Joy and lots of memories welled up in me today as I joined King of Glory (KoG), Boise for worship and fellowship time. Pastor Connie Winter-Eulberg decided to preach once a month this summer on hard texts from scripture and today’s text was Judges 11:1-11, 29-40 (Jephthah). I am a proponent of the Revised Common Lectionary for lots of reasons but it of course has its limits and since not everyone wants to or can participate in Bible Study, we do well as a church to find ways to preach on texts like this one occasionally.

KoG just made some big decisions regarding land use: 1) committing to the building of affordable housing, in partnership with LEAP, on the back property of the church. The project will include the sale of land to LEAP to be placed in a Land Trust for the purpose of building eight (8) rental units to be managed by LEAP and its management company, 2) selling some land to VEOLIA for the purpose of drilling a new community well (this project includes fencing and an access road for VEOLIA), 3) retaining the current community garden.

Having lived through the acquisition of Trinity New Hope affordable housing while pastoring Trinity, Nampa (16 affordable housing units originally built in the 1990s adjacent to the church parking lot) it was good to talk about how Trinity’s neighborhood is thriving this many years later.

New stewardship of land is not the only thing happening in this congregation. King of Glory also has a long history of welcoming New Americans, primarily refugees from Africa. They are hoping to hire a new church musician soon. On Sept. 9 they will participate in the Multi-faith Action Project’s (MAP) Feed the Hungry event, a chance to build relationships with other faith communities while packing food. (Pastor Connie and I were part of forming MAP over the last year or so.) KoG will also be participating in Boise Pride in September.

When I took the call to Trinity, Nampa and moved in October 2010, Trinity needed one more Sunday with its interim pastor before I started. So my first Sunday in Idaho, Reformation Sunday, I worshiped at KoG. For a season, our pastors and deacons met regularly in the KoG conference room. In the middle of the pandemic (Spring 2021 when I had just become the cluster dean) I installed Pastor Connie as the new pastor, with just a handful of people in the sanctuary. This past spring, KoG hosted part of our Confirmation Co-op Retreat. Today, coffee hour was hosted by the Stewardship Team. KoG is, like Trinity and two other congregations in the synod, participating in GSB Fundraising’s Stewardship for all Seasons, paid for in part by a Synod Share Grant I wrote for the four churches. It was fun to hear about KoG’s ministry initiatives and what they have learned working with GSB.

I’m getting used to connecting with old friends on these visits, people like Jim Rickerd (see photo), and meeting new people. If I don’t recognize someone, I always ask how long they have been with the congregation, how they found it, and why they keep returning. The answers collectively tell a story. A surprise at KoG was meeting Pat (Harris) Herr, who grew up at Trinity, Nampa and continued to take her mom Esther Herr there for many years.