or “Remember when your faith brought you to that milestone?” or “See how God has been faithful to you? God won’t stop now” or “This is going to be hard, but we’re going to walk with you.”
Benefit 4: Highway authorities and transportation agencies use mile markers as a standardized reference system for reporting incidents, road conditions, and maintenance needs.
Just like milestones on a highway system provide points of reference for road maintenance and help authorities communicate with each other about road conditions, when many communities are joined together in larger communities like denominations, celebrating similar milestones allows our perspective of the road ahead of us to be shaped not just by the people we worship with each Sunday, but by the larger church. When a church celebrates an anniversary or bids farewell to a beloved pastor or plants a new church, they may not have the resources themselves to know what to expect. But no one church is ever alone. We are all united together in Christ and so can lean on each other’s wisdom. Celebrating milestones encourages us to look to the larger church and learn from communities who have been here before. That in turn moves us toward Jesus’ vision of a unified people of God (John 17).
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
So where do we start? What milestones should we be celebrating?
I have a hunch that your congregation already celebrates some milestones, but you may not be using this kind of language. Moreover, the word “celebrate” might not always fit the milestone you are marking. Some faith milestones leave us “broken down on the side of the road” or “on a detour we didn’t plan for” or “in a blizzard with no idea where we are.” In such moments when our faith is tested, we might see the faithfulness of God only through someone else’s eyes.
But that’s when all of us, both as individuals and as members of a community of faith, must stop and remember God’s great love and faithfulness. These hard moments need to be marked, but not in the same way as the celebratory milestones. Joshua did not mark only the sites of Israel’s victories, but also the place where sin had to be removed (Joshua 7). We must set up “stones” to remember the hard times so we can look back and see how God was there. And those stories, if remembered within the context of God’s faithfulness and love, will build up the body of believers.
Milestones to Mark
In the following list you will likely see both things you’re already doing and, I hope, at least one new idea you can implement fairly easily. Remember that not every church needs to celebrate the same milestones. Between a congregation’s geographical location and the people that fill the seats, no church is exactly the same as another. Just as each of us has a unique personality, so does each congregation. How your congregation celebrates a baptism or a birthday does not have to be—nor will be—how the church down the road celebrates.
Find your own rhythms. Look at what shows up on your church calendar every year or what kinds of announcements go in your bulletin each week. Look at what special occasions are celebrated within your families and in your ministries. Think through the hard moments your congregation has gone through as well as the joyful ones. Think about where you’ve seen your members grow in their faith or what steps people work through as they grow up in your congregation. Read through this list, see what piques your interest, and then have a conversation within your church or one of its ministries about starting some milestone celebrations. As my daughter says, “There’s never a bad reason to have a party!”
Here are some examples of milestone moments and some ways they could be celebrated:
- Baptism: Present a children’s Bible to the parents. Have the baptized (or the parents of an infant being baptized) choose a meaningful Bible verse and read it for the congregation. Have the church office send a “birthday” card around the baptism’s anniversary.
- First communion: Have a pastor or elder visit the person’s home for a conversation and prayer.
- Aging out of children’s ministry: Present an easy-to-read Bible or devotional or a journal with space for children to draw what they hear and see during worship.
- Joining youth group: Have youth group leaders invite new members to dinner or coffee.
- School graduations: Have cake for all graduates after a worship service.
- Going away to college: Present students with a pocket Bible.
- Marriage: Host a small shower to bestow cards, gift cards, recipe collections, and devotional books.
- Pregnancy/birth: Host a baby shower or organize a diaper drive or meal train.
- Miscarriage: Send cards, plant a tree, or organize a meal train.
- Death of a family member: Organize a meal train and remember the anniversary of a death with cards of remembrance and care.
- Mission trips: Plan a commissioning service, organize prayer partners, and set aside time in or after a worship service to share stories after the trip.
- Anniversary of the church’s birth or merger: Organize a community meal.
- “Remember Your Baptism” Sunday: Remind the congregation of the promises made at baptism.
- New building or addition: Gather for a prayer and/or litany or a dedication service.
- Recovery from a disaster: Erect a physical monument with the date of the disaster as a reminder of God’s faithfulness.
- The launch or end of a ministry: Integrate a prayer or litany into worship.
- Hiring or leaving of a beloved staff member: Host a community meal, special service, or open house. Integrate a prayer or litany into the worship service.
- New members: Present new members with a church directory and meal invitations from other members.
- Members moving away: Present a parting gift, distribute their new address to the congregation, and pray over them during a service. Have a parting song in your church’s repertoire that can be used as a blessing.
- First day of school: Bless backpacks and send encouraging postcards to all students, parents, and teachers.
Weaving Our Stories with God’s
Milestones can be celebrated in all sorts of ways, and there are countless milestones that could be marked. This list is just a beginning. Most importantly, the practice of marking milestones together as a community of believers is a faith-formative ministry for everyone. It will provide moments for your congregation to see proof of God’s provision, grace, and care. These moments of corporate reflection will spark some deep conversations and will build rich and meaningful relationships. All of that together will create a strong sense of belonging in your congregation, which is fertile ground for growing faith.
Encourage parents to mark faith moments in their homes, too. Encourage each ministry in your church to recognize milestones. Encourage your pastors and leadership to build a ministry of celebrating milestones in the life of your congregation.
Linda Staats is the director of HomeGrown Ministries, an initiative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In an article in Lifelong Faith, she reflects on why a milestones ministry is integral to the faith life of a congregation:
Milestones ministry places all of life under the care, blessing, and direction of our gracious God in Christ Jesus. Every ending, beginning, transition, and moment in life is an opportunity to actively claim God’s redemptive and renewing work in the world and in our lives. To weave our stories with God’s story is to live with confidence in God’s care in every way, every place—all the time.
—Linda Staats, “Passing on the Faith—Milestone to Milestone,” Lifelong Faith, Vol. 2.1 (Spring 2008): 23.