Parish scan

Miracles happen all the time, but a congregation in Florida had snow for its Winterfest last December. With the help of a local ice company, Joyful Servants Lutheran Church, Tampa, created 10 tons of snow for the festival, which included a petting zoo, games, food and fun, The 2-year-old congregation also raised $1,625 to help victims of Hurricane Mitch.

* St John Evangelical Lutheran Church, Phoenixville, Pa., has been working on a number of ventures with B'nai Jacob Synagogue, whose rabbi, David Mayer, is a friend of St. John's pastor, Cynthia Krommes. Mayer gave St. John's youth a guided tour of the synagogue, and the two congregations held a Bible study of the Psalms over the summer.

* Inspired by an article in the January 1998 issue of The Lutheran about making stained-glass windows, Salem Lutheran Church, Mount Vernon, Wash., launched a project-and got a write-up of its own. Gerald Erichsen, religion editor of the Skagit Valley Herald, wrote about Salem's 10-foottall window, designed by a member of Fir-Conway Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon.

* With fanning in a crisis, this year's "Tractor Day" at Zion and New Hope Lutheran churches, Adamsville, Ohio, took on new significance. On that day, 28 tractors paraded to New Hope (the larger of the two-point parish) for combined Sunday services. Worshipers wore green ribbons in support of farmers. In her sermon, Janet Hatch, pastor of the churches, said everyone should be grateful for farmers.

* Brides and grooms who got hitched this summer at Good Shepherd Lutheran, Alexandria, Va., weren't about to let a renovation's barbed-wire fence and sloppy piles of building materials spoil their day. Some couples donned hard-hats for a joke wedding photo. Others attached white bridal ribbons to the chain-link fence outside.

* Last winter, youth at American Lutheran Church, Gaylord, Minn., set up tents and held the usual Bible camp activities: campfire songs led by guitar, stories, readings and crafts. But the youth weren't braving the harsh Minnesota winter. They did it all inside the church.