Prayers for South Tacoma and her congregations

How can we pray for one another? Just list your prayer in the reply section.

September Breakfast

Fellow Ministers in the SoTac,

Jim, Rich, John, Jeff and I (Ken), had a great breakfast this morning at Celebration Christian Fellowship. El Jeffe, (which I think means 'the chief" in spanish, or maybe chef, who knows?) cooked up some good biscuits and gravy. Thanks brother for the hospitality.

It was good to sit around the table and hear how the summer had gone for us as pastors and parents. It was also good to talk about eating pigs feet, playdo and sea cucumbers (you had to be there).

Our next gathering is set for Wednesday, October 12th at 8:30 at Manitou Park Presbyterian (6613 S. Cheyenne St., right next to the park and school). The plan is as follows:

8:30 Eat and check-in
9:00 Question of the day, "What have our congregations done that has worked (not worked) to reach out to with the love of Christ to the youth in South Tacoma?"
9:30 Local issues
9:40 Pray

Finally, it was good to close in prayer. Jim asked if there were in fact ways that their church could pray for other churches. So, here's the challenge: List a prayer request you have for your congregation and post in the reply section of this blog post. We'll keep it going for the people who want to pray for one another.

Grace and Peace,
Ken

July Breakfast...oops

I received this e-mail from Jeff on Wednesday afternoon...

Ken, So sorry! I completely forgot that today was the meeting I was hosting! So no breakfast was cooking – Bill had to go home and get some apples . . . L

Anyway, the week earlier got me all messed up. I thought when my alert came on, it was so I could have time to prepare for next week . . . Apparently my logic did not prevail, and I found myself opening the door for a hungry Bill, Todd and Scott who were with the Soma Ministry group. No one else was there, must be figuring that it is next week.

So if you would let everyone know, I will be hosting (for real this time) in August. And yes Bill, we will have breakfast!

Sorry . . .

Jeff

I replied with this one...

Friends,

I'm glad I'm among folks who hold forgiveness as a core virtue because I completely forgot this morning as well. As we usually meet on the 2nd Wednesday of the month, I forgot to change my schedule for us to meet today. Turns out, Jeff and I were on the same wrong page. I echo his apologies to Bill, Todd and Scott. Sorry fellas.

However, the grace in all this is that next month we'll get another chance and to further mess things up again, I'm going to ask that we meet on the first Wednesday of the month (August 3rd) at 8:30 at Celebration Christian Fellowship. Jeff really wants the chance to make breakfast and I really want the chance to eat it.

Let me know if you can make that date and I'll try to send out a reminder.

Peace, Ken

June Breakfast

Fellow Ministers in the SoTac (I saw a shirt that had SouTac on it, which do you like better? Or perhaps another one?) Good breakfast this morning. Big thanks to Bill for hosting and for providing both the options for refined sugar (donuts) and natural (apples). This is the one case where choosing the fruit is not the sin (not saying that choosing the donuts was, mmmm).

Good time of sharing thanks for the discussions our congregational joys and struggles led to. Let's keep one another in our prayers. Given John's obvious excitement over his mentor's book series, I thought I'd list the title of the first book and author here. It is called The Genesis Genealogies and his by Rev. Abraham Park. Good luck as you good news this book.

Our next gathering is set for:
Wednesday, July 6th at 8:30 at Celebration Christian Fellowship just off 56th on the hill (where Jeff his the children's minister and we eat biscuits and gravy).

Bill will bring the question which is: "How do you preserve fruit?" In other words, how do we help newcomers integrate into the congregation and grow in Christ to bear fruit?

Grace and Peace,
Ken

April Breakfast Recap

Fellow ministers of the SoTac, Here is a brief recap of our last breakfast. Thanks to John Kim for hosting at Green Pastures, the Korean pasteries were excellent (sorry Rich for taking the last of the kind, but I hear the vegetable one and bean paste ones were still pretty tasty). Check-in. I'll leave our 5 minute updates to to confidence of the present group, but simply say thanks for sharing and allowing us to pray for one another. Question. We all read the Tacoma Weekly article "The middle years" and then Ken Schmidtke (YFC) brought us the question, "What do South Tacoma churches have to do with South Tacoma schools?" After a good discussion we were left to consider if there is some way we might be more specific in sharing God's shalom in and through the schools. Prayer. Good time of prayer. Next meeting: Next breakfast is on Wednesday, May 11th at Evangelical Reformed Church, just off 74th Street. If no one comes up with a question, Rich promises to sit and read from Calvin's Institutes in French for the full 30 minutes.

February 2011 Breakfast

Fellow Pastors in South Tacoma,

Thanks again for a great time together. Big thanks to Ken Schmidtke for hosting and giving us a lesson in fasting. Who needed the donuts anyway?

1. How's it going? It was good to hear where each of us are in ministry and personally. I really appreciated this time and you're openness. Thanks, it is encouraging.

2. A question. This morning we bounced around the question, "How do you approach leadership development in your congregations?" I won't attempt to summarize our discussion and simply say it was helpful to process some things and hear a bit about how others approach things.

3. South Tacoma. For the 2nd year in a row South Tacoma was the site of the 1st homicide which happened to be another domestic violence case. Georgia Gunzer was killed by her boyfriend just off 51st and Tyler on Januray 25th. This is a sad reminder of the great need in our community. On the positive side, we now have a grocery store in the Grocery Outlet. A great place with great deals and to run into (not over) neighbors.

4. Prayer.

5. What next? Join us on Wednesday, March 9th (Ash Wednesday) at Manitou Park Presbyterian (6613 S. Cheyenne St., next to Manitou Park, just past Manitou Elementary) at 8:30am. Our question will be on small groups, "How do you approach small groups in your congregation?"

Peace, Ken

December Breakfast Recap

As my grandpappy used to say, "Ain't nothin' like some biscuits and gravy in the morning to get the motor running." My grandfather didn't actually used to say that but I'm sure someone's grandfather has at some point. If not, perhaps Bill will start saying it as he's recently entered the world of grandpappyhood. All that to say a big thanks to Jeff for once again dishing up the goods this morning and your prayers were answered regarding the onions as there wasn't too much and the gravy was just right. Thanks.

This morning at Celebration Christian Fellowship we tried out our new format. I'm interested to hear how you all thought things went. It went as follows:

1. How are things? Everyone got 5 minutes to give an update on how life in their church and personal life was going. I really enjoyed the chance to hear from each of you and also appreciated the vulnerability. Such sharing goes a long way in developing trust.

2. Sharing questions. This Bill (Centerpointe) led a discussion on the question, "How do you sustain personal spiritual depth as a pastor?" He framed the question around a frequently recurring phrase in Hebrews, "don't let your hearts be hardened." The question was simply, 'how do we keep our hearts soft?" Again, thanks for honesty and vulnerablity in sharing. Good stuff.

3. Prayer.

4. South Tacoma stuff?
We failed to get to this section, but will try harder next time. However, I will rementiond Ken's (YFC) invitation for leaders to help out with campus life at Gray Middle School on Tuesday afternoons starting in February.

5. What next?
Our next gathering will be on Wednesday, January 12th at 8:30 at the Youth For Christ offices which is located at the corner of Center and M. (1216 Center Street, the corner of center and M Streets). Our question will be regarding leadership in the congregation. How can we be better leaders and how can we develop leaders. Yes, books have been written on those questions, but with the brilliant minds that will be present, we'll be able to answer it in 20 minutes or less. (A hint: the answer is Jesus). Reformed Rich volunteered Baptist Bill to lead this discussion again. Thanks Bill for accepting the nomination.

Blessings to all and have a great Advent, Christmas, New Year's and Epiphany.

Manitou Ken

PS. if you have further thoughts or comments, feel free to reply all to the e-mail or check out the blog at sotacministers.blogspot.com