I am sending this out using as wide a distribution as I can, and publishing this in the CTK News hoping to generate more attendance this Saturday at Calumet as we share our annual campout with the members of IIL.  They have indicated they will bring as many as 40 people incl children!  We could be out numbered 2 to 1 unless more CTK people join us for the day.  Either way, we’ll have a great time, but I wanted to invite as many as possible knowing this will be a great fellowship event.

Here are the plans for the day as I know them.

CTK campers who wish to hike will leave Calumet around 11 am to travel to West Rattlesnake Mt. in Holderness, arriving at 11:30 or so.  Join us if you’d like to hike this easy mountain with great views of Squam lake.  Pack your own lunch for the mountain top.   

We will then return to Calumet and relax on the beach. 

The IIL people will bring some of their fantastic marinated meats to grill (if anyone can bring a portable grill to help out, that would be great).  I will bring hot dogs to grill as well.  CTK attendees should bring snacks, veggies, a side dish, dessert or beverages to share.  Also bring your own chairs to sit on. 

For those camping overnight Saturday Eirik and I will grill pancakes using the Shrove Tuesday leftovers.  We hope to offer blueberry and choc chip.  Members should bring a side dish to share such as bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, etc – or  fruit or juice .  I will cut up a fresh pineapple.

Steve Hansen

Dear Sisters and Brothers at Christ the King:

After over ten years of enriching ministry with you, I am resigning as your pastor, having been called to serve at Bethesda Lutheran Church in New Haven, Connecticut.

What a blessed time we’ve had!

We have shared many joys and sorrows together. We have welcomed children and adults through the washing waters of baptism, and many others through the affirmation of faith. We have commended pillars of the congregation to God’s final keeping after their deaths.

We have developed vision and mission statements, completed a capital appeal, expanded and renovated our facilities, strengthened our preschool and youth ministries, shepherded seminarians, and focused on Passionate Spirituality.

We have centered ourselves on the Word and the Meal, and enlivened our prayer with wonderful music, song, and art.

We have expanded our relationship with global and local partners, and contributed through advocacy and dollar toward alleviating poverty and injustice.

With my family, I enjoyed a wonderful sabbatical in 2006, and brought back a passion for our brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Jordan and the Holy Land.

Our children have grown up here, and while Kari has tried out a variety of ministries in a variety of places, she loves being with Christ the King best.

Now it’s time for another phase in our family’s life, and for my pastoral gifts to be tried out elsewhere. I am responding to a call that I believe has been prompted by the Holy Spirit.

In your own transition, you will be guided by CtK’s Congregation Council and the Bishop’s office, through our conference dean Pastor Blume and Ministry Specialist Pastor Roser.

October 23 kicks off the 19^th Annual Penny Picker drive benefiting The Nashua Pastoral Care Center. The Care Center provides the tools necessary for individuals and families to reach and maintain self-sufficiency.

Penny Picker volunteers will once again arrive in neighborhoods donning their bright yellow aprons and knocking on doors collecting pennies and spare change to support the programs of the Care Center. This fundraising event is the most unique in the area and is fun for kids, teens and families! It invites individuals and families from all walks of life to make a difference and give back to their community.

Penny Pickers come in all ages and from all backgrounds: church organizations and youth groups, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, high school honor societies and sports teams, youth soccer teams and local college students. It is a great way to earn community service credit!

Anyone can volunteer to become a Penny Picker! This year’s event will be held Saturdays: October 23, October 30 and November 6, from 9:30 to 11:30 am and Sundays: October 24, October 31, and November 7, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm. Volunteers meet at the Care Center located at 7 Concord Street in Nashua, and are supplied with Penny Picker smocks, supplies, refreshments and instructions. Teams are made up of two or more people, one of which must be a driver.

We need your help! Become a Penny Picker today by calling Mary at 886-2866 or email mwebb@nashuanpcc.org. Help the Nashua Pastoral Care Center reach their goal of 4 million pennies. Together we can change lives…one penny at a time.

ConfirCamp was an amazing experience for me; I am glad I was able to go. The great, loving counselors and adult leaders were just a couple of the things that made the trip unforgettable. I had a great time hanging out with my old friends, and making many new friends from Holy Trinity in Newington [and Concordia in Concord]. I also felt the times around the campfire and the candlelight service were once-in-a-lifetime, relaxing experiences. Camp was a wonderful way to grow in faith and be closer to God.
–Tori

Calumet is one of my favorite places in the world. It is a fabulous place to learn about God, grow in faith, and best of all, sing songs and have fun! I loved making tons of new friends and getting closer to old ones, and helping everyone be more outgoing and fun-loving! There is so much to do that let’s everyone have fun while learning and growing as a Lutheran!
–Bethany

I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)

At my nephew Andrew’s graduation from high school last Thursday, my sister Debbie reminded me of her creative gift four years ago at Greg’s, her oldest son’s high school graduation: a copy of Dr. Seuss’ book Oh! The Places You’ll Go! and a GPS.
Consider this clever writing from New England’s own Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, as a graduation speech, or an exhortation for anyone set out to travel:
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.
And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
In chapter 9 of Luke, Jesus tells his twelve disciples to pack lightly, he provides for the hungry thousands from a meager five loaves of bread and two fish, and he teaches Peter and the others the way of the cross.

In chapter 9 of Luke, we are at the pinnacle of the gospel story, the middle of the narrative, where we hear the pronouncement on the mountain from the cloud that “This is My Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

We might as well be at a graduation, from the Latin gradus, meaning “steps,” stepping stones, milestone, asking with baited breath, “What’s next?”

And if you were to hand Jesus a GPS at this point in the Gospel with Dr. Seuss’ Oh! The Places You’ll Go! in hand, the ready leader, provider, teacher, and chosen one would immediately set the device to navigate to Jerusalem.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

How many of you are traveling this summer? Will you be in your car? On a boat? In a plane? Hiking with feet in your shoes?

Well, Jesus is walking with feet in his shoes from Galilee up north to Jerusalem, the holy city, the seat of David’s kingship, the place where prophets were killed.

And we are invited to come along for the ride, where front and center, plastered over billboards, on the menu of rest stops along the way, wherever we might hang our hats for the night, the travelin’ Jesus invites us to live in and speak about the kingdom of God, the place where God invites us to be safe and saved, whole and healed, now, today.

Today’s section of the gospel begins what scholars have called the “Traveling Narrative.” In the next weeks, in this focused trip to Jerusalem, we will be battered with story after story that describes how important it is to find room for God, how important it is to offer hospitality to those are beaten up on the side of the road, how life in the kingdom is not filling ourselves up with self-occupation, self-indulgence, amassing wealth, hoarding possessions, but focusing and refocusing on life with God.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

While he has a way with rhyming stories, Dr. Seuss may not be the best theologian in the world.

In the Christian way of life, it is Jesus who invites us to go in the direction that we are to go. The call, the vocation for those who travel with Jesus, is to be his disciple. The call, the vocation for those who travel with Jesus, is to adopt the values of the kingdom that break open new doors for the poor and the oppressed, that bring about more equitable distribution of food and resources, that make room for a safe place with God, now, today.

In Luke’s traveling narrative, you will find Jesus repeatedly reminding and teaching those walking with him and toward him about a singular focus on giving away for the sake of others.

Once the traveling ends, just outside the holy city, you will find Jesus at the last stretched out in death. Someone next to him, on another cross, one of society’s rejects, asks simply to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Jesus announces to that one who did not reject him, who at the point of no return saw in the one hanging next to him the way to life, a safe place, that today he will be with him in paradise.

While I was away this past week, someone plopped an article in my box about two of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who are pressing fellow billionaires to commit at least half their wealth to a charity to draw attention to the responsibility the wealthiest have for aiding the needy. This to me is a sign of the kingdom of God. This drive, called “The Giving Pledge,” could easily double or triple the amount of philanthropy in America, says one advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett himself has pledged more than 99% of his wealth, estimated in March at $47 billion. Buffett said 1% of his wealth is enough for him and his family, and he says “neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced” by keeping more.

http://www.businessinsurance.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100616/NEWS/100619932

This is an admirable focus on what’s important. This Giving Pledge is theology in action, a demonstration of the ways of God in a world where the gap between privileged and impoverished is far too wide. This Giving Pledge fulfills Paul’s treatise on freedom in Christ to the Galatians where the “desires of the flesh” (the things that represent self-indulgence) are contrasted with the “fruit of the Spirit” where we are given over to freedom Christ, free to serve and love.

In a week of confirmation camp more than twenty years ago in Illinois, youth from Epiphany Lutheran Church in Elmhurst along with me, their pastor, marched up and down the trails and steep ridges of the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Center in Oregon, Illinois. We lived our own traveling narrative. We puzzled about the passage from Galatians and recognized the giftedness of our friendship that week, centered in Christ and the fruit of the Spirit. Our own traveling narrative found us chanting aloud, the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” wherever we walked.

And I believe in that moment we were able to contain those words in our own actions as we left behind our homes and our possessions and instead set our face on a kind of spiritual Jerusalem, which is the place where we made ourselves available to the kingdom of God in our midst, a safe place, a saving place, a healing place, which is today, now, here in our Sunday after Sunday traveling to share what we see as manna in bread and wine, food for our journey, and which is wherever we find ourselves seeking to follow Jesus this summer.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.
And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
I.N.I.

Soon after becoming a member of Christ the King I became involved in Youth Ministry and developed many wonderful and enriching relationships.  It has been an incredibly life changing experience and inspired my change in careers from banking to teaching.  I have seen many youth mature and grow in faith who have also shaped my faith.  As members of this congregation we should all be thankful for the foundation of faith that has been instilled in our youth that started at a young age and continues throughout the adolescent years.  Due to family commitments I need to lessen my involvement in youth ministry at this time.  I am stepping down as leader but I will continue to be an active member of the youth ministry team.

It is with great joy and thanksgiving that I can share with you that Staci Blecharczyk will be the new leader of CtK Youth Ministry.  Staci has been leading Youth Forum for the past few years and attended the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans as an adult leader for CtK.  In order to effectively pass on the faith we need to create a ministry team with diverse talents.  We are looking for adults and youth who can participate in planning youth events, organizing fundraisers, promotions, and attending youth events.  We ask that every congregation member prayerfully consider the opportunity to participate in this ministry.  No experience is required!!  Building faith in our youth is everyone’s responsibility.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Porpiglia

Listed below are already scheduled events for this coming year.  We are looking for youth and adults to help plan each event.  Please contact Staci Blecharczyk if you are interested or have any questions (sblecharczyk@yahoo.com or (603) 595-0651).

• Anne Marie House Run (September 19^th) – gather volunteers and work with Dennis St. Lawrence to determine how the youth can help at the event
• CtK Community Halloween Party and Youth Group Lock-in (late October)
• Youth Quake/Zone (registration happens in the fall, the event is in late January)
• Loaves and Well Wishes Fundraiser (weekend before Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter)
• Holiday Babysitting Fundraiser (one Saturday during Advent)
• Hampshire Hills Lock-in
• Soulfest (summer)