Building. Growing. Connecting.

Living God’s Vision for Trinity
By Pastor Tracey Leslie

In the spring of 2015, after our work with church growth consultant Rev. Dr. Dan Bonner, Trinity adopted a new Vision Statement:  Growing in love and service through relationships with God and community.

On occasion, members have asked me: “Who is the community; us or the neighborhood?”  And I have replied, “Yes!”  In other words, our goal is to be ONE community.  Have you noticed Trinity’s new logo?  It is a graphic representation of people in a circle, connecting with one another.  Christianity isn’t a belief system; it is a relational system.  Being a Christian is about being in relationship with God through Jesus AND (of equal importance) being in relationship with others through the experience of Christian community.
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This fall, Trinity will launch its annual stewardship campaign.  When we think of stewardship, we often think of money.  When we think of money, we often think of paying the bills.  But Trinity – even our facilities and structures – are ultimately about community and relationships.

On August 27 at our Celebration Luncheon we will celebrate more than the retirement of our debt and improvements to our church’s brick façade.  We will also celebrate the blessing that – without debt and our Education Building – our expenses are reduced and more money is made available for building relationships!

This fall, beginning August 27 and continuing through October, we’ll consider Stewardship a little differently as we focus on Building, Growing and Connecting. 

• Building: Trinity is blessed with a lovely, historic church building; but its value goes beyond the bricks.  Our sanctuary commands a sense of majesty, keeping us mindful of how awesome our God is.  Recent remodeling of our facilities has increased our opportunities for table fellowship allowing us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ open-table fellowship.  Our long history (and earliest roots) means faith has been handed down – in word and deed – from one generation to the next in our current building and its predecessors for nearly 200 years!
• Growing:  Growth is what we hope for Trinity’s future.  But growth requires generosity.  Scripture challenges us to share our resources (our money, our time, our talents) so that others might experience God’s love and grace through the ministries we support.
• Connecting:  This fall, new small groups will launch.  This summer we have hosted Garden and Grills.  Moving forward, we’ll continue to grow our opportunities to connect around the table – as Jesus did throughout his ministry – as we break bread, fellowship, learn and share together.

 
I hope this fall you will be as engaged at Trinity as your schedule permits.  I hope you will come to treasure – as I have come to cherish – opportunities to break bread, to worship, to learn, to grow, to serve, and to experience community in new and exciting ways.  Let us Build, Grow and Connect that we might live out God’s vision for Trinity.  

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