King of Kings Lutheran Church

11/04/2025

05/23/2024

Please join us on June 22nd for our Annual Summer Craft & Boutique Sale! Spaces are still available. This event is sponsored by WELCA. We hope to see you there!

05/15/2024

SAVE THE DATE! 2024 Day Camp is coming SOON! Day Camp is our church's Vacation Bible School. It will take place June 10-14 from 9 am - 2 pm. Join us for bible study, crafts, singing, skits, and more! This year, we will serve lunch and go for two extra hours into the afternoon, and a special closing ceremony with lunch on Friday when parents come to pick up at noon.

Camp is FREE and open to children entering pre-school through entering sixth grade in the fall. Older children and teens are welcome to come help! Every camper gets a t-shirt for free!
We need lots of volunteers and donations to make camp happen, so look for sign ups, registration forms, and more information at church. We hope to make Day Camp a big success this year! We are so looking forward to seeing everyone! Call the church office or email us at [email protected] for more information!

10/18/2023

King of Kings friends, we need YOU to participate in our annual Christmas program! Join our Sunday School class as we put on a program that is sure to be lots of FUN, with songs that you already know and love! Come see Elisa at church or call the office for more info. We're excited to include all ages in our annual musical event this year!

05/19/2023

SAVE THE DATE! 2023 Day Camp is coming SOON! Day Camp is our church's Vacation Bible School. It will take place June 12-16 from 9 am - 2 pm. Join us for bible study, crafts, singing, skits, and more! This year, we will serve lunch and go for two extra hours into the afternoon, and a special closing ceremony with lunch on Friday when parents come to pick up at noon.

Camp is FREE and open to children entering pre-school through entering sixth grade in the fall. Older children and teens are welcome to come help! Every camper gets a t-shirt for free!

We need lots of volunteers and donations to make camp happen, so look for sign ups, registration forms, and more information at church. We hope to make Day Camp a big success this year! We are so looking forward to seeing everyone! Call the church office or email us at [email protected] for more information!

04/10/2023

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” John 20:26

Easter Monday is always an interesting day. The vacation day after Holy Week. The break for pastors after the big celebration of resurrection.

Easter Monday always feels like a new start. A new day. A new year in the middle of the old year. Now things have changed. We have seen the risen savior. We have been to the tomb. We have heard the women's message. Life is different now, right?

And yet life is the same as it was before Easter, as it was before this Lenten journey. Still people are hungry and need food. Still people live in their tent cities within our actual cities. Still people stand on the streets with cardboard signs needing help. Still people want for clothing, warmth, friendship, community. Still things are the same as they were before.

And yet something is different here. Something has changed. Perhaps that is me. Perhaps I am the one who has changed in this world of endless need where people are living in tents within our cities. Perhaps my eyes have opened, my heart has been raised from the dead. Perhaps it is me who needed to be changed in this journey all along. For only a transformed believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ could witness the wounds of my neighbor and not be overwhelmed by them. Only one who has seen Jesus and the marks on his hands and side could endure the wounded marks in others. The wounded Christ brings peace to all.

But peace also brings action. For there is so much to do. So many needs to be filled. But Christ has risen. Death has been swallowed up in victory. There is hope for all.

God of resurrection, pull me by your spirit out into the world where the needs of others are so great. Give me courage to stand amid that need and do what I can to help. Amen.

04/09/2023

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. Mark 16:6

He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Resurrection Sunday is quite a celebration. Here we celebrate, not just that Jesus Christ, one who died, is now risen. But we celebrate how God has shown how God works in the world. God has said "Yes!" to Jesus. To everything Jesus said. Everything Jesus did. All the nonviolence that Jesus showed. All the things Jesus taught. God has said "Yes!" to all of them by raising him from the dead.

Not only that, but God has now, through Jesus, raised all the dead who have died throughout the ages. The Resurrection of the Dead has occurred in Jesus Christ. He has become the life of all the living and all the dead. He is alive!

Resurrection is a lot to wrap your head around. Maybe that's why we prefer thinking about heavenly clouds instead of heaven on earth. Imagining a Christ who comes with a sword to punish his enemies. Thinking perhaps that all that Jesus taught was well and fine for his first trip, but on his next trip he'll come and punish his enemies (like he should have before!)

Resurrection shows us that Jesus is still alive. And active. Moving in and among us even now. As the Risen One, Jesus takes the burdens of others upon himself. Be they boulders pushed up hill or other burdens, Jesus takes them all to the cross and then gives life, resurrection life, to those who are suffering.

Christ is alive. Today, may that news truly be as good as it’s ever been!

O God who raised Jesus from the dead, grant us the grace to see your presence here. Help us shoulder the burdens of others as you did. And give us your resurrection life. Amen.

04/08/2023

Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden, there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. John 19:41

It's Holy Saturday. The dark day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
It's a day we contemplate what just happened and what will happen. In some churches, an Easter Vigil is held to mark, with darkness and light, what resurrection truly means.

It's Holy Saturday. But we know something. As Christians who have heard the news of the resurrection, we know that new life springs tomorrow. Jesus doesn't stay dead. He is risen, no matter how we feel.

It's Holy Saturday... and we pause. Many of us live in this dark day. We find it refreshingly familiar. There's control here. There's predictability here. When others have dared tell us the good news, we scold them. "How can you be so happy? You shouldn't be so free!"

It's Holy Saturday, but tomorrow is Sunday. And the stone will be rolled away. The dead will be raised. Jesus will be proclaimed alive. And everything we thought we could control, including each other, dies along with it. For freedom, Christ will have set us free. And some will no longer be tethered by a yoke of slavery again.

It's Holy Saturday... but if you squint you can see the light of a new dawn, the resurrection is almost at hand, and freedom for all awaits!

God of all, help us to celebrate the freedom others have found in you. May we not roll stones where you have rolled them away. Give us grace to believe in your resurrection coming tomorrow. Amen.

04/07/2023

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24

I love hiking. My family and I have walked many trails since moving back to Southern Colorado and we intend to hike many more. One of the things I marvel at when hiking is the work involved in setting up the trail to begin with. Someone had to be there before I was. Someone had to have dug these trails and planned this route. Someone had to have walked these footsteps before me.

That's how I have begun to see the path that Jesus walked to the cross. Jesus walked a path of nonviolent resistance to unjust power and authority. He died at the hands of the Roman empire. His death was supported by the most religious people in Jerusalem. He knew that he was going to die, but he went anyway. He walked that terrible path, plunging through the wilderness, why but to create a path through for me.

Jesus knew the path he would walk through the world would result in his death, but he walked it anyway. He knew what stirring people up in Jerusalem would do and yet he stirred them anyway. He knew that nonviolence meant to die on a cross and he died there anyway.

We are called to follow that same trail he has forged. To confront the powers of injustice in our world with the same determination. To walk the way of nonviolence as he did. And to expect the same treatment. For this violent world doesn't stand for those who nonviolently resist it. But that is the path he has forged for us to walk.

Almighty God, thank you for all that Jesus did in his suffering and death on the cross. Give me your Holy Spirit, too, that I may walk that same path in pursuit of justice. Amen.

04/06/2023

So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. John 18:3

I can't wrap my head around how the disciples must have felt when they saw Judas, one of their own, leading a detachment of Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus. I can't imagine the look of horror on their faces as Judas pointed Jesus out to the mob. I just can't.

But I can understand what the disciples did after Judas had hung himself. It's what we all do when someone betrays us. We demonize them. We shun their memory. We cast everything they did in a negative light. "I remember when he..." always turns negative. I've heard past pastors spoken of in this manner, especially ones whose flock felt they betrayed them. I've seen the pain turn to hatred. Everything they did was wrong. Everything.

We must remember this and take the high road. We must love the Judases as well as the Peters, the traitors as well as the faithful ones. We must. That is our test. To love those who we feel betrayed us is the ultimate test to this nonviolent love that Jesus was proclaiming. Will we love the traitor just as Jesus did? Or will we demonize them and cast everything they did in the worst possible light? The choice is ours to make. For Jesus loves Judas and the traitors around us as intensely as before. Might we do the same?

Almighty God, your love knows no bounds. Help me love the traitors, the enemies, and even those who would harm our community, just as you loved Judas. Amen.

04/05/2023

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
John 8:7

I wish it wasn't true but we Christians are terrible when it comes to throwing stones at others. I have thought long and hard as to why. Maybe it’s because we like to be right. Maybe it’s conformity, we like everyone to think, act, love, and identify the same way. Maybe it’s to take attention away from our own sins. Whatever the reason, we love to throw stones at those we think are worse sinners than we are.

Jesus confronted this tendency too, in a story from the Gospel of John. Here a group of men hauled a woman, caught in adultery, before Jesus to ask what size of stone they should use to stone her. Jesus, playing in the dirt, agrees to the stoning. Only, "Let the one who has no sin cast the first stone." All of her accusers have sinned. The only one who has no sin is the one who said this. After the men leave, Jesus turns to her and tells her that he won't cast any stone at her. "Go and sin no more."

We focus on those last words when what we should see is where Jesus is throughout this encounter. Jesus is sitting on the ground. The woman too is on the ground. Any stone thrown would also hit him as well. Jesus doesn't stand with the accuser. He sits with the one being accused.

How I wish we would sit next to Jesus instead of standing with those who accuse, or worse. Sitting idly by and watching them stone someone on the ground. May we be like Jesus and sit with those who are hurt for what they believe.

Give me strength, Lord, not to sit by and watch or pick up a stone and throw but give me strength that I may stand near those who are treated unjustly. Amen.