Youth Sunday and Special Offering

I grew up in a church smaller than Resurrection. Our high school youth group (called “Luther League”) had 6-10 active youth. We had game nights and occasional Bible studies. We went on camping trips and hikes.  But our biggest events was when we went to the special youth gatherings in Seattle where several hundred high school youth would sing, shout and experience God’s love and grace together. At these gathering, I felt connected to something bigger, deeper, and wider than my small Luther League. Jesus came alive for me at these mass gatherings. The seeds for my calling as your pastor were sown at these events. 

This summer the youth of Resurrection will have the opportunity to experience God’s love in such a setting.  Every three years our national church body organizes a national youth gathering where over 35,000 high school youth and adults come together to worship and serve, play and converse. This year’s ELCA Youth Gathering is in Detroit starting July 15. During the day we will participate in various service opportunities; in the evening we will gather at Ford Field for special speakers and music. You can read more about the ELCA Youth Gathering here.  I plan to attend with Hannah Koehler (Director of Family-based Youth Ministry), John Moore, Leslee Donovan and our ten youth. 

On Sunday, March 1^st, the Resurrection’s youth will be a vital part of our worship as they speak to why they feel called to attend the National Youth Gathering. They will share how they hope this will impact their walk with Jesus. They will be asking for your prayers and encouragement as they prepare for the event. They will also be asking that each member of Resurrection contribute to a special offering that will help pay for the trip.

The registration cost for the Gathering is significantly more than the youth’s annual mission trip. Your generosity will help to make this event happen for our youth. As a congregation we make a covenant with each baptism that we will help our children and youth grew in faith in Christ. Their trip is an outreach of our entire congregation as we seek to call our youth to the Vibrant Life of Faith in Christ. It is your opportunity to plant and water God’s seeds of faith in their lives. Who knows?  Someday, one of them may be your pastor! 

 O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. Psalm 71:17

Pastor John Keller 

Connecting With God on Your Walk Through Lent

Lent is a season in the church year, traditionally set aside by Christians as a time for reflection, repentance, and renewal. The forty days of Lent echo the forty days the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness and the forty days Jesus endured in the wilderness after his baptism. The forty days exclude Sundays, since every Sunday is a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.  With Ash Wednesday on February 18, Lent begins. People with a background of observing Lent have often devoted added attention to spiritual practices of prayer, giving, and fasting. Each of these can be considered a spiritual discipline. What is a spiritual discipline? Ash Wednesday’s message The Way is Made By Walking will include a response to that question.

Author James Bryan Smith describes spiritual disciplines as soul-training exercises, wise practices that train and transform our hearts. These practices can range from familiar ones such as worship, service, or Scripture meditation, to silence or solitude, frugality, sacrifice, or even celebration. Some are activities of engagement, or things you do. Others are activities of abstinence, refraining from or going without something. Spiritual disciplines are practices, not resolutions. All are habits undertaken to turn our attention more fully to God. We embrace spiritual practices because we love God and want to lean into Him and know Him better. Spiritual disciplines can help us slow down, reflect on our relationship with Jesus, and create space that helps us more fully experience the kingdom of God. Spiritual disciplines foster the vibrant life we have in Christ. They are attempts to practice ways that Jesus lived, revealing vital steps in any Christian walk. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  Jan Johnson has written much about spiritual disciplines and she reminds readers, “It’s about relationship—interacting with God, abiding in Christ, and living according to the Spirit.” 

Ideas will be provided on Ash Wednesday that may inspire a new Lenten practice for you. Many of the suggestions will be for a spiritual practice you can try on your own; for example, you may read Jesus’s prayers in the Gospels throughout Lent, and try praying as he did. A few group opportunities, such as a weekly time of centering prayer and lectio divina, are also planned. You may be part of a group focusing on gratitude, thanking God privately, but meeting with others to write cards and prayers of thanksgiving. Begin praying now for God to reveal to you an area of need or a spiritual discipline to try during Lent. Author Jan Johnson suggests, “Ask God to show you what discipline would best help you connect with Him.” Begin Lent with worship at 7pm on Ash Wednesday.

Written by: Sarah Storvick

Feed My Starving Children

God calls us into action.  Our faith is more than our words; it is taking the first baby step in getting out of our comfort zone and loving radically for Jesus through our actions. Little did I know last October when I boarded the airplane at 6:00 AM at our local airport and arrived at our final destination Port Au Prince, Haiti, my life would be turned upside down in every good way.  My world instantly had just gotten a little bit bigger. God was opening my heart to see the beauty and the pain that exists in Haiti.  My definition of beauty started to expand while I was there.  In the midst of garbage and tent cities, I saw beautiful people with overflowing hearts for their people and for their country. God was and is clearly present in Haiti. 

While in Haiti, one of the opportunities our team had was to put love into action; we delivered Feed My Starving Children boxes filled with manna packs to Isaiah’s Orphanage.  Having many experiences serving on the side of packaging manna packs at multiple locations in the Twin Cities, it was surreal to be on the other side and handing the boxes to the caretakers at the orphanage.  To be a first hand witness and see how Feed My Starving Children was making a difference in the world was unbelievable. Once we delivered the manna packs, we worshiped in creole, Glwa pou Bondye (Glory to God).  We proclaimed these words together through song and worship and tears fell from my eyes as I was blown away by God’s love for all people.    

 

I invite you to join me in serving at Feed My Starving Children with Resurrection on Friday, February 13, 2015 at the Eagan packing site. Our congregation is being challenged to fill an entire shift of 140 spots at Feed My Starving Children. I know the power of distributing food, but the food would not be distributed if we did not have volunteers to pack the food at each packing site.  We do not have to travel to a third world country to make a difference. We can serve right where God has planted us. 

Please sign up to take an hour and a half of your Friday evening and join Resurrection friends at the packing party on February 13^th.  At the end of the night, we can give God all the glory for what He has done in our lives and in the lives of others. Let’s get out of our comfort zone together and be doers of love.

Written by: Hannah Koehler

Leadership

Look around the Resurrection community and you will see the results of various leaders’ efforts. Each team, each worship celebration, each confirmation class, each retreat or camp or high school thing or service project is the result of someone, or better yet, a team of someones, leading the way. Numerous youth and children’s ministry leaders at Resurrection have been to Youth Leadership workshops, where they repeat often, “Nothing happens without a leader.” Ministry and serving opportunities are truly limitless, but as a congregation, we can only pursue and develop the ones with someone, staff or volunteer, willing to serve as a leader. 

Smiling leaders at Resurrection

That may mean being a coordinator, a team member, or a champion for a new idea. Leading can take the form of shepherding a small group of 2^nd graders on a Sunday morning, organizing the Resurrection family for Faith in ACT!ON Day, inviting members to serve as lobby hosts, helping Resurrection focus on mission as a member of the Mission Leadership Team, or giving your passions and energies to developing outreach ministry here.  An example of the impact of a leadership void is the Resurrection garage sale.  With too few willing leaders and participants taking over from past coordinators, that event will not be held in 2015. While there are many reasons to let go of some programs, the presence or absence of leaders can be a primary reason. Styles of leadership vary; perhaps you are being called to move into the role of shepherd, pacesetter, guide, organizer, or mentor. As Jesus modeled, being a servant leader is a high and holy calling.

On Thursday evening, January 22, ministry leaders gather for Resurrection’s first leader summit of 2015. The leader summit is a gathering of leaders, and potential leaders, to offer a time for fellowship with peers, a chance to equip all who work with volunteers, an opportunity to share ideas or concerns, and a venue for communication among leaders and Mission Leadership Team members. It is good and helpful to come together as we enter a new calendar year and to support one another as we strive to live out Resurrection’s mission to call all people to a vibrant life of faith in Christ.

As we prepare to gather leaders, it is important to remember that in any church, the need for new leaders is always present. New ideas, your unique gifts, various insights and experiences all add much to the life and ministry of Resurrection. Whether you are serving in a leadership role or would like to get involved at some point in the future, you are invited to the January 22 leader summit.  While there are many ministries in which to get involved, one key leader need is the role of Outreach Coordinator. If you have a heart for missions, for needs in our local community and beyond, please talk to church staff or Terri Dokken, who served faithfully in this role for many years. As we trust, live and serve we know there are opportunities being missed, or potential untapped, without someone currently directing this vital aspect of our call as Christians.

The leader summit is also an opportunity to pause and remember the one who leads us all . . . he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. from Psalm 23  Join us.

RSVP appreciated. 

Written by:  Sarah Storvick

Home for Christmas

Advent is a time of waiting, expectant waiting. I, and some of you, had the opportunity to spend time with waiting families last week. My husband Jon and I spent one night at Hope for the Journey Home, a wonderful local ministry providing housing and support for families who are temporarily homeless. In their waiting, they quickly form a new community with their housemates, caring for each other's children, offering supportive stories of job searches, and become family for one another, at least for this stretch of life's journey.

Whenever I leave after a shelter shift, the faces and stories of the residents stay with me. I wonder when their hope for a home will be realized, I ache for teenagers sharing a room with their family weekend after weekend, I imagine the middle-of-the-night worries of parents or the situation of children who can not invite a friend over to play. Spending time there during Advent revealed the story of another family in a new light. Mary and Joseph, having likely endured scorn, confusion, uncertainty, or an exhausting journey, are expectantly waiting for the birth of not only a baby, but the Messiah. Overwhelmed, surely. And then there is no room. Yet we don't read of Mary asking, "Why, God?" or Joseph quipping, "Seriously?" Instead, we are given their story of hope and of home. That night, home was not a cozy, Christmas tree-lit house, but something closer to a cave with a feeding trough cradle. Yet, perhaps alongside newly formed community, it was sufficient for Mary, for Joseph, for Jesus. Room enough.

This Advent, one of the women's groups is reading Not a Silent Night: Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem. Each of us marvels in some way at Mary's faithfulness, trust, patience, fortitude, joy, heartache, or some blend of all of these. As I reflect on Mary's experiences of waiting, and of their Christmas 'home', and then spend just one night in the presence of families living in limbo, I find room. Room to be more patient in crowded shops or with ever-changing family plans, room for time in God's word, room for altered Christmas expectations, room for change in my attitude, my priorities, my heart.

A friend's facebook post shared a Frederick Buechner reflection on home. He recalled preacher George Buttrick responding to the common December question, "Are you going home for Christmas?" "His answer was that home, finally, is the manger in Bethlehem, the place where at midnight even the oxen kneel. Home is where Christ is." Buechner writes, "I believe that Buttrick was right and that the home we long for and belong to is finally where Christ is. I believe that home is Christ's kingdom, which exists both within us and among us as we wend our prodigal ways through the world in search of it." The name for our local shelter is suddenly even richer with meaning. Hope for the Journey Home. I wish for you that Advent hope as you journey home for Christmas.

Written by: Sarah Storvick

The Thanksgiving Cure

Last Sunday I challenged the congregation to make this week, Thanksgiving Week, by writing down each day one specific thing for which they are grateful.  Not just a general concept like family or friends, but a specific, concrete experience from that day, such as the laughter of your child when you tickled her or the small display of affection you shared with your spouse or the delicious chocolate chip cookie you enjoyed.

I based my thoughts partly on Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Just like you, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists that have us escaping our everyday lives for exotic experiences. “How,” Ann wondered, “do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long—and sometimes even dark? How is God even here?”

In One Thousand Gifts, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts. It’s only in this expressing of gratitude for the life we already have, we discover the life we've always wanted … a life we can take, give thanks for, and break for others. We come to feel and know the impossible right down in our bones: we are wildly loved — by God.

Ann goes on to describe how we often live a Waiting Room Life in which we are always waiting for the next Big Thing to happen, counting down the days until we can live the life we desire or expect.   Meanwhile, God is active all around us and we are not willing or awake to see God's daily activity in our life.  Ann's cure for the Waiting Room Life is to embrace thanksgiving, to practice gratitude everyday.  Here is a short video that captures some of the joy of practicing gratitude.

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As I write this blog post, I am grateful for the laughter I shared this morning with our staff.  Sue and Sarah and Hannah often help me see the humorous side of life, especially my own.  This morning Sue asked me if I was willing to write the blog post for this week.  I first said grudgingly, "Of course," thinking to myself "My turn again?"  She then observed that it could be on Thanksgiving. I thought, "how ironic that I feel unenthusiastic to write about Thanksgiving, when I challenged the congregation to be thankful all week." When I saw my ungrateful behavior, I laughed, knowing that I still need plenty of practice in developing a grateful attitude. Thus I am thankful that Sue made me laugh at myself.

For what are you thankful today?

Pastor John Keller