It's time for some highway clean-up! CtK maintains a stretch of road west of Four Corners.Meet in the CtK parking lot at 10am tomorrow, Saturday, July 23rd to carpool out there. Wear sunblock and bring work gloves!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Highway Clean-up Tomorrow
It's time for some highway clean-up! CtK maintains a stretch of road west of Four Corners.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Middle School Service Plunge 2011
There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are varieties of services, but the same Lord.
1 Corinthians 12:4-5
So far, groups have worked at Family Promise of Gallatin Valley, the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, doing all kinds of work, from weeding, cleaning, organizing and sorting, to packing food, playing with children, raking and shovelling gravel, and loading and unloading a moving truck. These are hard working youth!
Each day the group also has time for worship, Bible study, big group games, crafts/activities and more. Yesterday, they even had the opportunity to walk a labyrinth (our theme for the day was hospitality, and the Bible story was the road to Emmaus).
There's still more to come this week - please keep this group in your prayers!
For more pictures, check out the Service Plunge Slide show on the CtK website, or the Christ the King Lutheran Church facebook page!
Friday, July 15, 2011
From ELCA Disaster Response
July 14, 2011
Horn of Africa drought relief
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
The worst drought in 60 years has reached crisis level in East Africa. Thousands and thousands of people in Ethiopia, central and northern Kenya, Djibouti and Somalia are leaving their homes in search of food, water and shelter.
The Dadaab refugee center, managed in partnership with The Lutheran World Federation, was built to accommodate 90,000 people. However, recently more than 380,000 thirsty and hungry people have gathered in and around the center. This number continues to grow with more than 1,000 people arriving daily.
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“This is the last of my food, a few beans. I used to grow food myself but there has been no rainfall in eight years, so now I have to buy all my food from the market. The prices keep going up. We only have enough food for one meal a day now, and that goes for all people in this area,” says Lucia Muvili Ngotho from the Kalimbui village in Mwingi, Kenya.
Gifts made through ELCA Disaster Response are now providing water and enriched porridge to children and older adults who are too weak to eat dry food. Your generous gifts will make it possible for this church’s response to continue as long as the drought does and, even afterward, as the people seek to restart their lives.
Contributions made to ELCA Disaster Response, designated for the “Horn of Africa Drought Relief,” will be used entirely -- 100 percent -- for work in the area, assisting those whose lives have been affected by this terrible drought.
Your gifts of prayer and partnership are needed and deeply appreciated. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Daniel Rift
Director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal
To give online, go to ELCA Disaster Response: Horn of Africa Drought Relief. To give through the congregation, make out a check to CtK with ELCA Disaster Response: Horn of Africa in the memo line, and put it in the offering plate on Sunday.
Horn of Africa drought relief
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
The worst drought in 60 years has reached crisis level in East Africa. Thousands and thousands of people in Ethiopia, central and northern Kenya, Djibouti and Somalia are leaving their homes in search of food, water and shelter.
The Dadaab refugee center, managed in partnership with The Lutheran World Federation, was built to accommodate 90,000 people. However, recently more than 380,000 thirsty and hungry people have gathered in and around the center. This number continues to grow with more than 1,000 people arriving daily.
Gifts made through ELCA Disaster Response are now providing water and enriched porridge to children and older adults who are too weak to eat dry food. Your generous gifts will make it possible for this church’s response to continue as long as the drought does and, even afterward, as the people seek to restart their lives.
Contributions made to ELCA Disaster Response, designated for the “Horn of Africa Drought Relief,” will be used entirely -- 100 percent -- for work in the area, assisting those whose lives have been affected by this terrible drought.
Your gifts of prayer and partnership are needed and deeply appreciated. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Daniel Rift
Director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal
To give online, go to ELCA Disaster Response: Horn of Africa Drought Relief. To give through the congregation, make out a check to CtK with ELCA Disaster Response: Horn of Africa in the memo line, and put it in the offering plate on Sunday.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Challenged to think critically
I need the challenge of faithful Christians to help me think critically about the Christian faith.
Conversations in the church office, at the coffee shop, in the social hall, at the door leading out from the worship space, at the mail box, in the gym, on the playground, on the hiking trail, at the grocery store, in the hospital room, at Farmers’ Market can lead to new ways of thinking critically about the Christian faith.
Reading thought provoking books, blog posts, Facebook notifications, on-line editorials, magazine articles, can lead to new ways of thinking critically about the Christian faith.
This week I was challenged to think critically about the Christian faith from a professor who I know and respect. I’ve been learning from Rolf Jacobson for twenty years now. He is a professor of Old Testament studies at Luther Seminary. I’ve heard him in the classroom, in lecture halls, on DVDs, on-line at www.workingpreacher.org (sermon preparation website) at Chico Hot Springs (a lovely setting in late winter), and from the pulpit. Rolf is of my age and vintage. He’s very humorous and very astute theologically.
Prof. Jacobson wrote an article for the theological journal “Word and World” entitled “Rethinking Stewardship: An introduction.”
In the article he makes the argument that many churches operate their stewardship campaigns from a Christendom model whereas the culture is now is post Christendom.
For example: most congregations collect offering weekly in worship.
Jacobson goes on to argue that the tradition of collecting offering in little envelopes was because a century ago many workers were paid weekly in cash and merchants balanced their tills weekly. In that context, collecting gifts weekly in little envelopes was a perfect fit.
In today’s world, many of us receive our pay stub on-line and our earnings are wired into our bank accounts. The church is using a Christendom model for offering in a post Christendom culture.
Jacobson goes on to say “Most of us church leaders give lip service to the fact that we live in a ‘post-Christendom era,’ but most of us have not let that assertion about reality trickle all the way down to the level of our congregational practices. It is time for that to change.” Ouch! Rolf got me there.
He goes on to say that we live in a culture that does not support the formation of Christian faith: one that neither teaches the Christian story nor lives within the Christian story.
Congregational practices that were designed to serve congregational mission in a “Christian culture” are not going to work in as well in a post-Christian culture.
Once again, Professor Rolf Jacobson has caused me to think critically about the Christian faith.
“We need to redesign our practices so that they help form people who belong to God (rather than assuming that the culture has helped to form them as people who belong to God, in which case stewardship is only about planning for next year’s budget).
Here’s to critical thinking (and conversation) about the Christian faith in this post-Christendom era.
Conversations in the church office, at the coffee shop, in the social hall, at the door leading out from the worship space, at the mail box, in the gym, on the playground, on the hiking trail, at the grocery store, in the hospital room, at Farmers’ Market can lead to new ways of thinking critically about the Christian faith.
Reading thought provoking books, blog posts, Facebook notifications, on-line editorials, magazine articles, can lead to new ways of thinking critically about the Christian faith.
This week I was challenged to think critically about the Christian faith from a professor who I know and respect. I’ve been learning from Rolf Jacobson for twenty years now. He is a professor of Old Testament studies at Luther Seminary. I’ve heard him in the classroom, in lecture halls, on DVDs, on-line at www.workingpreacher.org (sermon preparation website) at Chico Hot Springs (a lovely setting in late winter), and from the pulpit. Rolf is of my age and vintage. He’s very humorous and very astute theologically.
Prof. Jacobson wrote an article for the theological journal “Word and World” entitled “Rethinking Stewardship: An introduction.”
In the article he makes the argument that many churches operate their stewardship campaigns from a Christendom model whereas the culture is now is post Christendom.
For example: most congregations collect offering weekly in worship.
Jacobson goes on to argue that the tradition of collecting offering in little envelopes was because a century ago many workers were paid weekly in cash and merchants balanced their tills weekly. In that context, collecting gifts weekly in little envelopes was a perfect fit.
In today’s world, many of us receive our pay stub on-line and our earnings are wired into our bank accounts. The church is using a Christendom model for offering in a post Christendom culture.
Jacobson goes on to say “Most of us church leaders give lip service to the fact that we live in a ‘post-Christendom era,’ but most of us have not let that assertion about reality trickle all the way down to the level of our congregational practices. It is time for that to change.” Ouch! Rolf got me there.
He goes on to say that we live in a culture that does not support the formation of Christian faith: one that neither teaches the Christian story nor lives within the Christian story.
Congregational practices that were designed to serve congregational mission in a “Christian culture” are not going to work in as well in a post-Christian culture.
Once again, Professor Rolf Jacobson has caused me to think critically about the Christian faith.
“We need to redesign our practices so that they help form people who belong to God (rather than assuming that the culture has helped to form them as people who belong to God, in which case stewardship is only about planning for next year’s budget).
Here’s to critical thinking (and conversation) about the Christian faith in this post-Christendom era.
Friday, July 8, 2011
GiveBack FeedBack
Monday, July 4, 2011
July Outdoor Adventure
This will be a short, scenic hike, ideal for children. We plan to walk 1.5 miles around a beautiful forested lake, just 25 miles driving distance from Bozeman. We plan to return to Bozeman at 12noon, approximately.
Those interested can climb to Garnet Mountain Lookout or Storm Castle Peak, returning to CtK at approximately 6pm.
For more information, call Jerry and/or LaVonne Nilesen, 587-8643, and to make travel arrangements.
Friday, July 1, 2011
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