Thank You from Family Promise

Happy 5th Day of Christmas!

Below is a video from Family Promise of Gallatin Valley, thanking all their volunteers and supporters for so much good work in 2012.
Christ the King Lutheran Church supports Family Promise financially throughout the year, sends youth to help clean up the Day Center during the Middle School Service Plunge, and also opens our building to house families for a month each summer. THANK YOU to all the volunteer meal hosts and overnight hosts, those who help with set-up, clean-up, laundry and ALL that goes in to helping end homelessness, one family at a time.

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Happy Fourth Day of Christmas!

Today is the Day of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs. The infant martyrs commemorated on this day were the children of Bethlehem, two years old and younger, who were killed by Herod, who worried that his reign was threatened by the birth of a new king. Augustine called these innocents "buds, killed by the frost of persecution the moment they showed themselves." Those linked to Jesus through their youth and innocence encounter the same hostility Jesus encounters later in his ministry. (From Sundays and Seasons Year C 2013, published by Augsburg Fortress)


If you want to read about the Holy Innocents, head to Matthew 2:16-18. 

As much as this story is a "downer" in the midst of Christmas, it serves as a reminder that Jesus was born into the real world, a world full of beauty and love, yes, but also full of danger and sin. Perhaps it can inspire us to offer blessing and care to the "Holy Innocents" of our times and places.

Happy Third Day of Christmas!

St. John the Evangelist and Theologian, Russian Icon, 18th C

Today is the feast day of St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist.

John, the son of Zebedee, was a fisherman and one of the Twelve disciples of Jesus. John, his brother James, and Peter were the three who witnessed the light of the transfiguration. John and James once made known their desire to hold positions of power in the kingdom of God. Jesus' response showed them that service to others was teh sign of God's reign in the world.

Tradition has attributed authorship of the gospel and three epistles bearing his name to the apostle John. John is a saint for Christmas through his proclamation that the Word became flesh and lived among us, that the light of God shines in the darkness, and that we are called to love one another as Christ has loved us.

Information taken from Sundays and Seasons Year C 2013, published by Augsburg Fortress

Merry Christmas!

May the joy of the Christ's birth fill your heart and home this day and always!

Light Looked Down

Light looked down
and saw darkness.
"I WILL GO THERE," SAID LIGHT.

Peace looked down
and saw war.
"I WILL GO THERE," SAID PEACE.

Love looked down
and saw hatred.
"I WILL GO THERE," SAID LOVE.

So he,
the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace,
the King of Love,
came down
and crept in
beside us.

- From Cloth for the Cradle, by the Iona Community/Wild Goose Worship Group

2012 Christmas Message from Bishop Mark Hanson

This year's Christmas message from the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA is below.
Merry Christmas!

A different way to observe Christmas

Join us at Christ the King on Thursday, December 20th at 7 p.m.  as we gather together for a worship service that is a different way to observe Christmas.

The service is called "A Blue Christmas." It is a Christmas service designed for people who have a hard time putting on a happy face because of loss of a job, end of a marriage, death of a loved one, or poor health.

The service is filled with prayers, laments, reflective readings from the Bible, and quiet carols of Christmas. It also contains a message of hope, the Good News of God in Jesus Christ that can break through our blues and remind us of God's love.

For more information, contact Pastor Grant at the church office Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The first week of Advent

We are at the midpoint of the first week of Advent, and once again I wish I'd spent a bit more time getting ready to mark this season of getting ready. Somehow I find that the older I get the more I need to prepare to prepare...
We are enjoying the new yule log made at last Sunday's Family Advent Festival each night - light the first candle while we do our evening devotions. Of course the resident two-year-old doesn't quite understand why we aren't lighting all four candles - "More candles!" she demands, as we blow out the match after lighting only one.
Our household is using a devotion from Luther Seminary for Advent this year. You can find it here, as well as on the right-hand side bar on this blog, under "God Pause."
Looking for something different for Advent? Try Silver and Gold Have We None, an Advent devotion from the Lutheran Compass Center in Seattle.
Or check out The Advent Devotional Project, put together by a Montana Synod member.

Tonight we begin our midweek soup and bread suppers (at 6pm) and services of Holden Evening Prayer (7pm). I encourage you to take some time to slow down during this busy season of the year, and join with your brothers and sisters in faith to sing, pray and reflect on Christ's light breaking into our darkness.

(And if  you want to sing with the choir during Advent and Christmas, stick around for choir rehearsal, which will begin right after evening prayer concludes.)