Pastor’s Blog

Dear Trinity Family;

Our ministry plan this year identifies ‘building community’ as a key goal. One of the ways we do that is to help each other in times of need - and there have been no shortage of needs lately. The purpose of this note is to identify four current needs and ask that you prayerfully consider giving above and beyond your normal church support to help meet these needs.

You’re probably aware of some of these, but possibly not all four:

Reed’s Education. Donna’s illness means that Joshua and Olivia need a good school situation, preferably close to home. The charter school they were in last year was good, but is far away. The commute has been hard on Josh and Olivia, and the drivers who volunteered to help. Therefore the Reeds have looked closer to home, and the kids have now been accepted into the Living Stones (church) school in Alvin. The school has generously offered to pay half the tuition and fees. We need to provide the Reeds with the other half.

Laura’s move. We have been helping Laura with medical and financial needs, and the Lord has really been blessing that. Now, because she has primary custody of her boys, she needs to move to a two bedroom apartment. She has been accepted at an apartment complex here in Friendswood (on 2351) for an August move. We’ll need to help with the physical move, but also with paying for re-carpeting of her old apartment so that she can leave it in the agreed condition.

Walliser’s home. We praise God that so much help has been given to the Wallisers after the rain caused so much damage. The roof has been replaced and a lot of work has been done to repair the interior. However, these repairs involve quite a bit of expense, and there is no insurance coverage. Also, the economy has reduced Jim’s work hours and thus the family’s income. We would like to be able to help with these expenses.

Rask family expenses. Church members and other friends have already been very generous toward the Rasks, but even without medical expenses (which they may not be responsible for) they’ve had to spend significant amounts through this time. We want to be able to provide what is needed.

There are few firm cost estimates associated with these needs, but a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the total might be as much as $16,000.

So what are we asking? First, and foremost, that you will seek God to learn if he wants to give you the joy and satisfaction of meeting some of these financial needs. Ask Him how you can help, and how much He would have you give.

Second, give. One way to do that would be to place your check in an envelope and mark it with the specific name of the need you would like to help with. A second way, and our preference, is that you simply mark the check or the envelope ‘benevolence’. This will give us the freedom to use the money where it is most needed in these four situations.

Thanks so much for your prayer and help.

In Christ

Bob DeGray, for the elders

The elders met on June 25, 2009 and discussed the information developed at the first three Education Summit meetings. We talked and prayed through as many of the key issues as possible, and prepared the following summary of our thinking and the direction we would like to set. Then we brought this information back to the fourth Education Summit meeting and had a great discussion of how some of these ideas can be implemented. In the summary below, ideas that were discussed or added at the Education Summit meeting are shown in italics.

Based on the input to this process and a sense of some larger needs in the body, the elders identified the following significant needs at Trinity:
(1) the need for community and connectedness in relationships
(2) the need for strong small groups to achieve community
(3) the need for a vision oriented sense of purpose
(4) the need for shepherding

Next, we asked ourselves what structures and programs would achieve these goals. We agreed that having a second staff person (full or part time were mentioned) goes a long way toward effective ministry, and that we should begin to work toward that. We also agreed that having every family assigned to an elder-type as shepherd would be a great help in stewarding community.

Trinity Vision Small Groups

As laid out in Bob’s blog entry, the Trinity Vision Small Groups are part of a disciple making pathway that emphasizes several of the items mentioned above. Therefore we decided to move forward with this program. The goal is to have the seven week study materials ready for the fall. The elders split up the assignment of writing the weekly Bible Studies for these groups, with drafts due July 23rd. Each week of the study is to have five daily studies focusing on one Scripture passage with three to five significant questions. After the studies are edited for consistency, they will be distributed to all current and potential leaders of small groups and study groups for pre-view.

Sunday Morning Service Times

The elders discussed the pros and cons of moving to one service, along with the pros and cons of staying with two services or moving to some other version of two services.

Recognize the strong current need for community and connectedness, we concluded that the significant limitation of one service - a maximum of 325 chairs and thus about 270 max attendance (by the 80 percent rule) - was livable if we commit to a model of planting a new church every three or four years.

A question was asked about whether this limitation to growth could be accepted. We feel that a church population between 280 and 300 is needed before planting a new church. We also feel that the judicious use of ushers and greeters can go a long way to diffuse the 80 percent rule in practice.

Given these conditions, we are proposing the following Sunday morning structure:
* Worship Service: roughly 9:15 to 10:35, possibly ten minutes longer on communion Sundays.
* Fellowship Time: roughly 10:35 to 11:00
* Sunday School: 11:00 to 12:10 (but the end time is flexible)

The rational for this rather radical swap of the worship service with the Sunday School time is further discussed below. However, very valid comments were made about the fact that worship at 9:15 is not as likely to appeal to first time visitors as later worship. We hope that this will not have too much effect on outreach by word of mouth or through the web-site, and that the attractiveness of the church will be significantly enhanced by the community that is visible among us. (”By this will all men know that you are my disciples: that you love one another”)

Small Groups

The elders feel that small groups are central to achieving community and relationships and that a combination of several components is needed to make small groups effective: prayer, sharing, informal relational time, and Bible study.

We also believe that small groups on days other than Sunday are the best vehicle for achieving these goals, as time limitations are less significant for those groups. However, we also want to make provision for Sunday morning small groups, especially for people who can’t easily commit to a small group during the week. This goes along with a renewed expectation that every member will be involved in a small group in an ongoing way.

We also want to emphasize that every small group session needs an end date, after which there will be an expectation that people can switch groups, topics will be re-publicized and groups will start again with a new end date.

Midweek and Sunday Small Groups

Midweek Small groups with several different organizing principles are preferred. These might be men’s, women’s, young marrieds, family, or adult small groups. The midweek format has several advantages: (1) a more relaxed time frame; (2) the communication that church, fellowship, etc. do not take place just on Sunday; and (3) the closer fellowship that can be had in a home rather than a church building setting.

However, we also want to make provision for Sunday small groups. This is the main reason we swapped worship and Sunday School in the schedule above, so that Sunday small groups can meet during the Sunday School hour (11:00 - 12;10), but extend their meeting time past the end of that block to include lunch, fellowship, extended sharing and prayer, etc.

Sunday School

We would like to have age graded Sunday School up to about third grade, with a scope and sequence intended to achieve elementary level Bible story and Bible truth knowledge in our youngest children. The age graded Sunday School classes would end promptly at 12:10 and children would be escorted to their parents.

The cut-off for this age graded segment was the subject of much conversation at the meeting. It appears that most people would like this cut-off to be moved to sixth grade so that families with children who want to attend an adult focused small group or study group can have a place for their kids to get age appropriate input. Another rationale for this approach is that visitors normally expect Sunday School to be available for their kids at least up to this level.

For people who are involved in a Midweek small group, we propose that they attend a Sunday Morning teaching group. These could also have different organizing principles, but would be characterized by emphasis on the Bible Study component of group life, and by ending promptly at 12:10 p.m.

If a child is in Sunday School and their parents are in a small group rather than a teaching group, their small group would be expected to receive the children at 12:10 and care for them until the small group is done.

Organization

Toward the end of the meeting we took up the issue of organization. While not fully resolved, there was a consensus that the Small group / Study group side of the equation needed a team of about three to five people to identify leaders, coordinate topics, and provide publicity and communication. This team was envisioned as doing their job for one year, and then handing the job over to a new team.

Several people volunteered to be part of this team or the planning associated with it. In particular, Nancy Jones volunteered to work on a survey to see where individuals and families would like to fit in the proposed structure.

The elders are planning to meet briefly this week to do some evaluation. Then we will contact those we hope will be part of the small group planning team.

In addition to this team, it seemed clear that some kind of ‘C.E. Committee’ needs to be reformed to coordinate the activities of Awana, age graded Sunday School and Junior Church. While we didn’t have time to pursue this in any depth at the meeting, the elders will also be thinking about who might be asked to serve in this capacity.

UPDATE: The elders met briefly on Thursday, July 2nd after General Board and started to put some potential names with these potential organizations.  We also talked about a number of different implementation details.

For the next two weeks or so, we’re asking you to think and pray about these directions, and to talk to any of the elders about your ideas, concerns, etc.  While you are doing that, we’re going to be preparing a survey  about your small group and Sunday school preferences.  This will help the two organizations (small group and C.E) to decide how many of what kind of groups to try and organize.  Please be ready to take the survey (which will be available both as paper and online, on about the 18th or so of July.

Other Initiatives

We want to have up-to-date bulletin boards and signage so that people know when things are happening and where.

We want to have an organization chart, both on the web page and printed, so that people know who to contact about the programs of the church.

We want to have a good up-to-date calendar online so that people can find out where and when events are scheduled.

Many people have asked if they can get a copy of the text or re-listen to the audio of the message from David Rasks memorial service.  Here is a link to the sermon page at Trinity Fellowship’s website, where both the text and the audio have been posted.

Recent Sermons Page

As I have prayed and prepared for the next step in the Education Summit, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the ‘Disciple Making Pathway’.   I’d like to ‘download’ into this blog entry some of my thoughts, partially to get comments and ideas flowing, partially so there is room in my brain to think about some of the other important questions raised by the Summit so far.  This entry contains two main parts, a description of the disciple making pathway itself, and then a more detailed plan for the Trinity Vision Small Groups

Trinity Disciple Making Pathway

As part of the Education Summit, we’ve been talking about improving our intentionality in making disciples.

Trinity’s vision statement says : Trinity Fellowship
is a body of believers whose goal is to glorify God
by growing toward maturity as disciples
of the Lord Jesus Christ - through faith.

If our goal is to make disciples, we should have at least an outline of how that happens in the body. Therefore we are thinking of implementing a simple, three-tier disciple making pathway that consists of the following.

First Tier: Newcomers
Newcomers will be enthusiastically encouraged to attend a Trinity Vision Small Group (see write-up below) whose purpose will be to get people familiar with our vision, it’s Biblical basis and its practical outworking, while at the same time allowing them to get to know others at Trinity and develop prayer and care for each other.

Second Tier: Learners
Once a person has been through the Trinity Vision Small Group, they will be encouraged to attend one of the other kinds of study and fellowship groups at Trinity: traditional small groups, Sunday Morning Small Groups, Men’s studies, Women’s studies and youth and young adult groups. These groups, in turn, will be asked to directly or indirectly foster discipleship by emphasizing the commitments of our vision statement:

to learn and obey His word,
to depend on Him in prayer,
to exalt Him through worship,
to love and care for one another
and to share His love with others
in order to make new disciples
in our community and around the world.

Third Tier: Leaders
As people continue to grow as disciples, they will be asked to become leaders in ministries at Trinity - Awana, teaching, leading small groups and Bible studies, men’s ministries, women’s ministries, youth, helping ministries, etc.

In order to foster continued growth among these leaders, the elders will sponsor, once a quarter, an evening or Saturday event for the Leadership Community - that is, all the kinds of leaders just named. The Leadership Community meetings will have three components:

Teaching some area of practical leadership skills, or challenging leaders to faithful leadership from the Scriptures.
Prayer for the needs of leaders and ministries
Communication and feedback between ministries, including calendar coordination.

Trinity Vision Small Groups

Purpose:
Intellectual - to get people new to Trinity familiar with our vision, it’s Biblical basis and its practical outworking.
Relational - to bring people new to Trinity together so they get to know and care for each other.

Plan:
Trinity Vision Small Groups will meet once a week for seven weeks. The first week will be introductory, will include a meal or other time of fellowship and will allow for the distribution of materials.

The following six weeks will address one aspect of Trinity’s vision and commitments:
Second Week - becoming disciples
Third Week - learning and obeying His word
Fourth Week - depending on Him in prayer
Fifth Week - exalting Him through worship
Sixth Week - loving and caring for one another
Seventh Week - sharing his love with others

Preparation:
Each of the current elders and one other experienced small group leader will prepare a draft of one of these weeks, along with instructions for leaders. We will divide the responsibilities and select key Scripture passages at an upcoming elders meeting.

Bob will revise and edit the six weeks of material and try to make it fairly uniform. The revised materials will be approved by the elders and ready for use before the end of the summer.

Implementation:
Once the materials are ready every Bible study group at Trinity (Small groups, Sunday Morning Small Groups, Mens’ Groups, Women’s groups, youth and young adults) will be ask to go through the Trinity Vision studies sometime in the next six months. This will mean that pretty much every current small group member at Trinity will have the opportunity to be exposed to this material.

Feedback from this major round of groups will be used to revise and strength the studies.

After that all newcomers to Trinity will be enthusiastically encouraged to attend a Trinity Vision small group. These will begin about once every eight weeks, and will be led by a rotation of the elders and other available small group leaders.