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God’s Work. Our Hands.

September 1, 2023 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

What began 10 years ago as a “good idea to try!” is now a unique ELCA tradition–God’s Work. Our Hands. A time when all ELCA churches share an important day of service in our communities, wearing our now recognized golden yellow apparel..

Because this is the 10th anniversary, Bay Shore is celebrating two weekends, and not just one.

The first Sunday, Sept 10, is the official day for the ELCA. On this day, our Bay Shore community is encouraged to serve God in our own backyards–that is, in our neighborhood, where we work, eat, play, attend school. Some ideas are listed below!

The second Sunday, Sept. 17, Bay Shore will join together and, immediately after worship, head to Estabrook Park and do some community clean up. We did this on Earth Day with a small but mighty group, and we made a huge impact, and were thanked multiple times by those who saw us. On Sept. 17, we hope you can join us. Sign Up Here to learn more.

We hope that you will be inspired to serve on both days, in the best way possible for you. Below are a few ideas for serving in your own “backyards.”

Pick up trash in your own neighborhood.
Donate to your closest food bank, or Little Free Library.
Visit a neighbor you haven’t seen in a while.
Write a thank you note–to your local school, your local library, your local police or fire station
Call someone, say hello, and see how they are doing, or send them a card.
Invite someone to join you on Sept 17–to worship and/or our service project in the park.

From the Pastor, August 29, 2023

August 29, 2023 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Sunday, September 3 – In honor of Labor Day we have a Blessing of Vocations. Martin Luther lifted up that everyone has a vocation which serves God in its own unique way. No vocation, he said, was greater than another. To honor all vocations, we will offer a prayer and blessing on our vocations, and for some fun–we encourage you to bring tools of your vocation to worship. This could be a book, a laptop, a pen or pencil, a hammer, whatever you use–bring it. And “retired” persons–this still applies! Many of you, I know, are still actively engaged in a project or in volunteering. Students–your vocation is to learn, so bring a textbook or bookbag. This blessing is truly for all.

Thursday, September 7, 7:00 pm Choir Rehearsals begin. Join our new Chori Director in the recently restaged and organized Chori room for our first weekly, one hour rehearsal. All are welcome (you do not need to be a member of Bay Shore to sing in the choir!).

Sunday, September 10 “God’s Work. Our Hands.” 10^th Anniversary Celebration: Sending to do God’s Work in your own “backyards.” & Blessing of Backpacks. GWOH’s is celebrating 10 years of ministry–watch for my blog post about this on September 1.

Children and youth–students of all ages–bring your backpacks to be blessed and receive a reminder of the blessing to wear on it all year long.

Our first Second Sunday Series for Adults, at 10:45 am in the Lounge, will feature a viewing of the short film, Black Strings, followed by discussion led by Kate Yelvington, a board member for the Black Strings Triage. We are beginning this Second Sunday Series this month. Look for an adult forum each Second Sunday.

Wednesday, September 13, Grief Support Group begins, 3 pm, in the Lounge. This is free and open to the public. A guest groef counselor will lead this weekly group.

Also on this day, Pastor Sarah’s Bible Study will begin at 9:30 am, in person and on Zoom. Our first few weeks will center on Jewish holy days in the Old Testament. All are welcome!

Sunday, September 17 “God’s Work. Our Hands.” 10^th Anniversary Celebration, followed by our Community Service Project in Estabrook Park. You can sign up here to pitch in and make God’s Creation a bit cleaner! All ages are welcome. We also will celebrate BIBLE Sunday for 3-year-olds, 3^rd grade and Beginning Confirmands & J.A.M. (Jesus And Me) starts for three year olds-fifth grade during worship.

A.B.C (aka Confirmation) begins for grades 6-8 at 5 pm. All students welcome. Email Pastor Sarah if you will be attending!

Sunday, September 24, at 9:30 a.m. Celebrating Bay Shore — we are not yet 100, but we are getting closer. On this day, we will give thanks to God for our church, Bay Shore, and also have some fun trivia, sharing of histories and more at worship and after.

Wednesday, September 27, at 6:30 Bay Shore is hosting Bay Bridge’s Event on Housing and Segregation with a guest speaker from Habitat for Humanity. Sign up for this free event is strongly encouraged. Please click HERE.

Saturday, September 30 2023 Outreach for Hope Family Ride, Run and Walk. If you are not able to attend yourself, you can sponsor our Bay Shore team by clicking HERE or using an envelope that will be passed out early in the month.

Sunday, October 1 – Blessing of the Animals. In the afternoon, from 1-3 pm, the blessing of all animals will be administered by Pastor Sarah in our parking lot. We do this in a unique way. Come whenever you can between 1-3 with your pets for a quick, personal blessing. Pictures and treats, giving thanks to God for our furry family members–these are good things!

From the Pastor, July 11, 2023

July 11, 2023 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Happy Summer to You!

And thank you for clicking the link and coming here to read about our current news at Bay Shore.

We have an interview committee meeting with candidates for the Choir Position this weekend. I am grateful to share that we have 2 strong candidates, and I am looking forward to the interviews. Please keep our process in your prayers.

What has not been an easy road has been the hiring of a Youth Director. I now understand the term “ghosted” because I have been, by various ages and stages of applicants, ghosted. What does this mean? It means that a person just drops all communication with you, and you really don’t have a clue why. This also includes simply not showing up for an interview after it was arranged around the applicant’s schedule. So, yes, this has been a challenge. But I am not giving up—we will continue to promote the position and seek out a director. Keep this process also in your prayers.

Now, having said that—often roles like Youth Director and Fellowship Coordinator are filled “in house” by members of the community who have a love and skills for these types of positions, but may also have a job and family, too. So, if you have wondered about these two positions, and how that may or may not work for you—give me a call. Let’s talk about it.

July is a quiet month at Bay Shore, as it is in most churches, but we will pick up again in August and September.

We hope to schedule some gatherings for our Millennials and Gen Xers soon.

I will begin my Bible Study again for Wednesday mornings in mid-August, and then have a break for Labor Day and my vacation. But, I am wondering if there is any desire for a bible study in the evening this Fall? I have tried it a few times at Bay Shore, but attendance was very light. I am also wondering if there is desire for Sunday morning educational opportunities—say once a month—on topics, like a forum. Do let me know about that, too.

While most of our committees do not meet until August, I know that the Fall Schedule is on their minds and how best to engage with you and the community–sharing God’s Love with All–and proceed with our Strategic Plan. Nothing happens well if it’s just staff led–so if you have interests and would like to be a part of the planning and implementation of our goals–let me know.

In the meantime, I hope to see you in worship soon, or at one of our gatherings. If you would like to schedule a personal visit with me—let me know by calling the church office. We can get that scheduled right away.

Blessings to you and your loved ones,

Pastor Sarah

Synod Assembly Reflections, June 6, 2023

June 6, 2023 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Attending Synod Assembly as a voting member from Bay Shore was a privilege. There is always an amount of tedious business that takes place at these assemblies, and there was, but there were a number of moments that were particularly powerful and impactful.

During the Eucharist on Friday evening, we confessed in a Rite of Repentance the sins that we White, cis-gender, and heterosexual members of the body of Christ have done to our siblings in Christ who are people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized communities. Sins of racism. Sins of discrimination. Sins of violence. This was followed by a sermon by Rev. Kenneth Wheeler that followed similar and necessary themes of the repentance liturgy that might be the first sermon I’ve seen get a standing ovation. That all this was happening a couple hundred feet from Pride Fest added to the powerful feeling stirred up in me.

Throughout the assembly, we also heard and saw stories from people in our synod telling times when they felt either excluded or included from a group or event. This reminded me of our mission to share God’s love with all (and all means all!). It’s wonderful to be part of a community where we’re working to become a more and more welcoming place — not just a place that tolerates difference!

We have some work to do as part of the next steps of the synod’s authentic diversity audit. And Pastor Sarah will certainly have some work to do as the newly elected secretary of the synod council. She’s an excellent person for the job!

Sara Bitner

PS…. (from Pastor Sarah) Sara is quite modest! She was also Chair of our Resolutions and Memorials Synod Committe for the Assembly and led our assembly in the adoption of 5 new resolutions!

From the Pastor, May 10, 2023

May 10, 2023 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Dear Bay Shore,

It has been a BUSY month, and it’s only the 10th as I write this. Some days, my head is spinning with all the activities we have in place, and it’s exciting and wonderful. But it is also hard to keep up, even me!

So if you are having a hard time, or miss a few things, we encourage you to really use our website pages that have a listing of all our “sign ups,” our calendar which lists every activity happening, and our most recent eNewsletter is always linked on our front page.

Now, why are we so busy, you may ask…..

Well, it’s pretty simple. We are living into our Action Plans for our Strategic Goals. We are living into our new Mission Statement, Sharing God’s Love with All (And All Means All). Our teams and committees have a renewed sense of energy and purpose. We are creating ways for people to be welcomed at Bay Shore, and ways for our members to invite others to join us. We are reconnecting with our communities. We are making our presence known on Hampton Ave.

These are all good things, and I hope you are participating as able–especially the part about inviting others to join you! Our efforts and activities now will produce fruit that we may not expect, or which may not be present for a while, but we are indeed planting and prepping now in hope and faith.

A few pastoral notes now to share:

The Personnel Committee will finalize our Choir Director job posting very soon, and we will be seeking a choir director as soon as we have a pool to interview. Please pray that the right person with gifts and joy for God applies!

The Council and Personnel Committee is also seeking a Youth Director as well. We hope to also finalize this position and post soon as well. Again, your prayers are needed for the right person to come and work with our youth!

Did you attend the End of Life Discussion? If you did, you know that Pastor and Kate are happy to work with you and plan out your funeral service details in advance. A handout sheet to help you will be available on Sunday, May 21, and we will email it out on May 22. Look for it!

I am truly excited for our upcoming weeks of activities and worship. Join us! You are welcome to come as you able and as you are. And if you can’t come in person, be with us in spirit online.

Blessings and peace,

Pastor Sarah

From the Pastor, October 5, 2022

October 5, 2022 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

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 26^th 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