Dear Bay Shore,
What a busy few weeks and October looks to be the same. Not only is “church” busy, but I am also getting everything ready for a wedding. I’m too excited to be exhausted!
I have two important things to share with you about our Strategic Plan Process (and how you can help) and this Saturday’s Black Lives Are Sacred gathering.
Strategic Planning Process
First, I am so grateful for our Guiding Team members who have faithfully led us to this next step, we owe them a sincere “thank you!”: Kerry Bantz, Curran Burns, Reed Groethe, Andy Ratajski, and Jessica Weyer. I continue to be thankful for this team of servants who truly wanted to do their best in leading Bay Shore forward into the future.
We have now come to the time when we are creating three core teams to initiate steps to achieve our goals and to implement the new mission and plan for Bay Shore. The three teams are divided like this:
The Talking-to-People Leadership Team
This leadership team will be responsible to propose and realize actions to:
Speak up for our church life and way of faith in our time and place and
Help members to be invitational and make it easy for newcomers to be with us
The Neighborhood Leadership Team
This leadership team will be responsible to propose and realize actions to:
Reach out to people, not just in our namesake villages of Whitefish Bay and Shorewood, but also in Fox Point, Glendale, and Milwaukee’s East Side
The Next-Generation Leadership Team
This leadership team will be responsible to propose and realize actions to:
Raise people of faith in younger generations, by enabling parents to share God’s love with children and inviting young adults and children into our midst.
The Guiding Team is inviting you to consider serving on one of these teams—but we also know that this is a big task. On Wednesday, October 26th from 6-8 p.m., we are having an Open Training for people in Bay Shore who would like to learn more about the teams, their function, and receive training and guidance on the team’s creation and next steps. Our consultant, Peter Reuss, will lead the 2 hour training. We will provide a light meal, beginning at 5:45 p.m. We also are willing to provide onsite childcare if needed.
If you are interested, please RSVP here.
It is our sincere hope to have Council members present as well as Committee Chairs and any one else in our community who feels called to serve in this important way.
Black Lives are Sacred
Bay Shore has become a quiet partner with Bay Bridge—a local group here in WFB/Shorewood which is increasing awareness about racial injustice and how we, as members of the community, can best respond. We have now been a part of several events with Bay Bridge—for example, our MLK Day of Service and more recently the Library-led program, How Racism Distorts the Human Spirit. Other area churches around us have done even more in the work of racial justice and equality.
This Saturday, we have been invited by our siblings in Christ from First United Methodist—WFB to stand for one hour (10-11 a.m.) at the corner of Lake/Marlborough/Silver Spring and silently share our support, using signs, that Black Lives Are Sacred.
This is different from the Black Lives Matter movement. BLAS is a movement within Christian churches that recognize how our black siblings in Christ need our visible support, and not just thoughts and prayers.
To learn more about this, please visit their local Facebook page.
To learn more about the unique history of BLAS, visit their website.
I will be there along with our neighbors from 10-11 am this Saturday. I find this simply to be extension of what our church already does—advocating for those in need, standing for equality for all of God’s people, and being a visible person of faith. If you are able, please join me.
Blessings and peace to you all,
Pastor Sarah