John Louk

Our goals for 2014 were shared at Salem's annual Church Conference on November 19. They come directly from the prescriptions we received at our Healthy Church Initiative consultation in September. This next year we will: 1. Hold a season of prayer and day of visioning to receive, articulate, and work toward a clear, compelling, shared vision for the future (then design a plan to implement the vision); 2. Develop a discipleship pathway for all ages; 3. Create a permission-giving culture for participation and process for developing ministry teams in the life of Salem, identifying one-time and short-term service options, providing opportunities to identify and share their gifts, and moving from an informational to invitational culture; 4. Design a comprehensive, lay caring and accountability system to meet the needs of all who are a part of Salem as well as a system to connect new guests fully into the life for the congregation; 5. Plan and hold a minimum of 3 "bridge...

We are having a very exciting Fall! We had our Healthy Church Initiative church consultation in September. After two town hall meetings where we discussed the prescriptions given to us by the consultation team, we voted October 14 to accept the prescriptions and begin working on them. Before the end of the year, I will be naming teams of 3-5 people to lead us in the different prescription areas. On October 13, the day before that official vote, our Salem Rising capital campaign kicked off. We are now in the midst of our six week stewardship appeal. This is an opportunity for us to grow in faith and generosity. The goals for our Salem Rising Appeal include two purposes and two commitments. We are asking everyone to prayerfully consider 1) a one year commitment to the 2014 Annual Giving Fund [i.e. our regular giving], and 2) a three year commitment to our Building Fund. Building Fund commitments need to be over and above annual giving. We are asking, most of all, that you keep Salem in...

Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. 2 Corinthians 13:5 Our Healthy Church Initiative consultation occurred September 20-22. After several months of preparation and the three-day consultation, we received the report consisting of five strengths, five concerns, and five prescriptions with deadlines for implementation. We had two town hall style meetings the first two weeks following the consultation. These times of holy conferencing were followed by a church conference on Monday, October 14 at 7:00 pm with the district superintendent. There we voted officially as a congregation and agreed unanimously to implement the five prescriptions as a whole. My initial response is that I am very pleased with our consultation experience and the direction we have received as a congregation. In terms of strengths, our consultation team experienced Salem as a warm, welcoming, spiritual congregation with gifted and effective leadership and a long history of forming Ch...

Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” Matthew 20:26b-28a A few Sundays ago we read Jeremiah’s call in worship. I said the Lord calls all of us to do something (or many somethings!). Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who join God’s work of transforming the world. So I asked, “What is God calling you to do?” both within the ministry of the church and outside the walls of the church. In her book , Ultimately Responsible , Sue Nilson Kibbey writes, “...when a person makes a decision for Christ, the old life is gone and the new life of Jesus fills the believer. So if the life of Jesus lives and is embodied in you, then you have joined Jesus on mission to serve the needs of the world. Not serving is not an option.” At times there are people who think it’s my job as the pastor to do the ministry. It is certainly ...

The Building Committee has been busy working with Point Builders and our architect, Kim Schmidt. On Sunday morning, July 28 and August 4, Kim presented the building project plans to the congregation at 10:00 am in-between the two worship services. The plans are being shared electronically, too, so they can be accessed on the website or here . While these are preliminary plans, not final plans, the Building Committee is very excited about the work that’s been done and this proposal for the congregation. They are praying it will serve Salem and the Kingdom of God in a fruitful way. As was previously reported, Salem is working with John Clark, president of The James Company, for our capital campaign to financially support our building project. What we are able to raise financially will determine what we are ultimately able to build. As a first step, a Core Group of people has been selected to work with Mr. Clark. Their work begins the first week of August. Let us continue to...

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” - Jesus (John 14:27) I have loved the name “Salem” since I arrived as pastor and learned more fully its meaning. It comes from the Hebrew word for peace, shalom . It means much more than an absence of conflict. Shalom means peace that includes wholeness, completeness, health, well-being, friendship, beauty, salvation. What a great name for a church! If we’re supposed to show the world what it means to be the world that God intended in Creation, then Salem is meant to show peace, wholeness, health, and salvation for us, our neighbors, our city, the world. When Jesus says he came that we might have abundant life, I think that’s what Jesus is talking about. As Jesus’ body in the world today, we are called to offer this peace, wholeness, completeness, health, well-being, joy, beauty, salvation to the whole world, beginning with those in our midst and those right around us. We want the people of Salem and the community around us, our ci...

The chapel at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary was packed. It was brimming with all the excitement of graduation Day, June 3, 1994. Commencement was still a few hours away. Senior chapel was just beginning, and I had been asked to preach. In my three years of graduate school I had never seen so many people in that large hall of worship. As the grand procession moved down the center aisle, I looked into the many faces and felt the fervor rising in me. The sermon started with a prayer that God might breathe life into my words. And then when I put my hands to the plow, I never looked back. At times when I was preaching I felt like I had taken a step back from the pulpit as if I was watching myself preach. In that hour I felt the power of God’s Spirit surging through that place of worship as it surged through me. In a speech to a group of teachers, Martin Buber once said that if he ever met the great Christian theologian, Karl Barth, there was only one thing this bearded Jewi...

A couple of months ago I participated in an ethics workshop for all clergy of the Iowa Annual Conference. The keynote presenter was Dr. Karen McClintock, psychologist and congregational consultant. She is the author of   Healthy Disclosure: Solving Communication Quandaries in Congregations . McClintock emphasized that pastors and congregational leaders are information trustees,  having a sacred trust with information . That is, we are entrusted with intimate details and stories from the lives of parishioners and we must act in a trustworthy manner with this information. There are several levels of information disclosure: Private (information known by only one person); Confidential (information released to a second person, usually    with the assurance that it will not be shared    with anyone else without permission); Limited Access (information known by three or more people but protected from further distribution); Open (information shared openly withi...

from last Sunday's sermon: "The one seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) God is making all things new. The text doesn’t say that God is making all new things. No, God is making all things new.  All that God made in creation is good, including us. It’s been abused and used and broken, but God isn’t going to make new things, God is renewing all that God has already made. Because all that God has already made, including you and me, is good. The image of the apple is a wonderful metaphor; it’s been eaten already but the vision is that it will be made new again. That’s what God is doing with us and with all of creation. God isn’t making new things. God is making all things just like new again. That’s an amazing promise, an awesome vision of salvation for us. (Listen to the full sermon, Making All Things New, from April 28, 2013  here )

Jesus invites us to follow him on an adventure, an exciting, hazardous risky experience. This is an exciting time at Salem. Our building project is underway. The Building Committee is doing a great job and making good progress. We have a completed contract with Point Builders and we’re working with them on expansion possibilities. This is an exciting and fun part of the process as we dream about how the new facility can be functional and beautiful. Soon we will interview companies to lead our capital campaign which could be this fall with groundbreaking next spring. We will show the congregation a well-thought-out plan by the time we get to the capital campaign. I believe the congregation will be very excited to see what is being developed. In the meantime, it would be wise for all of us to start praying about and considering what God is calling us to give. As the pastor, I know my family and I will help lead the way, so we have already placed a line item in our family budget ...

Salem owns 9.6 acres of land on Blairs Ferry Road. We have the opportunity to make that a base of operations for reaching out to new people. In 2004 the Crosswinds United Methodist Church, a new church start, joined with Salem. Salem received many of the Crosswinds members as well as 9.6 acres of land on Blairs Ferry Road. Many prayers and dreams have occurred for the possibilities with this land. Three years ago we made the decision to make 33rd Ave Salem’s new home. Choosing our new location, however, did not mean turning away from the Blairs Ferry Land. Many of us have remained very excited about the possibilities: it could be a multiple campus, a whole new congregation, or a retreat center, etc. On Tuesday, April 16 at 7:00 pm, our District Superintendent, Rev. David Crow, will preside over a Church Conference. The Leadership Board is recommending to the congregation that we sell sell 1.8 acres on the north end of our land for missional reasons. The land is necessary f...

“Watching a small child die from malaria is a horrific experience. First come the headache, tiredness, weakness in the joints and general malaise, followed by a very high fever. Then the fever’s effect on the brain causes the child’s muscles to jerk, just before the end.” ~Tom Gillem, Interpreter Jul/Aug 2009. Every sixty seconds, malaria claims another victim, but it is a completely preventable, treatable, and beatable disease. Malaria is bleeding the continent of Africa, but we can do something about it. Our Iowa Annual Conference is working together to “Imagine No Malaria.” We are working to raise funds to eliminate death and suffering from this deadly disease by the year 2015. Our congregation has the opportunity through Imagine No Malaria to save thousands of lives. “It is possible to give without loving,” said John Wesley, “but it is impossible to love without giving.” Imagine No Malaria is our opportunity to respond to our calling—to show our love through our genero...

Duke Divinity's online magazine has published an article about Salem and the experience with the flood in 2008. It is an honest look at the struggle and excitement that is the adventure of following Jesus. You can read it here . What do you think?

There's an anecdote about a dancer who, after dancing beautifully, was asked what the dance meant. She replied, "If I could simply tell you with words then I would not have to dance." I read a blog post about the meaning of story in scripture. It begins with this quote from Flannery O'Connor: "A story is a way to say something which can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say it." God didn't give us propositions to follow but rather invites us to be a part of a story, a drama that is unfolding even now. This is a good post to check out.