My Initial Meeting with Pastor Jay

I finally met with Pastor Jay yesterday to discuss some plans. We talked about a lot of opportunities that Kelli and I could help with not only with St. John’s Lutheran church but also in the surrounding community. One thing Pastor Jay and I talked about was helping out with the Open Closet that there church holds on the first and third Saturday’s of the month. He showed me the actual rooms where they had the pseudo store set up. I say pseudo because they do not charge for anything that is in the Open Closet. They take donations of clothes, shoes, toys for around Christmas time, jackets, etc. They sort through them on Thursday mornings to make sure that they are good used clothes. They have integrity for the people and do not want to give away stuff with stains or holes. I will not be able to sort on Thursday mornings because I work at that time, but I will be helping winterize this Saturday and work the Open Closet the following Saturday. (Because of winterizing this Saturday, the schedule for this month is a little messed up.

Another service opportunity we talked about was the soup kitchen that they are trying to implement. An eagle scout is working on this project but it sounds like it is slow moving. Right now they are looking for a consistent donor to supply the food. The Eagle Scout has been talking with Sears to get some appliances donating as well. There is no particular time line for this project so we might want to set something up for this. It sounds like it has been put on the back burner for the last year and a half and the need for it is there in the community. This might also create a chance to minister to the people that come in and create a growing number in their church.

One issue that we did talk about is the lack of youth in the church. Pastor Jay said his confirmation class right now has five students and they are all males. He also said that there are only about 15 youth total. If we could somehow get the youth number to increase, this might create opportunities and also increase involvement in the church. Pastor Jay mentioned the situation as a catch 22. They do not have the numbers in the youth department, but until they get higher numbers this is going to deter people from coming there if they have children.

Another thing that was discussed was putting together a web page to let people know about whom the church is and what they believe in. Pastor Jay also talked about making a section for donations on the website. I have never created a website before but I offered to be of assistance as much as I could be.

We discussed the church archives and Pastor Jay talked about some booklets that were put together about the church history and the community itself. He sent us an email today saying that the church would be open from 1-5 Monday through Friday and that we could access those records. This will give us a great amount of help on the history part of this project.

I am excited about all the service help that I will be able to give throughout the semester. I am excited to lend a helping hand and excited about what is in store for me. I am thrilled to learn about people with different backgrounds and those less fortunate. I just hope that I can better someone’s life through this experience.