Pastor Chris' Letter August 2016
Dear Trinity Family,
Each month I write this letter to our church family as a way to illustrate what is going on at Trinity; as well as, to encourage us in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for transforming the world. This month it became clear that one of our ministries was causing harm rather than helping. When I arrived at Trinity, it had been common practice to help people in emergencies by providing a gas voucher so that they may go to a doctor’s appointment, go to a job interview, or other emergency situations that may arise.
This practice has raised many problems. One central problem is that this practice forces decisions as to what is and what is not an emergency on the staff and myself. The second, and far greater problem, is that people have begun to take advantage of this practice. We have had a couple of incidents where we know those vouchers have been traded for drugs. Now the point of this letter is not for us to jump on the few people who have abused our help. Many people have benefitted from this ministry that is generously funded through our love offerings during communion. However, the point is that we need to pray for discernment about how our ministries affect our community so that we are helping and not hurting people by enabling them.
I have made the decision that we will no longer be issuing gas vouchers. We will be sending all assistance requests to Common Grace Ministries. They are better equipped to help people without enabling them. In fact, their mission is, “Empowering Independence in the Name of Christ.”
In light of this learning, we need to take time to reflect on how God has called us to live out our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ. This is why we will start a new sermon series in September called, “What Disciples Do.” It will help us focus on what God has called us to do as disciples of Jesus Christ. As a part of this series, we will be having an all church study called, “When Helping Hurts.” This is a resource of the Chalmers Center, which focuses on an overall understanding of poverty and the way this interacts with our faith. I hope you will join us as together we learn more about what it means to be a disciple and how we live that out in our world. Be on the lookout for more information about how you can join in this learning process. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at chris@trinitychurchum.org or through the church office.