By Brett Kosec, Church Council President

As we emerge from the dark days of winter and hopefully exit the worst of the pandemic, I am encouraged and reminded daily by the impact CtK has had on its members and community. Several years ago, we hosted a number of intentional listening sessions where we spent many hours talking and listening with one another about what makes CtK the community that it is today. As a result of that process, the church council took what we heard from the congregation and began developing a new set of core values. We then presented those values at the annual meeting in early 2020, before lockdown and the pandemic took us away from in-person gathering and being able to continue to explore and lean into these newly defined core values.

So the council, in recent months, has been asking the question, “what can we do to continue those conversations around our core values and showcase how those values play out in our daily lives together?” As a result, we have decided to spend the next four months focusing our energy and reflections on a different core value each month. Below, you can see each month’s value:
 
May: Engaging Worship - We value worship as a vital for our growth as the Body of Christ, and seek ways to share in a variety of roles within the Body.
June: Building Community - We value strength in diversity and strive to build a beloved community by actively inviting our neighbors to share in God’s mission.
July: Growing Compassion - We value God’s calling to care for all creation through compassionate justice, service and prayer.
August: Nurturing Faith - We value preparing all ages to live out their faith in daily life, offering hope and encouragement.
 
Each month, we will have different Sunday blog posts that focus on the month’s core value. These blog posts will be authored by council members, staff and congregation members. We will have an introduction to each core value, see how those core values are put into action by various parts of our congregation, and look ahead focused on that core value. We will also provide you with concrete practices to help you start to put these values into practice every day.

We look forward to this exploration of our core values together and seeing all of you again in the coming months.