By Diane Shallue
Nurturing Faith is the focus this month. It is one of the four core values of the congregation identified during the congregational listening sessions back in spring 2019. Nurturing faith is like gardening. We plant seeds of faith and prepare a good environment for faith to grow. Then we trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to sprout the seeds. When the process is so invisible, it is hard to know how to nurture faith. Frequently, we think of faith formation as being for children and youth but faith grows and changes throughout our lives. Adults need to be nurtured in their faith more than children because the seeds of faith in children and youth are planted by adults. All adults in a congregation nurture the faith of all the young people. When a child is baptized, the members of the congregation promise to support and pray for the child. The parents need lots of help in nurturing that child’s faith. And all of us adults need lots of help in nurturing our faith too! Classes and Bible studies and adult forums are formal ways of encouraging growth in adult faith. But there are informal yet effective practices to support faith which involve service projects, worship and conversations with other faithful adults. Another informal way of nurturing faith is demonstrating faithful living to others. I find the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22 helpful to me when I reflect on how my actions and speech prepare a good environment for faith to grow in me and in others. Am I producing the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Am I quick to listen and slow to anger? Can I forgive myself and others when not producing these fruits? Can I be confident that God loves me and trust in God’s gift of grace? How can I nurture the faith of my grandchildren? These types of questions keep me searching and growing as I continue to participate in the life of the Christian community that meets at CtK.
0 Comments
By Pastor Peter Hanson
In last month’s blog post, I wrote about how we were emerging from the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic (“slowly but surely, new life emerges around and among us…”). In these past few weeks since beginning our gradual return to in-person worship and other ministries, I’ve been considering this image alongside similar metaphors that I have found helpful for making sense of what we have all been experiencing. Early on in Covid-tide, for example, I was drawn to the overlapping images familiar to us in the Upper Midwest: that the initial lockdown was like a “blizzard,” the on-going mandates and adjustments were like a “long winter season,” while the lingering consequences of the Corona Virus could be thought of as a sort of “ice age.” More recently, a Methodist Pastor named Jenny Smith provided a helpful image of running back-to-back marathons (the intended audience of her blog is other pastors, but I believe much of it applies to many of us who are active in church life, both volunteers and staff members). Surveying the landscape of our life together in the newly unfolding time of re-opening and re-gathering, I’ve more recently been thinking along about the image of re-surfacing, like a deep-sea diver coming up for air. And the more I consider this image, the more I am struck by its somewhat natural corollary: “the bends.” In our excitement for being back together, for returning to a sense of normalcy or even for discovering or creating a “new normal,” I wonder sometimes if we are being careful enough, intentional enough, deliberate enough about our emergence, about our return to the surface. I wonder if, like seasoned deep-sea divers, we need to be more careful not to resurface too quickly, in order to avoid subjecting ourselves to decompression sickness—a condition commonly known as “the bends.” Friends, now is not the time to rush to put the many and varied pieces of our congregational life back together all at once. We need to start small. We need to pace ourselves. We need to leave ourselves room to grow—and leave room for the Holy Spirit to do her work. And we need to check in frequently with one another—since we are definitely not all at the same comfort level regarding such diverse things as handshaking, singing, sharing food, hugging, or simply occupying public spaces together. We need to embrace our congregational discipleship as a journey, not a destination. Let’s be compassionate with ourselves as well as kind and understanding with one another. Let’s be intentional, deliberate, and careful with as we re-surface, each of us at a slightly different pace. Let’s remember—and remind one another—to breathe. And even though the earth should change, the mountains tremble, and the waters roar and foam, let us be still and know that God is God (Psalm 46). By Paul Wilde L’Heureux
“Compassion is an action word with no boundaries. It is never wasted.” —Prince For years, I’ve had a front-row seat to see what Growing Compassion — the CtK core value we’re focusing on this month — looks like. My wife, Jenny, for more than the 20 years we’ve been married was often called upon to help her dad, Leslie, through transplants, surgeries, setbacks, and hard-fought progress. I saw how, for her, compassion translated to a calling to care and readily demanded action and sacrifice — a lesson she’d certainly learned from her dad and her mom, Trudy. As farmers, conservationists, and active members of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in northwest Minnesota, they’ve regularly demonstrated compassion through service and prayer. We lost Leslie last January, but I’ll be forever grateful for the sense of compassion he helped instill in Jenny. Jenny and I, along with our son, Leo, have been members of Christ the King for a handful of years now. I regularly see Jenny’s compassion—particularly focused on kids—show up as she volunteers to help with church activities and events, like Vacation Bible School. And while I have helped her out here and there, it has been much more recently that I have found ways of actively participating on my own. I’m honestly not entirely sure how it started — it may have been Deb asking for volunteers to pick up items from members of the congregation for the yearly garage sale, or perhaps Pastor Peter or Pastor John announcing a call for volunteers to sing with the choir for Christmas. All I know is that by the time I was helping to lay bricks to build the bread oven, I was hooked. I was also feeling the “growing” part of growing compassion, which, like most growing, could be awkward or painful at times. Participating on my own without Jenny’s outgoing spirit and service experience next to me, I felt like a new kid at school a bit at first. But thanks to the gracious and welcoming CtK community, I’ve found encouragement, friends, and purpose along the way. When I accepted nomination for and joined the Council earlier this year, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into, but trusted those that asked me and showed up eager to learn and serve in new ways. I am particularly excited to learn about some of the ways we are talking about expressing “God’s calling to care for all creation” by considering commitments to projects like adding solar panels to our roof or speaking with local officials about how we can more ecologically handle runoff water from our land. I have been impressed by the peek behind the scenes that I’ve been blessed to have, and not at all surprised to learn that participation in the Council means not just lending a voice, but actively demonstrating compassion and service in new ways. It’s not hard to look at the world as it is and see that it could use more compassionate acts of caring, justice, service, and prayer. What’s surprising is how easy it can be to join in. By Amity Lantz-Trier
If you ask a middle school or high school student what their favorite season is, many of them say summer. Not only because they don't have to go to school but because they can be outside. It's common to picture this age of kids spending a large amount of their time sitting in front of a computer screen or a tv watching a show or playing a video game, but now more than ever they are spending more and more time outside. The urge to be out in nature and connect in a different way with God's creation is definitely not lost on this generation. Taking a pause and disconnecting from our fast-paced, high-activity culture is refreshing at any age. These are some of the many reasons how spending a week hiking in the mountains of Montana can leave a lasting impression. Since 1951, Christikon has been a special place for spiritual growth and renewal with friends, old and new. Christ the King has taken many different groups over a number of years because, even as time passes and the world changes, the lessons learned are valuable to the human experience and touch on our core values as Christians. The Christikon experience allows those present to connect with each other in a way that is unique to their shared experience. The conversations, laughter, joy, tears, and everything else that happens is special to that time, in that place, in a way that can't be replicated. The most transparent way going on this trip grows our compassion is seeing first hand that the way that we treat the earth reflects our Christian values. We see that we should care about creation because it brings glory to God. We care about creation because doing so helps other people. The environmental issues we face are ethical issues and provide an opportunity to draw others toward God. We care for creation because we live in it. We care about the environment because God tells us to. We care for creation because it reveals God’s character, and the beauty of creation in its most natural form. As we head west for another week to encounter God in new and exciting ways, we ask for your prayers for safe travels, unfiltered joy, raw emotion, and steps that draw us closer in our relationship with our Creator. Amen. By Pastor John Schwehn
On this July 4th Sunday, we give thanks to God for the gift of freedom. Our freedom from living under authoritarian rule or occupation in these United States makes lives of self-determination and self-government possible. Wave the flag, launch the fireworks, ring the bells! This weekend, we celebrate this nation home which God so richly blesses. This month, we also begin a series of reflections on our core value of Growing Compassion, which states: We value God’s calling to care for all creation through compassionate justice, service, and prayer. As people of faith on this 4th of July weekend, we celebrate not only our freedom from but also our freedom to. God’s grace has freed us from the power of death, from the need to constantly worry about the status of our own salvation. Our ultimate freedom comes in Christ, on the cross and the empty tomb. God’s love and forgiveness sets us free every day! This good news (our freedom from) gives us callings to love and to serve (freedom to). Indeed, the church bears powerful witness to the truth that my claim to freedom is inextricably bound up with the freedom of my neighbor and the freedom of the planet from which I am created. If we didn’t know this before, the pandemic offered a crash course of this truth. Before the widespread availability of vaccines, I was not safe from infection until my neighbors were also safe from infection. My health indirectly and directly impacted the health of others. Or, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – a singularly great American – famously wrote in 1963: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly…Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.”[1] So perhaps this holiday weekend is the perfect time to begin reflecting on our call to Growing Compassion, on our freedom to love even more deeply our planet home, our fellow Americans, our God who creates us in freedom and also gives us callings and responsibilities of care. When rooted in Christ, freedom is broader, more joyful, more challenging, and more meaningful than a narrow understanding of our right to individual liberties and choices. Instead, when we find our true freedom in Christ, we celebrate that we belong to one another. We celebrate the freedom in which we all were created while also striving for that “more perfect union” (as articulated in the preamble of The Constitution) in which all Americans, our planet home, and all people everywhere live lives of true dignity, freedom, and justice. Happy Fourth! Pr. John ____________________________________________ [1] Letter from Birmingham Jail, which can be accessed here: https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf “The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it!” (2 Corinthians 5:17b; The Message)
By Pastor Peter Hanson For the past sixteen months, so much of our life has been defined by, limited to, and organized around the realities of the COVID-19 Pandemic. We’ve endured shutdown and quarantine, confinement to our homes, and cancelled travel plans. We’ve been working from home, going to school on zoom, and worshipping on YouTube. We’ve adopted new phrases into our everyday speech—from “stop the spread” and “flatten the curve” to “Delta variant” and “phased re-opening plan.” As we begin to emerge from this global health crisis, many of us are understandably eager to put it all completely behind us: to simultaneously skip forward to the “finish line,” and back to some sense of past normalcy. From our initial and immediate shutdown in March 2020, through each of the found phases of reopening, we’ve trusted science and taken our cues from the experts at the CDC and the Minnesota Department of Health. We’ve been blessed to have had our own local health experts in our three Faith Community Nurses, who along with the Executive Committee and lead staff have met regularly as the CtK COVID Response Team. Erring on the side of caution, we’ve no doubt made some missteps along the way. There are situations in which we have likely moved more slowly that others in the community around us. There have certainly been times in the past year that we have unintentionally sent mixed or conflicting messages. We have greatly appreciated your continued flexibility, patience, and understanding as we navigated this untrodden path together. As one colleague likes to remind us, “this is our first pandemic,” and we did not have a good roadmap for every twist and turn along the way. With all that as background, here are some late-breaking announcements:
By Pastor John Schwehn
This morning we hear the familiar story of Jesus calming the storm from Mark’s gospel. As Jesus gets some needed sleep aboard their humble fishing vessel, the disciples are in a panic over the raging winds, the rising waves, the bumpy sea. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” they shout at the drowsy Jesus. And remember, these first disciples were mostly fishermen. Their fear is not fake or manufactured – the storm must have been really bad if these seafarers were so terrified! But Jesus is leading them on a mission to “the other side” of the sea. Once the danger is behind them, the ministry continues just as before. Jesus leads them, undeterred, imploring the disciples to regain their faith and follow him into new territory where he will perform a shocking exorcism and go on proclaiming the kingdom of God. Dear friends, we have been through a storm! A real one, with real danger and devastating consequences. For some of us, the storm will keep raging on until the day when all of us (including our children) are fully protected against this novel coronavirus. On the weekend that our nation experiences its inaugural federal holiday of Juneteenth, we remember that the storm of slavery kept raging on for two-and-a-half more years after President Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. The news of slavery’s end did not reach Galveston until 1865. While one storm might end for some, it continues raging for others. As we lift up our core value of “Building Community,” Jesus is calling this congregation to survey our community with fresh eyes and open minds. Where in New Brighton (and among our members at Christ the King) does the storm still rage? Many of us feel safe now, so what is “the other side” that we are being called to explore? Survival is not the end point. Rather, it frees us to venture back out with greater courage and resolve, trusting that our lives are in God's capable and compassionate hands. Building community in this new reality may, at first, feel a bit like rebuilding as we reach out to the familiar, beloved faces we long to see again. However, our efforts of building and rebuilding point us to a new future – an unfamiliar shore – where we row through every storm and setback trusting that we worship a God who is always in the boat with us. By Chris Frost, Church Council Member
…about “something potentially cool and interesting that I'm developing at Christ the King…”. Well color me intrigued. But, first, a little back story. I’ve been attending Christ the King for over 20 years. I’d heard stories about how the founders would pound the pavement and knock on doors to say “hello” and let people know that there was a new church in the community, a new entity in New Brighton. I’d attended the block parties but never really felt a sense of the community - be that church (outside of the people I knew) or New Brighton as a whole. I’d also never really known my “place” in church either. Until Pastor John sent that email. About a bread oven. And took us to United Methodist Church in White Bear Lake where I saw a guy walk in from their oven, having just baked 80+ loaves for the congregation and their larger community, apron covered in flour, with the world’s biggest smile on his face. And I thought “I want to be that guy…” On December 20, 2019 we lit the brand new oven for the first time with the goal of “giving it a go”, managed to over- and under-cook bread at the same time, and saw the possibilities - how we could bring people together around the oven, and both forge and enhance a sense of community using the oven as a coming-together point. Then came a global pandemic. Kind of puts a wrench in the works. Fast forward to August 25, 2020. We can do this. We can get the church to gather (in a safe, socially distanced manner, but gather nonetheless) around the fruits of our labors. We can be a community again. We did, and wow how good did that feel to look out at everybody again! So we did it again on September 16, 2020. And then on October 28th. And we just did it again last Wednesday... To me, this is the community in church I have been searching for all these years - a place for me to volunteer and show my place in our community. And to see our larger community. Now I’m wondering now how we can make this a bigger thing? Invite a larger swath of the community outside of church to participate, to join us in what we have made and what we can do. And maybe one day we’ll get the hang of the bread baking. John 6:35: “Jesus said to them ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst.” By Pastor Peter Hanson
Each One of Us is Space A poem by Ben Weaver When building community, how do we make certain not to forget that a community is made up of communities? What are the concepts that unite worlds? What are the tools we will use to express, share and remember our interconnectivity? How will we nurture relationships through abundance rather than debt? How do we turn our gifts into stories that remind us what we want to keep alive, helping us break more spells than we cast? Even if the end of the world looks just like today, how could we quit, when everything else keeps growing? My friend Jodi shared this poem with me, just as I was contemplating our second core value of “Building Community.” As it turns out, this coincided with getting ready for this week’s return to in-person worship in the CtK sanctuary. Particularly when I think about us re-gathering as a worshipping community after more than a year apart, I found its simple imagery very helpful in allowing me to reimagine what it means to congregate, to assemble, to meet together in one place. This community that we are building bridges different groupings which claim us and links a variety of identities that we recognize in ourselves. What connects us to one another at Christ the King? How do we put words to what unites us? How do we express beyond words the longing so many of us have felt these past months just to BE together again? Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear the many ways God calls us to be a whole that is greater than the sum of our parts? We’ll have to keep our masks on for worship—for now, for a while, not forever—and we’ll do our best to keep our distance for a bit longer, too. What if we imagined the space that remains between us as a place of abundant gifted-ness, a place to nurture growth, a place to create new stories? What if we let the masks remind us that the precious and life-giving Spirit of the Living God is as close to us as our own breath? This past year has been challenging for many reasons, not least of which because we’ve had to be apart for so much of it. I am convinced, however, that our community has been growing all this time. We’ve grown by pivoting, innovating, and making do. We’ve also grown by grieving, letting go, and getting by. God will continue to build beloved community among us. God will continue to be with us: in spirit, in truth, in person, and online. Written by Pepe Demarest, Pastoral Intern
Building Community: "We value strength in diversity and strive to build a beloved community by actively inviting our neighbors to share in God’s mission." I am really proud to have been part of the community of Christ the King for the past two years. When a church picks Building Community as one of its four “Core Values,” there is a commitment to evangelism that is so much more than just telling the story “of Jesus and his glory.” It is a commitment to spreading the Gospel as Jesus did. By being present with all kinds of people, by hosting and being hosted by people like himself as well as those outside his cultural bubble, Jesus showed the Father’s love by loving the diversity he knew in the Trinity. This is our God and the church of God is a reflection of that diversity. This does not mean we impose our values on others, rather we appreciate the way God shows up in difference. Building community is about cultural humility and curiosity. When I think of how the CtK community welcomed me to this place and let me tell my truth, I see how you build this community. Two years ago, I was submerged into the waters of this congregation. The Monday “Bible Study” welcomed me even though I wasn’t a long-time member or retired; I marveled at the partnerships you had developed with the universal church in the Global Mission Partners; Cristo Rey welcomed me even though my Spanish is deplorable! When you consider the 14 Social Ministry Opportunities listed on our website and see all of the Local Mission Partners, it is clear CtK is already a healthy outward-looking church. And then the dual pandemics hit. COVID-19 made the world rethink what community means. Families were separated from each other for their own safety, and our worshiping community needed to find creative ways to connect, because we were “Apart for now-Together for good.” The other pandemic affecting our larger community is racism, which until the killing of George Floyd, was not something that most whites thought much about. But you, Christ the King, were willing to examine how privilege hurts others. You engaged in book groups on racism and commissioned a working group to become more of an anti-racist congregation. It is hard not to be grateful for how you opened the building to CPY, to neighbors who were most affected by both of these pandemics. As I conclude my internship, my pride for this community will go with me. Moving to in-person worship may feel awkward. In this transition, you may yearn to go back to a normal that never was, but I pray that you remember how much God has blessed you and that you continue to do the great work you have begun. This poem by Maya Angelou was shared at the virtual prayer tent last week and I share it with you as a blessing. Continue By Maya Angelou Into a world which needed you My wish for you Is that you continue Continue To be who and how you are To astonish a mean world With your acts of kindness Continue To allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart Continue In a society dark with cruelty To let the people hear the grandeur Of God in the peals of your laughter Continue To let your eloquence Elevate the people to heights They had only imagined Continue To remind the people that Each is as good as the other And that no one is beneath Nor above you Continue To remember your own young years And look with favor upon the lost And the least and the lonely Continue To put the mantel of your protection Around the bodies of The young and defenseless Continue To take the hand of the despised And diseased and walk proudly with them In the high street Some might see you and Be encouraged to do likewise Continue To plant a public kiss of concern On the cheek of the sick And the aged and infirm And count that as a Natural action to be expected Continue To let gratitude be the pillow Upon which you kneel to Say your nightly prayer And let faith be the bridge You build to overcome evil And welcome good Continue To ignore no vision Which comes to enlarge your range And increase your spirit Continue To dare to love deeply And risk everything For the good thing Continue To float Happily in the sea of infinite substance Which set aside riches for you Before you had a name Continue And by doing so You and your work Will be able to continue Eternally |
Archives
July 2024
Categories |
Christ the King Lutheran Church
1900 7th Street NW New Brighton, MN 55112 Phone: 651-633-4674 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: 9 am - 2 pm Mon - Thurs or by appointment Sunday Schedule Morning Worship at 9:30 am |