Pastor Chuck: Singing unto the Lord a new song!

lifeatctk ♦ August 2, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

When I read an obituary or preach a funeral message, I am always humbly aware that the short inadequate summary of a person’s life is never in fact the totality of who that person was. Not even close. It is in many ways unfair to even try to encapsulate a person’s rich and complicated life with a few warm stories at the time of their death. As far as I know, I’m not on a fast track to having either an obituary or funeral sermon written or preached over me…but after years of trying to faithfully do what is impossible to do when a dear one leaves us, it makes me recognize how futile it would be to use this posting to try to sum up my 30 years of ministry here with you at CTK. It can’t be done.

So I won’t. My dearest friend Pastor Goble and my new friend Pastor Lynch have been brought together especially for us by our Lord and they are called, ready, ordained, anointed, and blessed to take our CTK family of forgiven into the unknown future with the Holy Spiritually-known love of God. How blessed we are! I hope you will thank God with me for how gloriously generous God has again been in blessing us at CTK with such a pair of inspiring pastors. God’s grace in Jesus will be faithfully offered through the Word and Sacraments with the same Lutheran doctrinal and liturgical integrity that we at CTK have enjoyed way before I got here and will continue long after I’m gone.

I’m excited for us! Our new pastoral team will build upon what has come before, bringing their own new energy and creativity to our rock-solid congregational history. Going through my files as I attempt to consolidate what I have neglected to do for over 41 years, I am running into names and mission/ministry/fellowship memories that are making the process super-slow and a little bitter and a lot sweet. I keep stopping in amazement. We’ve had some fun! We’ve come a long way, baby! It’s taking so long because I constantly sit back into my chair in moments of “Wow” (which I say out loud!) as I re-discover times and blessings that I long ago let get pushed out of my memory by new things that came along. When it comes to the rich history of CTK, what’s new doesn’t take the place of the old; it just puts another important really cool layer on it.

So I encourage you to do what I’m doing: Sing unto the Lord a new song! He makes everything new! Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice! Pastor Goble is in the process of making a wonderful future Senior Pastor, Pastor Lynch is already an awesome associate…and me? Stay tuned! I’m going to be a pretty sneaky emeritus pastor…because in concert with these younger pastors…you’ll never know when and where I might turn up!

My sincerest love in Christ to all of you!

Pastor Chuck