Directions – January-February 2025
This project is shared by LFL Lifelines Chapter #096 from Carver County, Minnesota. A special thank you to Cory Allen, Life Chapter president, and Stephanie Griep, Life Chapter member, who shared detailed information for this article.
If you want to encourage young people in your Lutheran churches and schools to share their Gospel-motivated voices For Life, consider the project the LFL Lifelines Chapter #096 has done for numerous years—a poster contest for grades 4-8 held in January and February of each year.
Cory Allen explains the motivation for this contest. “Children in grades 4-8 are asked to address life issues through the medium of a poster that is biblically based and agrees with the mission of LFL, which is to witness to the sanctity of life, through education, based on the Word of God.”
Every fall, a poster packet is sent to the ten schools affiliated with Lifelines’ member churches. In some years many participate and in other years only a few, but they feel blessed to have five schools regularly participate. There were 36 posters submitted for the 2023-2024 contest!
A specific communication timeline has been developed to fully promote their contest.
- An email is sent at the beginning of August to the pastors, teachers, and principals of the affiliated churches and schools. It contains details of the contest and informs them that a Life Chapter representative will deliver a poster packet in September or October.
- The Life Chapter representative who has been assigned to a specific school hand-delivers the poster packet in September or October.
- A final email is sent in November and includes timeline information and key dates to be met.
A poster contest is a wonderful way to incorporate the young people in your churches and schools into your life ministry. Discuss details of how you would like to conduct your contest, determine which schools you will contact so you can budget for the prizes, line up your representatives, and choose your judges. (Lifelines has two Life Chapter members and an art teacher as their judges.) If you look at the posters these students have created, you will see that young hearts are surely being reached with the good news of the Gospel and the sanctity of life.
2024-2025 LFL Poster Contest Details
Eligibility & Poster Requirements:
- Open to all students in grades 4-8.
- Use only 12″ x 18″ construction paper. Any medium may be used.
- Poster should promote the value of life at any stage or age of life.
- Message should agree with LFL’s mission statement: “Equipping Lutherans and their neighbors to be Gospel-motivated voices For Life.”
- Label posters on the back only with school, grade, and student’s first and last name.
Scoring Sheet:
- Attracts Attention – 30 Points
- Poster attracts attention in a favorable way
- Arouses interest
- Encourages viewers to read all the details
- Is eye catching
- Conveys Message – 30 Points
- Quickly conveys the LFL life-affirming message
- Biblically based with scripture reference
- Simple to understand
- Design – 20 Points
- Arrangement of elements creates a sense of unity and balance
- Design illustrates or symbolizes the message
- Originality – 10 Points
- Evidence of creativity
- Independent thought
- Workmanship – 10 Points
- Neat and well done
Resources Available: Students may utilize life-affirming school curricula, the Holy Bible, pastors, LifeDate (a free publication of LFL), and the LFL website.
Timeline and Key Dates for 2025:
- Students work on posters from January 1–February 28, 2025.
- LFL representatives pick up the posters at the school the week of March 3, 2025.
- Submit two posters from each grade. Poster judging takes place March 17–April 27, 2025. First-place and second-place prizes will be awarded to the two posters scoring the highest points in each grade.
- Schools will be notified of the winning entries and prizes will be awarded in mid-May.
Prizes Awarded as Follows:
4th | 5th | 6th Grades | $20 – First Place | $15 – Second Place
7th | 8th Grades | $20 – First Place | $15 – Second Place
See the winning artwork as featured in the Minnesota District LCMS Lutheran Witness insert (reprinted by permission).