Grace Notes: Staff/Council Retreat

Dear faithful people of Christ the King Lutheran Church,

We have a marvelous tradition at Christ the King Lutheran Church: our staff and elected leaders each begin the new year with a retreat to ask God to send the Holy Spirit to be present with, inspire, guide, and encourage our congregation in the new year. Those retreats occur this week: the staff retreat on Thursday and Friday, January 8 and 9; the council retreat on Friday and Saturday, January 9 and 10. Both will happen at Lutherhill in Galveston. 

I ask you to pray for both, not only for the success of our ministry and mission in this new year, but also that God would prepare us for renewed and revived ministry and for the calling of a new pastor.

Here’s a prayer we can all pray together on those days.

Gracious God, pour out on our elected parish leaders and staff members the gifts of your Holy Spirit -

the spirit of wisdom and understanding, 

the spirit of counsel and might;

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord;

the spirit of joy in your presence.

Uplift their hearts to new love, 

  new energy, new devotion, that with them, 

we may be unburdened from the grief and shame of past unfaithfulness and go forth in your strength to persevere through success and failure, 

good and evil, 

and have the strength to do what is good and just for all people. 

We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

We will pray for our new congregation council officers on Sunday and report on this retreat in next Monday’s Grace Notes.

Peace and Joy---and Courage!

Mandy

Amandus J. Derr

Interim Senior Pastor