Pastor Chris' Letter September 2016
Dear Trinity Family,
As I sit to write this letter to you today, I am so proud of the work that Trinity Church is doing in Kendallville. Over the last two months, you have shown our community our love of Christ and our hospitality as you reached out in many ways. I sit here as one proud pastor, and I am thrilled that God has allowed me to walk with each of you on this journey of faith. I am happy that we have built a relationship with other Christians in town to provide a meal the third Thursday of every month at Maplecrest Apartments. I was excited to see 38 of you walk with our church float in the 4-H parade as we won both over-all design and best in our division. I love how those participating were a variety of our people from both services and a variety of ages from the youngest at eighteen months to some of our most experienced people (age omitted so I do not get in trouble). I was thrilled to see many people step up for us to interact with our community as we built relationships with over 300 kids at Kid City.
All of this outreach culminated in a spectacular weekend of Trinity being in the community as we hosted the popcorn stand in downtown Kendallville and then on Sunday, we welcomed over 70 people to Sunset Park to join in our Mega Sports Camp. It was a great success as we had more families/children from outside the church than inside learn at camp. I am so happy about Mega Sports Camp that I could go on and on, but I am most excited about how another generation stepped up to lead and share the good news of Jesus Christ. Our youth and twenty-somethings were the heart, energy, and strength that drove Mega Sports Camp. Then, we continued strong with a great block party, where over 200 people showed up for games, food, and time together.
I want to thank everyone who helped with these events. I especially thank our staff who helped encourage and equip us to take on these challenges. I thank especially Tina Wilkinson, our director of Connections, who spearheaded these efforts, equipping and encouraging the teams to take on this massive move to get us beyond our walls and be in our community. I would also like to thank Debbie Miller, our Children’s Director, who loaned her creativity to these events (most notably the Spire) and her energy to interact with children both at Kid City and at Mega Sports Camp.
It would be easy to say that now is the time to sit back and relax, but we need to keep going. We need to look and think about the ways Trinity Church can get out into our community. The next opportunity we have is at Flint & Walling’s 150th anniversary celebration on September 17. We will have a booth there where we will be passing out cookies and water. I hope you can help with this marvelous ministry opportunity; check the Ministry Center for ways you can help. As we go forward, we need to be in the community sharing who we are. Trinity is a marvelous church and we need to continue to let our community see this fact.