Church news

[linda_marus]

A month or two ago, our church council president made an annoucement during the service: our church desperately needs to rethink what it's doing and how it's doing it. There are literally not enough people who have enough time to run the church and administer our property rental.

Our pastor will be with us until the end of June, and then will be going on sabbatical for a while and not coming back. (I think that's his way of using up his vacation time or something.) We are facing a few different options, which we, as a church body, are in the process of thinking about and discussing:

1. We (try to) move on as a church and (try to) hire a new pastor who would (hopefully) help our congregation grow
2. We officially close our church and let the denomination plant a new church in our location
3. We close our doors, sell the property, and individually disperse to different churches
4. Other

Instead of having our usual services on Sunday mornings, we've been meeting, discussing, and hearing from denomination representatives who have experience with this sort of thing. Unfortunately, I have not been able to be there for the meetings so I don't really know what's been discussed and who feels what. John recorded the last session and made a cd for me; I really need to find some time to listen to it so I can catch up.

It's a bit unsettling to know that my church might not be there in a a few months. What would we do? Where would we go? And how do we tell Rick that his pastor and his Sunday School teacher will be leaving?

It's a lot to think about.