Goldstone

Today at church there was a send-off for the Pastor, who is moving on to a new community.  That will leave our small congregation at Goldstone Lutheran Church with no pastor, at least for the time being.

I have already written a bit about schools having consolidated over the years, and Post Offices looking to be the next thing.  A friend (Thanks, Goat!) forwarded me the following link to an NPR blog article about Post Offices: http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2011/08/14/139551551/where-are-we-going-to-get-together-and-talk, if you care to read more on that topic.

There was a big crowd of about thirty people at today's service and the send-off brunch that followed.  Yes, I said a BIG crowd of thirty people!  Previous services I have attended at Goldstone with Jeff have only drawn about 10 people. Once you break that down into families or couples, that's only about 4 our 5 households.  When you consider the cost to keep a church going, that total split among only a handful of households can be considerable.

It's nice to attend church at Goldstone because it is only about three miles from where we live.  It is the only church (at least that I know of) out here in the country, so if Goldstone were to dissolve, we would have to drive to town to attend church service (and the options we are met with there is the topic of another post for another time!)  But the heart of the matter is not about convenience to where we live, it's about the community that gathers.  Goldstone provides a place for fellowship and gives a greater sense that this vast countryside is not so empty as it might appear.