Forsyth Park Caller
October 2026
Pastor’s Corner
I am writing this early October following our September business meeting and before the next important November 4 business meeting. In the last meeting, the situation of the church came up. Attendance has been dwindling, and recently we had things that changed that even more. Frank Casstevens and Louise Bowman have moved, and she attends Stanleyville Baptist since they can come across the street to pick her up. Clay Booher recently had knee replacement surgery and is making a slow comeback. Joan Richardson is no longer able to come to church since she is in a new facility. Kay Flynt has had eye issues that continue. And Mike and Karen Sonbert will be moving sometime next year to their Virginia retirement home.
So now, on a Sunday morning, we are blessed to have Sandy, Creola, Tammie, David, Mark, Beth, Larry, Gloria, Dewey and Patsy, Dennis, my mom and me.
The Bible says there will be a “falling away”, and we definitely see that today. I just read an article that said a projected 100,000 churches will close this year. What a sad statement.
At the last meeting, options were brought up. 1) Do we want to merge with people who may be looking for a church building? 2) Do we want to plan to close? 3) Or do we want to keep going?
I vote for keeping going. As long as I can into the foreseeable future and as long as you want me, I plan to keep preaching and teaching the Word. Thanks to the Finance Committee, we have money in the bank due to good stewardship in investment decisions. So we can keep the lights on. The only problems I see are 3: 1) ideally, we need someone to step in and get trained before Mike leaves to help Larry with the building and grounds. 2) Since Karen, our assistant treasurer, will be leaving and Clay’s status right now is uncertain, we may need someone to step in and help with finances. And 3) we need to fill deacon/trustee positions.
If the church is ever sold, I am sure the hospitals would be glad to buy the property. I’ve been told maybe 10-12 million. Would we want to take that and start another church somewhere else? That was another option discussed. Right now I don’t think so. If we sold the church, it has been decided the money would go to the Nc Baptist State Convention.
But again, I hope we can stay open. I never claimed to have a magic bullet to increase attendance. At our number and ages, its hard to do events that might attract some. But we have very important thing going for us. The Word of God. Baptists have been called “people of the Book”. At Forsyth Park we stand upon the Word of God. And everything we do should be about pleasing our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the bridegroom and the church is His bride. He is the Head. He is our King. It is His church-not mine and not yours. Keep the horse blinders on and focus everything on Jesus!
Between now and Nov 4, pray for God’s guidance. Pray for His intervention. Pray for only His will to be done. May all glory go to Him and His Kingdom. May we continue to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit in all matters. And may the name of Jesus be ever praised!