I know some of you have made reference to scheduling a Prayer Service on Sunday during your weekend-long celebration, but no results were returned when I searched using this topic.

As a result, I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has an outline or program that they used specifically for an after-reunion Prayer Service. The audience in our case will be public high school graduates and their guests of various faiths and the location will a meeting room at the host hotel.

Fortunately, we have a classmate who has been affiliated with the ministry to conduct the service. He's not without ideas. Rather he asked me to see what formats, if any, have proven successful at other reunion celebrations.

Thanks.

Hi Bob --

Early on in our plans, we discussed a possible Sunday morning service that might lead to a family picnic. However, the general feeling was that we are/were a multi-denominational group from a public school and we didn't want to upset anyone. (If upset is the right term.)

One of our ministers did give an invocation at the Saturday night event -- but it took much coaching to insist that it should be very short and should be non-denominational in nature.

Of course had ours been a religious based school, things would no doubt have been different.

Instead we created a memorial area just outside the Ballroom where our main event was held. I picked up and expanded on the idea up from these Help Forums.

The yearbook photo for each of our 120 deceased classmates (with their name) was framed in an individual 'silver-tone' 3x4" frame ($1 each at the Dollar store) and each was lit by an electric votive candle (3-for $1 also from the Dollar store). The framed photos were displayed on white tablecloths with red organdy material (school colors red-white.) One of our class members contributed the funds for the display materials.

This display was exceptionally well received by all. We even had some members of the public happen upon the display on their way to the hotel's restaurant and stopped to look and comment about the display.

Two class members passed away after they had purchased tickets for the reunion. For those two, we prepared a name badge and lanyard and framed it within a large matted area. Class members at the reunion were encouraged to sign the mat. We sent these framed lanyards to their spouses after the reunion.

Great idea and very appropriate.

We had a Memorial Service for all the classmates who had died. We had lighted candles for each one with their picture in front of the candle.

We had several classmates who could sing, do religious songs during that time.

We had a minister classmate who went thru each candle, and would have people address the group, with memories they had about that person. That worked fine.

Things went really well till the minister decided to do an alter-call. It just didn't go over and we had to stop the meeting.

John,

Thanks for sending your photos/notes and others for commenting as well.

We still have ten months to go, so will continue to monitor for additional posts.

We'll eventually add results of ours and invite others to share what works (or not) as things evolve.

Bob