Pastor Chris' Letter February 2017

Dear Trinity Family,
Today I would like to share three new initiatives we will begin to help us meet our mission and vision. As you might remember our mission is “to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” We live out this mission through our vision, which is to connect to God in Jesus Christ, grow in our faith in Christ, and serve in our world for Christ. We connect to God in Jesus Christ through our worship. Growing in Christ primarily happens in small groups. And serving happens whenever we are the hands and feet of Christ. Here are three new initiatives that will help us in the areas of grow and serve.
The first of these initiatives centers on the season of Lent. The season of Lent is a time to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection. This season begins with our celebration of Ash Wednesday March 1st at 6:30pm. This service reminds us of our humanity and that our time on earth is limited. It has been the tradition of many people to give up something for Lent, but this year I suggest that in addition to or instead of giving something up that we take something up. We will have two amazing opportunities for everyone to take up a new practice. The first is that we will have an all church study (topic and study are yet to be determined). We would like everyone to join a small group for this period of time to grow deeper in their faith. Secondly, we are going to have prayer walks throughout this time. What we will do is that we will walk a part of Kendallville and pray for the people who live, work, and even worship in that area. Look out for more details as we get closer to the start of Lent.
The second initiative is to help us to do something that the church does not do very well, which is celebrate the serving that we are already doing. Starting this month we will have little cards that will allow you to share the ways that you have served God in our world. This includes helping a neighbor, taking a meal to someone who is sick, visiting with someone, and the list goes on and on but we will collect all of these cards and then we will bring them the first Sunday of every month and pray over them as we celebrate the ways God is using us in the world. Be on the lookout for these new “Serve” cards. 
The third initiative is that you will start to see the names of pastors and churches that are in Kendallville and in the Northeast District of the United Methodist Church and I ask that you hold these churches and their leaders in your prayers. This initiative is to remind us that we are not the only people that God is using to share the good news of Jesus Christ. And although we may disagree with some of the beliefs of these churches we know, Christ has called us to be one in mission. Because of this we can pray for these other churches to remind ourselves that ministry is not a competition but also thank God he has called a great variety of believers to live, love, and share the good news of Jesus Christ.


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