Labor Day Resources

We invite you to use these resources for worship and sermon preparation on or around Labor Day Weekend:

 United Methodist Pastor and ICWJ Board Member Marianne Cotter compiled these intriguing historical resources for Labor Day this year. We focused on the Lutheran, UCC and Methodist traditions only because of limited time and resources. We encourage members of other traditions to use resources from our national office   http://www.iwj.org/resources/labor-day-weekend-resources

  • Please let us know by emailing Becky@workerjustice.org if you use these resources!
  • Consider taking a special collection at your Labor Day Service to support the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin
UPDATE OCTOBER, 2012:  Here are links to sermons given Labor Day Weekend, 2012:
Rabbi Renee Bauer at First Unitarian Society http://fusmadison.org/media/2012-09-02-organized-labor-rb.mp3
John Matthews Executive Director of MTI and Pastor Phil Haslanger Memorial United Church of Christ Here’s the link.

Resources for Lutherans

Resources for Reformed Church (UCC)

Resources for United Methodists

  • Read the Social Creed in worship on Sept. 2nd (Paragraph 166 of the 2008 Book of Discipline) along with Companion Litany to Social Creed.   The 2008 Social Creed Litany complements the current Social Creed first approved in 1972. It is the living product of collaborative consultations in the Philippines, Norway, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the U.S.  Neal Christie, Assistant General Secretary for Education and Leadership Formation at the General Board of Church and Society, along with  his colleague Liberato Bautista were the lead staff members in the creation of the 2008 Social Creed litany. For more information, go to http://www.umc-gbcs.org.
  • Read Walter Rauschenbusch’s  “Prayer For Immigrants” or “Prayer For Employers” (1910  Pilgrim Press) in worship.  Rauschenbush was a leader of the Social Gospel movement.  Though he was a Baptist, many of our Methodist, Evangelical and United Brethren forebears shared his Social Gospel sentiments. Methodist Resources for Labor Day
  •  Include paragraph 73B of the Social Principles in your Labor Day worship (in written or oral form):    “Collective Bargaining.  We support the right of public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and the groups of their own choosing.  Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing, and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest.”
  •   Select from the sermon resources in the attached Methodist resource document in your Labor Day message. These connect the social issues in the period leading up to the first Methodist Social Creed with our current situation.
      1.  Sermons and the shaping of northern Methodist identities  1885-1905 by Kevin Newburg  Drew University 2009.
      2.  City Missions and Social Problems by Frank Mason North The Methodist Review March/April  LXXV 5th Series Vol. IX  p. 228
      3.  Suggestions for Social Topics: Some Remarks on the 8 hour day” by Richard Ely  Christian Advocate  November 1, 1891; 66;46.

For Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim resources for Labor Day:

  http://www.iwj.org/resources/labor-day-weekend-resources

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