whitefish bay

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

Special Message, September 8, 2022

September 8, 2022 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Dear Bay Shore,

Below is a report from our Finance Committee to share our current results of the Special Summer Appeal, and an update from the Finance Committee on the financial status and fiscal affairs of the Congregation as of July 31, 2022, the mid-point of our fiscal year. Please read and let us know if you have any questions. At the end of the report, we share email addresses for our Treasurer, Pastor and Council President.

We began the 2022 year with a congregation-approved budget that projected a deficit for the year of approximately $54,000. In proposing and approving that budget, it was understood that such an outcome at year-end would not be viable, and that a mid-year supplemental giving appeal would be necessary. That appeal has just concluded and we are pleased to report that it was successful in eliciting approximately $25,000 in increased pledges, in total, from a substantial number of congregation members – – less than the $40,000 we had hoped for, but nonetheless a significant and positive response to the appeal. This will significantly reduce the year-end projected deficit. We thank all of you who responded so positively.

Regular member giving from the congregation year-to-date is running about 10% behind budget (without taking into account the mid-year appeal that just concluded), but we are cautiously optimistic that this will catch up to budget as we move out of Summer into the Fall and the holiday season that follows.

On the expense side of the ledger, we have reviewed spending year-to-date and attempted to project total anticipated spending through the end of year on the various line items that make up the budget. While these projections are necessarily somewhat speculative, particularly in those areas where spending is difficult to predict (such as building and equipment repairs and maintenance), we believe there are some areas in which we will likely spend somewhat less than we had originally budgeted. It is important to note, though, that those areas tend to involve programs or initiatives that were initially budgeted for a full year but have launched (or will launch) later than expected (such as hiring a youth director) and thus will be incurred this year (but only this year) for only a portion of the year. If those projections hold true, those one-time savings this year in these areas will further reduce the projected year-end deficit, although the total amount of those savings is difficult to predict.

On balance, then, the current projection compares favorably to the budget we adopted at the beginning of the year. Although it remains likely that we will still end the year in a deficit position, that deficit may be substantially smaller than the original $54,000 figure. We are projecting a $5,000 deficit if we have no unforeseen issues. However, that will depend critically on two factors: our ability to control expenses such as building, equipment and grounds repairs and maintenance; and the fulfillment of all members’ pledges by year-end. We thank you in advance for your commitment to the latter.

Finance Committee Members: John Emanuel, Bob Graveen, Marcee Markussen, Pastor Sarah Stobie, and Pam Woodard

Our Treasurer, John Emanuel: [email protected]

Our Council President, Pam Woodard: [email protected]

Pastor Sarah Stobie: [email protected]

From the Pastor, August 18, 2022

August 17, 2022 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Dear friends,

Our Council met this past Tuesday, and we had a long, good meeting of discussion about the future directions of Bay Shore. Here are a few highlights for you:

Reed Groethe, on behalf of our Guiding Team, presented a report with the motion to accept our new mission statement, values and plan of ministry. It was approved. Council will now create special teams to work on our action steps for the plan of ministry, with deadlines and goals. Our consultant will continue to assist our new team leaders in their work.
Our Special Summer Appeal concluded (you can still participate—simply call the church office or return your commitment card if you missed our targeted deadline). We had 42 households increase their pledges for 2022 for a total of $22,768. Our Finance Committee will meet soon to discuss our next steps for this year and discerning our 2023 budget. They will report to Council their suggestions on how to adjust for our current deficit.
Council created a special Task Force for Safety with three members to review and create safety procedures in the event of emergencies.
And finally, Council discussed our upcoming worship schedule. This past Spring, I had been approached by a few 8 am attendees asking if it was time to have only one service at Bay Shore. Pam Woodard (Council President) and I reached out to many members who attended or had attended 8 am services in the past year. We received thoughtful responses. In the end, the majority of responders agreed that having one service at 9:30 a.m., like we do in the summers, made sense. Council approved to continue our one service schedule this Fall after much discussion. Our goal and prayer is to continue to worship together as one, encouraging one another and also welcoming new visitors with more faces and singing voices. Do mark your calendars with the change.

I have committed to the Walk/Run Outreach for Hope Fundraiser on September 24 on behalf of Bay Shore. Of course, you too could do the event and raise funds as well. But if you prefer, you can simply support through me and my fundraising page. Click here to do so.

Blessings and peace to you as you continue to enjoy this summer’s weather.

I hope to see you soon,

Pastor Sarah

From the Pastor, July 21, 2022

July 21, 2022 by BayshoreLutheran Leave a Comment

Dear Bay Shore,

I hope you are enjoying your summer—I enjoyed a few weeks off, catching up on home issues, wedding plans for my eldest, and more. I am grateful to Pastor Chris and Pastor Mark’s services—yes, I watched but in my pajamas!

After vaccines became available to children 6 months and older, our Congregation Council approved to move to become a mask-affirming building beginning July 31. We also discussed and approved that we will require masks whenever the Milwaukee County Dashboard indicates that we are in the High Zone of Transmission.

So, what does all this mean?

Mask-affirming is a term used by the Wisconsin Council of Churches, and it means that our Bay Shore community here will allow our members and visitors to use their own discretion regarding mask wearing. But it also means that if someone does wear a mask, we will not question it, or share our reasons why we do or do not wear a mask with them directly or even indirectly with others. Masks in our current community are here for the foreseeable future. As a mask affirming congregation, we understand that this is more fluid than we like, but we will cope with it together and support each person’s individual decision.

Why July 31? The Council agreed to the July 31^st date since by then, most children potentially could be completely vaccinated.

The Council also agreed with the WCC, CDC, and the Milwaukee County Health Department that the future is unknown and we need to be flexible. So, following guidelines that even our schools will use this fall—when we are in the High category for Transmission, regardless of vaccine status, we will wear masks indoors.

How will you know the status of mask wearing? Well, if you watch the news, or read the news—it’s something that is shared. But you can also see the dashboard here and it lets you know as well.

Milwaukee County COVID-19 Dashboard (arcgis.com)

Here is also a link to the CDC about the different levels.

COVID-19 Community Levels | CDC

Like you, I have been praying for this all to end. And prayer works, it does, but in this case, we can’t pray or wish the viruses away. More research shows that even vaccinated persons who get the COVID virus can suffer long time COVID symptoms. It is best to keep ourselves and our most vulnerable in mind as we follow the guidelines we currently have.

Personally, I will be wearing a mask more than not until after September 1. Pete and I both are up for our boosters then, and I can tell you—my COVID experience after Easter was no fun at all. Sick two weeks, and recovering for another two weeks—it wasn’t until mid-June that I felt back to pre-Easter days. I just can’t risk that loss of time again, with this new variant that is around. Did I mention I have a wedding this Fall??? So, I appreciate our mask affirming building. And I appreciate all of you in caring for one another, too. Please give thanks to our Council who carefully and prayerfully leads our congregation.

I am back this Sunday, and it’s a special one. We will celebrate a baptism and we will have a farewell time after worship to wish our dear friend, Jo Ellen Witt, Godspeed as she moves to be closer to her family. We also will hear music from Scott Cook. I don’t think we could add more to this Sunday if we tried. I hope to see you in person, but if not—join us online. I now personally know that pajamas on a Sunday—it’s pretty nice.

Blessings and peace,

Pastor Sarah