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Camp for All + July 2021

After a year plus of Covid isolation, the people of Risen Lord were more than ready fora week of evening Camp for All generations. We gathered for singing, crafts, meals, bible study/story telling, conversation, laughter, and simply reveled in being in each other's physical company! Together we looked for signs of God in our ordinary lives and cultivated practices to remind ourselves of God at work in us and in the world throughout our days.

Easter Season Baptisms + April/May 2021

Baptisms are always a time of joy and celebration as God's love is made visible in water poured and words spoken. This Easter season, three baptisms. On Easter Sunday (April 4), a baptism on a back deck. On Easter 6 (May 9) a baptism in the snow during our first in person worship since March 2020. And on Easter 7 (May 16) a baptism in the church sanctuary. Three boys. Three beloved children of God. Three inspiring moments for all.

Lenten Prayer Walk + March 2021

Camp for All + June/July 2020

Who says you can't have camp by Zoom?

This year, that's exactly how it happened, and it was fabulous!

We sang along (on mute) as the Rainbow Trail Counselors led us in all the favorite camp songs. We told a different story every night, including acting out the story of the Good Samaritan on Zoom. We did crafts together, complete with Mary's Mr. Rogers' style soothing conversation about the themes of the story coming alive in the craft. We prayed giving daily thanks for technology that allows us to be together. I loved watching the Zoom squares full of active kids ready to unmute and make a comment, dancing to the songs, showing off their newly created crafts.

Best of all, we were the church for our young ones, and for the counselor types, and for us older ones, too. And it was all kinds of holy.

Worship in a Time of Covid-19 + March-May 2020

Everything changed in March.

We last gathered in person for worship on March 8.

Since then we have been reminded that the church is not closed. The church is the people.

We have learned how to do Worship by Zoom, how to be connected in geographical community groups, how to check-in and lament, how to share life-transitions and joys, all while physically distant from one another.

Convinced that God is present with us in all things and at all times, we are committed to supporting the spiritual lives of one another so that we can muster the resiliency we need to live into these times.

Gratitude Dinner Church + 20 October 2019

This year we combined our gratitude dinner with Sunday morning worship. We told stories of gratitude for our life together at Risen Lord in 2019. People gave thanks for ministries and relationships and worship, for the stated and lived patterns of inclusion, for the multigenerational reality and the way all voices are honored. People were grateful for our multigenerational day camp, and Worship Lab, sharing the peace, and preludes by Jenny. People told stories of bringing their sometimes lost and broken selves and feeling ok about showing up real. People spoke of being grateful for a place where their young children WANT to be and a place where adults see Jesus in others. People gave thanks for the power of prayer.

And we ate soup. And shared communion. Now we have another thing to add to our gratitudes.

Worship Lab + 25 August 2019

On this day we give thanks for the gift of summer. Embedded in our thanksgiving for vacation, time with friends and family, and quiet time in the mountains, is gratitude for the abundant gifts of creation. We remember that we gather on lands that belonged to others before us, the Cheyenne and Ute Indians. We confess that we do not always steward the gifts of creation well. And we give thanks for a season of refreshment and renewal in the beauty of this earth.

Why do we acknowledge that we live and work and worship on the traditional lands of the Ute and Cheyenne people?

On a Sunday when we are giving thanks for summer renewal, it seems right to also remember that the ELCA has committed itself* to acknowledging the damage done to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas by the European migration to what Europeans called the “new world,” but which was already the homeland of many peoples, and we recognize that some Christian churches were, and remain, complicit in that dispossession, and that they helped develop conceptions of Native peoples that continue to perpetuate prejudice and injustice against them and their descendants. We confess with our Native siblings that the whole of Creation is God’s work, that God declares it all as good, and that God’s Spirit dwells with it.

God's Work Our Hands Sunday 2019

Since 2013, thousands of ELCA congregations have participated God's Work Our Hands, a dedicated day of service, gathering to serve communities in ways that share the love of God with all of God’s people. The event has quickly become an anticipated way to be “church together” and “church for the sake of the world.” The people of St Laurence Episcopal have joined us on this day since 2018. After a brief worship service, more than 50 people traveled to locations up and down the Hwy 285 corridor, along the street, outside and inside, to paint and weed and clean and pick up and chop wood, to make dog biscuits and tie blankets and connect with YAGMs through their blogs, in all ways connecting faith and action, doing God's work with our hands. God's Work Our Hands service activities offer an opportunity for us to explore one of our most basic convictions as Lutherans: All of life in Jesus Christ – every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life – flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. God’s Work Our Hands Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) – one church, freed in Christ to serve and love our neighbor.

Day Camp - July 2019

For the first time ever, Risen Lord was the site of a week-long camp for all ages, 0-99. It was amazing! Counselors from Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp and people from both Risen Lord Lutheran and St Laurence Episcopal gathered for a meal, crafts and activities, bible story telling, songs, and all things camp. We ended the week with a campfire, s'mores, and a blessing for the counselors headed back to RTLC.

Worship Lab - An Occasional, Intergenerational, Interactive Worship

Every so often we adjust worship to embrace our strengths as a right-sized, multigenerational worshiping community. Instead of one person preaching a sermon, we explore a theme together, and in the process, discover the good news alive in us. Themes so far have included: God's Story Our Story, the Global Church, Baptism, Communion, Claiming Our (ELCA) Gifts, Creeds, Thanksgiving for Summer and Creation.