Trinity Church Newsletter

Dear Trinity, I wanted to take my time to share with everyone something awesome that happened at the church. This year for Good Friday we celebrated Good Friday in a different way. We worked with our denominational partner in town, Faith UMC, to present the East Noble Ministerial Associations community Good Friday service, but we also did a special service in the evening. Now being a new thing our attendance was not amazing, but for those who were there it was an amazing experience. This year in response to our “For Kendallville” series we wanted to make an effort to get to know our neighborhood. So this year for Good Friday we took a windshield tour. Now I know your first question is what is a windshield tour? A windshield tour is traveling around the community, in which you live, to see what is around us. This was a perfect way   to reflect upon Christ’s sacrifice for us.   You see Good Friday celebrates the amazing gift God has given us in Jesus Christ. In particular, we remem

Statistics for Census Tract 9718 ~~~ We can’t be FOR our neighbors if we don’t know them! Trinity Church United Methodist is situated in the heart of Census Tract 9718.   The stats you are about to read are specifically for that area.   These are literally our next-door neighbors.   The stats are gathered from the 2011-2015 Census Bureau and MissionInsite, which is a site that compiles statistics from the Census Bureau, Synergos Technologies, Inc., Experian, and DecisionInsite/MissionInsite.   3,479 of our neighbors live in 9718.                23.9% of them live below the poverty line! 277 children under the age of 5 years old were reported in 9718.      50.2% of them live below the poverty line! 558 of our neighbors, 60 and better, were reported in 9718.       4.7% of them live below the poverty line! 690 of our neighbors were reported to be school age (5 – 17 years of age). 23.2% of them live below the poverty line! The median income is less than the

Greetings!   The theme this month seems to be about updates. First, the ordination ceremony has been set for June 9 th at 10:00 a.m. at the Indianapolis Convention Center.   You are welcome to join us in Indy.   For those who are able to come down, my amazing husband has arranged a celebration lunch at the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites following the ordination ceremony.   Please see me for more details if you are coming. The other update relates to the Peru Mission Trip.   We currently have 8 people planning to go from Trinity.   We are limiting the trip to 15 and we need at least 10.   Now that we know all of the Trinity people who would like to go have expressed interest, we are reaching out to other United Methodist Churches and the district who might be interested.     The trip will be October 13-21.   We will fly out of Chicago on the 13 th in the evening and arrive in Arequipa a little before noon on the 14 th via Miami and Lima.   We will be in Arequipa for a

What’s Going On (by Pastor Chris) With crazy events taking place in our world (especially the tragedy at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX) I have had questions about the security of our church. The simple answer is we are working on this. We have been in contact with our annual conference representatives as well as having been in touch Mick Newton (Director of Noble County Emergency Management Agency.) Both resources suggested that we continue to learn about active shooter situations. In response to this we are beginning to train the staff through two key resources. One is a universal training from FEMA as well as to learn the ALICE method (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate). We will begin with staff training and then invite others to join as we assess our space and needs.   The other piece that was shared by both of these resources is to assess our other security protocols. This security will involve us looking at least five other areas of security tha

Mother’s Day Transformation In light of our thinking, as a church, how to be FOR Kendallville we have decided to do Mother’s and Father’s Day differently. We, as a church, believe in supporting mothers of all kinds, biological mothers, foster and adoptive mothers, coaches, mentors, and spiritual mothers. Because it is our effort to support mothers we have decided not to buy gifts for the women of the church this year to honor Mother’s Day but instead to offer a gift to support Mother’s in our community. In case you did not know, our ministry partner, Life and Family Services, is the greatest supporter of mothers in our community. So because of this we are going to make a gift in honor of mothers of all types to Life and Family Services to help mothers in our community. This is a great opportunity for us to show we are FOR Kendallville. If you would like to help us make this gift to our community we will be giving the communion (love fund) offering on May 6 and a special offering on

With school ending in May we are starting look at our calendars to make summer plans.  I pray you are including summer church camp in your child's schedule.  Church Camp is very important and will be a life changing experience for them.  Camp brochures are on the ministry center or you may log in to  beacamper.com   to find camp locations and schedules. Please feel free to contact me, Debbie Miller, at  debbiem@trinitychurchum.org  with any questions you my have or help with registration.  Don't forget through the generosity of our church family we are able to give anyone wanting to attend 75% off. Just contact Debbie Miller or MJ at the office for that code.  Have a super summer.