FAITH AND FELLOWSHIP

"Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood." ACTS 20:23

When reflecting on ideas for this newsletter, the Bible verse jumped out at me. It made me remember when I was in middle school Sunday school class and my father was my teacher. He always did a lesson on stewardship. The lesson was that all we have is from God and we are caretakers of all God has given us. It is our duty to take care of ourselves, others, and the land.

I have always strongly believed in this and instilled it in my own son. Seeing and hearing about the natural abd man-made disasters taking place in the world today can be depressing and make you question if people are truly being good stewards and what exactly is God's plan. But if you take a step back and truly look around, stewardship is taking place daily. Whether it be a large scale disaster; such as the UCC Disaster Relief Teams helping hurricane and flood vistims, ot the Global Hope Team helping the fire victims of California, or small local teams such as the Skook Road Trip Relief Team, who have been going to North Carolina to help our flooded neighbors, or even smaller people donating foor and clothing to local organizations; stewardship is all around us.

What does this mean for St. Mark's? Well, a lot. We are currently at a crossroad. We all know membership is decreasing, and attendance to church services is low; but I do not believe that this is the decline of St. Mark's. It is another step in our transition process of finding a new pastor. What do you want/need from your church? How do you see your church helping in the community? What are you willing to do to help St. Mark's continue to be sood stewards to their parishioners and neighbors? Take time to pray about what you and your church should do to be good stewards and how that changes the future look of St. Mark's.

Blessings,

Heather Stone