Real life happens every day. Don’t face it alone.
Caring for each other. Bay Shore Church is at its best when it mobilizes to help someone in need. Whether it is organizing meals for someone who is laid up, or transportation to chemo appointments or a kindly visit to someone in the hospital or senior care facility, our church will find ways to extend caring ministries to people in their times of crisis, transition, or difficulty.
If you have a need, please reach out to our pastors and we will see how the church can be there for you in your time of need.
Prayers during worship
Prayers in worship. You are invited to fill out one of our blue prayer request cards at the beginning of every worship service and your prayers will be lifted up during the pastoral prayer and the prayers will be placed on our prayer chain.
Prayer chain
We have a very active prayer chain. Prayer requests go out through email and caring people from the church pray for those who are in need.
Visitation/Card Ministry
We visit our homebound members and people who are in the hospital and other care facilities. We also have a wonderful card ministry where we sent cards of showing our support to those who are going through difficult times.
Pastoral Care
One of our deepest and most heartfelt commitments as your clergy team is to provide supportive and nurturing spiritual care to those in need. We maintain sacred vows of confidentiality and willingness to listen. We are here to offer prayer, spiritual guidance, support, and faith resources to assist you through whatever life may throw at you. Sometimes it is good just to have someone listen and we are here for that too. We can also help you get connected to licensed counselors and other professionals who may be able to further assist your particular situation.
When to contact a pastor? Whenever you want support or care. We are here for you. Some examples of when it may be helpful for you to reach out to us:
- When you or a loved one is going through an illness or time of life transition (i.e., relationship shifts, job transitions, retirement, pregnancy, loss of a significant loved one, etc.).
- You would like a prayer said for you or an acquaintance.
- You are not able to come to church for a prolonged amount of time and drop us a line to let us know how it’s going for you. We want to keep you in our thoughts, concerns, and prayers.
- You are looking for spiritual guidance. Maybe it’s a “crisis of faith,” or just wanting to find ways to get out of a “spiritual rut” and feel closer to God.
- You want to explore something said in a sermon or another theological topic on your mind. Maybe it is simply something you want to investigate further or something you disagree with and cannot fathom why a preacher would say such a thing. We are always happy to have dialogue and consider our sermons as pathways to a conversation and further reflection, not a final definitive faith statement of our congregation.
- You have a question, concern, suggestion, or idea about something at church. We are very open to any feedback that can help our church improve and grow.
How to contact us. You can contact us through email or phone. The church phone is set up so that you can get our cell numbers in case of emergency and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We are available for home visits and office visits and we can make arrangements to meet you in the evening if you are not able to come during office hours.
Note: Because Sunday mornings are so busy and we have so many conversations, if you want us to remember something and follow-through, please write it on a card or send an email. Also, we are horrible mind readers, so if you want pastoral care, please let us know and we will respond. People are different and need different kinds of support, so please don’t assume we should “just know” you want us to contact you.
In addition to direct pastoral care from your clergy, the church also has other support systems in place through our Parish Outreach Commission. We can help make sure our homebound members and those facing chronic conditions do not “slip through the cracks” of our care and concern. We can provide meals and transportation during times of treatment. We also have our resident faith community nurse, Carolyn Remley, available for help with medical conditions.
So, please don’t hesitate to call. You are our priority and we are here for you.