July 10, 2025
Dear Bay Shore,
A few years now, the Strategic Plan was introduced with many goals to better build and strengthen our community here at Bay Shore. Several of those goals have been met, or are still in process now. One of the goals was to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation (like Kingo, Lake Park, Redeemer, Cross, St. Paul’s, Holy Cross and many others in our conference and throughout our synod).
The RIC (Reconciling in Christ) Team was formed through the Congregation Council, and has provided now, for over 12 months, learning opportunities like bible studies, conferences, book studies, classes, events, discussions and more to create good conversations and understanding abut the process and basic knowledge regarding the LGBTQIA+ community.
The RIC Team is taking the summer off now, after a busy June month, and will reconvene in late August/September. In the meantime, the Team and I have a special request.
We understood that this process would take a long time and also much discussion. At this point in the process, we encourage anyone at Bay Shore who has concerns, questions or more to meet with me privately between now and October 1. It can be at church or somewhere else. But we hope that if someone has concerns or questions, that they would feel comfortable talking to me, as pastor.
These conversations will be private–I will not share who I have or have not spoken to, nor will I share also particular points of the discussion. I will however (full transparency) summarize the conversations for Council and the RIC Team.
Getting feedback from everyone is important and needed. We pray that you consider this request if you have any concerns.
May God bless you this summer,
Pastor Sarah
Click here to email me to schedule a time.
RIC Team: Susan Foran, Tiffany Pfremmer, Marissa Knopick, Evan Gibson, Beverly Kingma, Laura Anderle, Pastor Sarah Stobie
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