RECAP – COFFEE WITH THE PASTOR – OCTOBER 13, 2021
This Sunday the “Believe Adult Bible Study will begin at 9:00 AM during the Sunday School hour and run until 9:50 AM. The study will take place in the lounge area. The focus will be about the historic faith of Christianity and will take us through some questions about the trinity and the nature of the church. The study will be in 3 segments, for 10 weeks each, and the last to be held next fall. Pastor Dave feels this is a discussion that Christians should have together in a group setting and will prove to be most informative. There will be a short video with discussions to follow. We do have some study guides in the office here for purchase, but they are not necessary to attend the class.
The Jacksonport season is finished for this year and will open again mid-May next year. We are discussing the upcoming Christmas Eve service at Jacksonport which will depend on the status of the Covid Pandemic at that time. We will keep you posted.
On to the Global United Methodist Church. The plan right now is that the General Conference will meet in the latter part of August 2022. This will require people to internationally travel so the pandemic will have to be taken into consideration before the plans are finalized. It does not seem feasible that a meeting of this magnitude can take place online. The reason this next conference is so critical is that we have missed a conference which tabled some very critical issues. One of which impacts how Bishops are delt with and the jurisdictions they are assigned to. Some are waiting to retire with no one assigned to take their place. Another large concern is about the protocol of separation and to address dividing the church in to two or even possibly four parts. If the conference is not held it will be hard to hold the church together as some of these groups are not willing to wait any longer to address their issues. Pastor Dave is not sure how this will turn out at this point. He does know that there a lot of very good-hearted people involved that would like to see the separation occur as soon as possible. Then again, likewise there are people in the middle who want to hold our church together in the one church model merely stating that every church individually must deal with sexuality for ordination and marriage. This was found to be unacceptable by people on the far right and far left. So, who knows where we are headed as a denomination? Perhaps there will be some kind of meeting that will be held on this and other critical issues outside of the conference, but this is how things stand right now. Pastor Dave will keep us posted as things change. Let’s pray that the Pandemic will allow us to meet the end of August to put these issues to rest.
Pastor Dave continues to work with his program and will meet with the University of Dubuque soon to discuss seminary education and the shortage of new clergy coming into the profession as existing pastors are coming into retirement age. Please pray for your church, for those who receive the call to be a pastor, and for the institutions that educate them.
Pastor Dave asks for your prayers as he he prays for you. Wishing you a wonderful and beautiful day and may God Bless You.
Summarized and printed by Lorna
