Pastor Chris' September Letter 2017

Dear Trinity Family,

I was so excited this last week to announce our “super-charged” block party that will take place on September 30th from 12-2pm. But I want to take a little time to share how we got to this place because it speaks volumes about our God and our response to God’s work in the world. As many of you remember when we originally released we shared that our Block Party would be August 20th. That was our plan and we were already well on our way to planning and organizing these events when I started receiving other opportunities that would blend well with our plan.

The first pop-up came while I was drafting the proposal for the Board of Public works so that we could close State St., when we received a request from St. John’s Lutheran. Our brothers and sisters in Christ remembered a time when we together ministered to the neighborhood with an ice cream social. My response was to say “that’s a great idea but maybe next year.” The second pop-up came when our Conference Superintendent Dave Neckers shared that Parkview was looking for churches to sponsor health fairs. Again my response was “that’s a great idea but maybe next year.” What had started to happen is that I fell into the process the church usually finds itself in of having great opportunities but wanting to stick to what we have done.

I sat with these ideas, secretly looking forward to what we were going to do next year. Then I found myself in a discussion with our Church Board Chair, Tim Holcomb, and I began to describe what we were going to do for Block Party and I let it slip about all of the cool things that will happen “next year.” He challenged me to rethink about postponing our normal Block Party to try to make these awesome changes. My first response was to seek advice from Pastor Angie. She liked the idea and ran with it and had most of the plans for our super-charged block party within the hour.

I can laugh about it now but it was hard to take that leap of faith to break with what I knew to follow where God was leading us. Because I trust that for all of this to fall in place this was what God wanted us to do in the first place. In fact the first time I told this story to someone else they said that if I held out any longer God would have had to shake me. It is a constant reminder that we should always be in thought and prayer about every ministry of the church.

So now I am super excited that we will have our Block Party/Health Fair for our neighbors in collaboration with St. John’s Lutheran Church. We will have our usual fun, food, and games but we will also have Parkview Noble bringing an EMS vehicle, talking about medication assistance, sharing information about screenings, and doing blood pressure checks. We will also have Walgreens providing low cost flu shots to our neighbors as well as having a number of vouchers for those without insurance and for veterans. It truly will be a great time and we are bringing even more awesome things to this great opportunity. Look out for ways you can help as we minister to our neighbors September 30th from 12 to 2pm.