Pastor Chris' Letter October 2016

Dear Trinity Family,

As I write this letter, we are in the middle of our teaching series “What Disciples Do.” I hope that it is clear that we, as Trinity Church, need to continue to focus on living out our mission “to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Our mission should be the focus of all we do, and this has been the motivation for a plan that I have been developing with the leaders of Trinity so that we may more effectively minister in our world.

This process has been in the works for many months. It began with the discernment process for Charge Conference (the yearly church meeting that sets structure and leadership for our church) last year. We found it hard to fill positions within the leadership because there were not enough leaders to fill these positions. This led me to bring my experience from other churches that have changed their leadership structure to be more streamlined and create more places for people to be in hands-on ministry.

So why is it important to streamline the leadership? Our church, as it is currently set up, requires twenty-five people to run the legislative work of the church. This is a lot of people. To put that into perspective, it takes one in every six people in worship to administrate the church. This takes our best leaders and limits their time for doing the actual ministry of the church. This change in leadership would decrease this number to seven people on one board that would serve all of the administrative functions of the church.

I have had many conversations with the leadership of the church, and in June of this year the church council, with permission of our District Superintendent, voted for us to move to this type of leadership structure. I then hosted a Town Hall on September 19 where we invited the entire church to hear about these changes. For those that were unable to attend the Town Hall, I have included my handout from this meeting and I invite you to read this document. If you have   questions, feel free to contact me at the church office or through email at chris@trinitychurchum.org. I believe and have experienced how this change in leadership can help us build new leaders and to more effectively live out our mission to be and make disciples. 

Pastor Chris


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