Where will you direct your love offering?

You will be challenged during the season of Lent to save forty dollars for forty days (seven weeks minus seven Sundays). This additional love offering will be received Easter Sunday 24 April.

You will be encouraged to give those forty dollars towards Christ the King, or towards a specific ministry. For example, we have a vibrant Youth and Family ministry here at Christ the King. We host Family Promise of Gallatin Valley here in June. We plan to send a number of youth to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp this July. Every first Sunday of the month we take up a special offering to support Gallatin Valley Food Bank. We partner with Love in the Name of Christ here in Bozeman.

A new ministry here in Montana is Freedom in Christ Prison Congregation Project. Their goal is to call a pastor to serve the prison congregation at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge in the Fall of 2011. In the meantime, they are trying to meet the spiritual needs of the inmates by offering Bible studies and Sunday afternoon worship services.

I learned about prison ministry in Arizona when I was serving Mt. View Lutheran Church in Phoenix. Seven members of Mt. View volunteered to lead Bible study and worship services at two prisons. I know from their testimonies that their lives were changed by the opportunity to serve.

I learned recently that a friend’s relative is an inmate at Deer Lodge. The prospect of life imprisonment for a family member has changed my friend’s heart towards the prison population. He/She wants to become more involved. In conversation, my heart has been changed, too.

Pastor Lindean informed me the other day she is planning to give her forty dollars towards Freedom in Christ Prison Congregation Project. I have decided to join her.

To learn more about Freedom in Christ Prison Congregation Project go to their website at www. ficprisonminstry.com.

In Christ,
Pastor Grant