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Tuesday, March 25th, 2025

Dear Church Council & the people of Christ the King Lutheran Church,

I am writing to tell you that last Sunday, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville voted to call me to serve as their Pastor of Engagement. I will be resigning my call here at CTK to accept their call and will begin my ministry there on June 1st.

I will continue to actively serve as your Lead Pastor through Lent and Easter. My final Sunday here at Christ the King will be April 27th, and my final day will be Wednesday, April 30th when I will preach my final sermon as your pastor. I will then take my remaining three weeks of accrued vacation time, with my final date of employment at CTK landing on May 21st. Please know that until then, I remain your pastor and am available for conversation and pastoral care.

At our annual meeting in January our congregation made the difficult decision to right-size our ministry staff for the present by going down to one pastor. The Church Council has already begun the work of navigating through this transition by appointing a Call Committee. Bishop Jen Nagel and her staff will also work with you as you discern the future of pastoral leadership here. I am confident that God has plenty of vital ministry ahead for CTK. So that you can fully focus on the future, I will not be available for any pastoral care or ministries (such as weddings, baptisms, funerals, pastoral care, or counseling) after Wednesday, April 30th.

I am filled with so many big feelings at the event of this change. I am truly excited about Prince of Peace and the work that they are calling me to do there. I will be charged with developing new fresh expressions of ministry that better engage people in their 20s-40s. This is work that I am deeply passionate about. It is work that will allow me to fully focus on gathering people in innovative ways for spiritual community in a world where traditional models of faith community and religious engagement are rapidly vanishing.

At the same time, I am also very sad and conflicted about leaving all of you. When you called me to serve as your Lead Pastor nine years ago, you called me to a community here in Bloomington that was changing and diversifying day-by-day. You called me to help you adapt and redevelop the ministry of this congregation for this changing community. Together, we have done so much. Early in my tenure we laid to rest CTK’s founding pastor, Milo Engelstad, and have been in an era of institutional change ever since. Together we have faced a whole host of challenges: a global pandemic, the bombing of our neighbors at Dar al Farooq, the challenge of affordable housing, dismantling racism and responding to the murder of George Floyd, and becoming a Reconciling in Christ congregation that is public about LGBTQ+ allyship. On top of all that we have endeavored to stay true to the Word of God, to gather together for worship and community, and to share in the sacraments together.

Christ the King has done hard work over the last nine years. It is work that has increasingly sought to lift up the contributions of you, the people of the church! It can be tempting in this time of change to feel down and to long for what used to be. I encourage you, look up! You have an amazing pastor in Pastor Per, and either he or whomever the Call Committee discerns will continue to lead you forward. There is a ton of life here – in the ways the community supports one another and bears one another’s burdens, in the mission of public health and the holistic work of the Health Cabinet, in the commitment to generosity beyond the walls of this congregation, in the community partnerships that are built and cherished here, and in so many other places. God is certainly here.

Thank you so much for walking with me during these last nine years of my pastoral ministry, including through the birth of my two children, the diagnosis of Edan with SMA, beginning a journey in doctoral studies, last summer’s sabbatical, and indulging me in my love for play. I have felt blessed and loved.

And that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? Love. As one of CTK’s key Bible verses says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” (1 John 4:7). And so I leave you with that, and my deep and eternal gratitude for our ministry together.

In love and with love,

Pastor Rory Philstrom

 

 

March 25, 2025

Dear people of Christ the King,

As you have read in the accompanying email, Pastor Rory is resigning his call as our lead pastor and has accepted a call from Prince of Peace in Burnsville. He begins there on June 1. His last Sunday will be April 27th and his final sermon on Wednesday April 30th. As a congregation, we celebrate with Pastor Rory and his family for our years in ministry together and with the community of Prince of Peace in Burnsville for their work in the years to come.

Your feelings probably range from sadness at his departure and shared joy as he undertakes this new call. And perhaps some apprehension as to where our congregation goes from here and that’s perfectly natural.

As you know we had already decided at our annual meeting this January to decrease our pastoral staff from two to one pastor. Your church council has appointed a transition call committee to accomplish this. As we go from two pastors to one there is a process to follow. The call committee has met to organize and begin the work of going through the process. They will continue to meet regularly over the next weeks to work through all the steps necessary. This includes preparing our ministry site profile and preparing a job description.

We are consulting with the Minneapolis ELCA synod office for guidance and advice and will meet with them as we proceed through the process.

Yes, there will be a farewell party, scheduled for April 27. Look for upcoming details on this and other events as part of this process. We ask for your prayers as we discern our call process, for our call committee, our council, our pastors and staff, and all of you.

Sincerely,

Chris Gabel

Christ the King Council President