COFFEE WITH THE PASTOR – WEDNESDAY May 19, 2021 (Recording Posted on Facebook, Sturgeon Bay United Methodist Church Page)
A reminder that Jacksonport is still on schedule to open on Sunday, May 30th at 8:30 AM. At this point we are still planning to have the service outside for now. Emails will be sent out with changes of status if there are any. Pastor Dave has two things to discuss today. The first will be the change of policy regarding Covid 19. We are going to change from requiring masks in the building to not making it mandatory if you choose not to. We do, however, recommend it. We will ask you to use the hand sanitizer and practice social distancing please still when appropriate. The collection plate and prayer request basket will remain in the rear of the church and communion elements will be handled as we have been doing probably for the rest of the summer. We believe it is always better to error on the side of safety.
The second item for discussion is that Pastor Dave will not be publishing Coffee With the Pastor next week. He will be out of town for a weeklong meeting to be held at in Dubuque, Iowa for those clergy members who are engaged in the new study that he has been involved in since January. It is a Doctor of Ministry program to help churches flourish in this critical time of change. Pastor Dave discusses some alarming statistics regarding church attendance. We have reached the point where than less than 50 percent of the population are involved with any church. Using Sturgeon Bay as an example, there are 10,000 people that reside here which means that only 5,000 identify with a church. Of that 5,000 some of those individuals only come to Christmas Eve services or on special occasions. The remaining 5,000 do not have any interest in coming to church at all and do not ensure their children to attend. Compared to 30 years ago 9,000 people out of the the 10,000 people in Sturgeon Bay believed in God. Today the number would be more like 6,000 to 7,000 people out of our 10,000 citizens do not believe in God. This program that Pastor Dave is involved in is not only to help the congregation to grow and flourish but it is also designed to focus on sustaining clergy and encouraging young people to enter into the ministry because there are so few of them at this time.
Pastor Dave looks forward to what this program can do for us and there will be more to discuss as time goes on. In the meantime, he wishes everyone a wonderful day. He will be back with Coffee With the Pastor in two weeks.
May God Bless and Keep You
God Bless You….
Pastor Dave
Summarized and printed by Lorna Magliaro
