Epiphany Season (Year B) Bulletin Cover

In these weeks leading up to the season of Lent, the gospel passages in the church lectionary introduce us to the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry. In Mark 1:15, Jesus proclaims that the kingdom of God has come near; the invitation to all is to repent, believe, and to come and follow him as disciples, learning how to live in the world while acknowledging Jesus as the ultimate authority and ruler.

To tie this theme together, I created this bulletin cover. I tried to find a photo of a country road here in Nebraska, since we follow Jesus right here and right now.

New Adventures in the Last Few Months

It's been quite a while since I posted anything here! It's been an interesting few months - here's the quick version:

While unemployed for a few months, I decided to act on a dream of mine and opened an Etsy shop. I worked and worked to create a variety of table linens with life-inspired, hand-designed prints. It has been so much fun creating beautiful things, sharing them with others, and receiving compensation for my hard work!

Then, at the end of November, by the grace of God, I was able to act on another dream of mine! I was installed as the Interim Pastor at the Evangelical Covenant Church in a charming little town in northeast Nebraska. Greg and I have now been settled in Wakefield for almost two months and are enjoying life here.

It has been challenging and fun to plan worship, preach on a regular basis, teach Confirmation to four wonderful junior high students, hear the stories of the people who call this church home, work with leaders in our congregation and in the community, and prayerfully discern where God is leading this body of believers.

Slowly but surely, I am finding a rhythm for how life works as a full-time pastor. I know that I need to not just use my head but use my hands and stay in touch with my creative side. I had to take a break from creating new inventory for my shop, but hope to get back at it soon!

Sermon at Grace Covenant Church, August 14, 2011

This is the last sermon I preached as Pastoral Intern at Grace Covenant Church in Chicago, IL. If you listen to the first few minutes of the sermon, you will hear how much I appreciated being able to serve in that wonderful place! I am so grateful to the community there that welcomed and nurtured me as I grew into my call during my last year of seminary.

This sermon was one of the last in the series on Ephesians 6:10-18, reflecting especially on the last verse, encouraging the church to "pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people." I also studied and preached on Luke 18:1-8, the parable of the persistent widow.

"Keep on Praying" - August 14, 2011 by Kelly Gillan Johnston

Sermon at Grace Covenant Church, July 10, 2011

This sermon was a part of a series on the "armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6:10-18 - we called the series "Grace in Action," and on this particular Sunday I was preaching on having "feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace" in verse 15. I also drew from Ephesians 2:13-22 to help us explore the idea of Christ as our peace.

The actual sermon is about 20 minutes long - the end of the recording includes a guided time of congregational prayer.

"Prepared for Action: Peace" - July 10, 2011 by Kelly Gillan Johnston

Thank You Notes

I have a love/slightly-despise relationship with thank you notes. On the one hand, I sincerely enjoy expressing my gratitude in my own hand writing. On the other hand, I have a lot of guilt about the thank you notes that don't get sent. Five years after my wedding, I can still remember a few of the thank you notes that were returned to me because of a wrong address; I was unable to re-send a few of those, and I still feel bad that those people weren't thanked! Plus, there are certain very generous people in my life (primarily my parents and my inlaws) to whom I owe approximately 1,492 thank you notes each. That's a lot of catching up to do.

One of the things that makes a thank you note extra special is when it's made by hand. I made most of the thank you notes for wedding gifts using paper leftover from our invitations. This photo is of the most recent set that I made, using hand-carved rubber stamps I designed. I was really blessed by several folks when I graduated from seminary, and I just had to send them something special, so I made these.

Sermon at Grace Covenant Church, June 5, 2011

I was both intimidated and excited to be asked to preach the last sermon in a series on generosity at my church. The text for the sermon was 1 Timothy 6:7-10, 17-19 - Paul's final instructions to Timothy in addressing wealth in the church in Ephesus.

"Generosity: Living the Rich Life" - June 5, 2011 by Kelly Gillan Johnston

Bulletin Cover

Our church recently voted to embrace "Going deeper in Christ and further in mission" as our statement of response. With John 15:5 as a foundational verse, one of our pastors thought the image of a tree with roots and branches would help visually communicate our desire to remain in Jesus, going deeper in our spirituality and walk with God, while we also bear much fruit, going further in the mission that God has for us. So I created this image, which is now on the cover of our bulletins, incorporating our church logo in the bottom right corner (which I did not create). I had fun doing it, and as I worked on those little details on the roots, I found that I was praying for my own roots to go down deeper in the love of Christ!