As we stand at the doorstep of new opportunities, we are like Moses on Mount Nebo. Behind him lay years of wilderness wandering. As he stood on the precipice of the mountain, God showed Moses the vast expanse of land "of milk and honey." Moses is a figure at the threshold between past and futuregrace and call.
The wilderness was not an entirely bad experience. For Israel the memory of the wilderness was a reminder of God's loving- kindness. The Christian tradition also views memory as a means to the grace by which God has blessed his people. I love the final scenes in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, when Christian is preparing to cross to the other side of the river.
These troubles and distresses that you go through in these Waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you, but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses.
In the last three years we have endeavored to call to mind the past in which we have been graced by God. We have celebrated that past by festivals, by setting a dedication stone with a reminder of our theological heritage in the Augsburg Confession (Confessio Augustana) and in the Augustana (Swedish Lutheran) tradition, and by installing a church ship (Kirkeskibe) in the nave. The latter especially serves as transition to the future. The church is like a ship which carries from the past known as grace into the future known to people of faith as our call.
It takes a tradition to prepare us for a future. That tradition is ours in word and sacrament. As we regularly hear the gospel, we become conscious of what God is calling us to doindividually and corporately. Our tradition informs us of the many times that God's people have faced the challenges of a call for the future. Will we answer the call?
What is God calling the congregation of Christ the King Lutheran Church to do? At this point in the congregation's life the Church Council is recommending to the congregation the following missional emphases.
In service to Christ and in mission to the world, we have been graced by the past and blessed with new facilities. We the people of Christ the King Lutheran Church are called to the future with these emphases in 2003:
At this point we turn confidently to the future because our memory of the past is one filled with the promise of God's presence.
Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through peril unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.