Ephesians 4: 11-12 Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus reminds them and us that God has equipped His church with a variety of gifts. The gifts he gave are that some are prophets, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of , to the measure of the full stature of Christ. The reason for choosing this text this morning has to do with where we are in the Visioning Process at UMC. As I reflect on those who have so faithfully served and given so much of their time and talents this past year I have seen such a diversity of gifts, and have enjoyed witnessing them sharing their God given gifts, and I want to express a special thanks to Jake Wells for chairing this committee, and will now ask that all of you who participated to stand and be recognized. So would Jake Wells, Clark Cox, Michelle Duncan, Ellis Farr, Mellanie

Jinnette, Staci Marshall, Ericka Phillips, Marc Smith, and Bob Wood please stand. Let’s show our appreciation to this gifted group! I believe that God has given us a powerful and Biblical Mission Statement and Vision for Trinity for the next 5 years. Following is an excerpt from the document: “Trinity is a fellowship of diverse believers united by our faith in the Lord Christ as our Lord and Savior, who exist to make and nurture disciples of Jesus Christ through inspiring worship, transforming studies, Life Groups, and compassionate outreach and evangelism to the community. We strive to be a community of open hearts, open minds, and open doors, where all may experience the love of God and the presence of the . We commit ourselves through prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness so that God will use us to transform our community and the world.” We developed a Vision and Ministry Plan which addresses a five year time frame beginning in 2018. The plan identifies the following six Initiatives:  Communication – Sharpening One Another  Evangelism/Growth – Going Out and Making Disciples  Nurture/Discipleship Development – Loving and Encouraging One Another

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 Community Ministry – Seeing The Lord in Our Midst  Spiritual Practices/Worship – Renewing Our Strength  Facilities – Our Future Hope I would like to unpack each of these initiatives briefly for you, and you can follow along with the handouts placed in your bulletin which essentially is the summary page. As you can see the first Initiative is communication. About this time last year I was ask by Cathy Jamison what my initial impressions were, and my immediate reply was that we need to work to improve communication. And I know that this was a common theme heard by team members in many of the listening sessions, and was consistently shared as one of the biggest challenges Trinity faces. The committee discussed this challenge at length and decided that one necessary step would be to enlist someone to serve as a Director of Marketing and Communications, and subsequently stand up a Communication Team, which the Communication Director would chair. One of their tasks will be to develop new and more creative ways to communicate our identity and mission to the community. Part of this process will involve developing a new slogan and logo, which will be new and fresh, and help better market Trinity. The team also heard the need to improve internal communication by monitoring both the quantity and quality of internal connection points. This is evolving, and will ultimately involve ways to improve staff to church communication (Text message system?), as well as parishioner to pastor and pastor to parishioner communication (Sunday School visits/Pastor’s Discipleship Group and standing up an Executive Committee which will consist of the chairs of Church Council/Finance/SPRC/Trustees/ Community Outreach/Worship which will occasionally meet to improve communication through planning, and collaborate efforts. The second initiative is Evangelism/growth which I will not spend a lot of time on because under the leadership of Betty Hillyard this team has consistently developed and implemented intentional and creative strategies through initiatives like Food Truck

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Fridays, Trunk o Treat, Blythefest, Outreach to the Pointe, etc. Be assured that we will not rest on our laurels, and must continually strategize how to creatively reach an ever growing society increasingly filled with those who have reached adulthood without ever having set foot in a church. Initiative Three is Nurture/Discipleship development, and I am especially excited about this ministry. We have already head about Small Groups from Lauren Wells, and this is so critical because they allow congregation members to choose a group which best fits their needs at that particular time. And these groups along with other ministries like Discipleship Groups, Bible Studies, recurring studies, and the Advent study coming up in the weeks preceding Christmas, help facilitate Trinity member’s spiritual growth. And what is most beneficial to fostering spiritual growth is that these groups and studies will help develop and deepen relationships both vertically between us and God, and horizontally between church members who will grow closer to each other and God. As our Vision Plan says: “We recognize that discipleship is always first and foremost relational – it occurs person to person, and within the context of a community of believers.” Church – It is all about relationships - developing and deepening them not just as a body of Christ, or a representative of Trinity, but every day when God brings individuals across our paths…it is all about relationships. The fourth initiative is Community Ministry, and while addressing this the Visioning Team recognized that Trinity occupies a unique place in the Blythewood community, and this carries with it significant responsibility for ministry uniquely tailored to our community. While discussing ministry opportunities this initiative presents the team asked: “What are we known for? What do people in the community think/feel when they ride by our church? With that in mind we believe that we must be aware of the issues/challenges our community faces. And not only be aware of the issues, but address how we can be a church which facilitates healing, and reconciliation.

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We see for example the Blythewood Counseling Center as a critical ministry, unique to our community. We realize that the very people in our community who need counseling mostly cannot afford it, and so we need to support the center not just by prayer, but financially with our gifts. And we also need to support with our service, like opportunities which are coming up on the November the 11th to gather and help renovate the Stone House, with the goal of relocating our counselors to that building, which I believe will help increase the clientele, and help facilitate healing and reconciliation in our community. And to that end we must better advertise and educate the community about this community asset. If you think about it we are the only counseling center in the community, and so it goes without saying that this ministry is critical in our goal to help facilitate healing and reconciliation. Additionally the Vision Team identified other assets on campus such as CAB (Please pray about and plan on attending their CAB’s5th Annual “Flavors of Fall “event - fund raiser at 6:45, with dinner at 7;30 at The Farm at Ridgeway on November 2nd ...See Resa Cochran for information). Other on-campus assets which include the Boys and Girl Scouts, the Child Care Center, all of which provide a means for more intentional outreach, and help establish and deepen relationships and facilitate partnering opportunities with families who live in our community. While addressing the fifth Initiative, namely Spiritual Practices/Worship, the Team believes that there is terrific opportunities to for us to help shape future worship in order to help meet the ever changing worship preferences our younger generation. To that end we will develop an action plan targeting specific purposes for conducting more innovative worship, which will include developing a new/more contemporary worship service. Additionally we will look at developing our already instituted 5th Sunday worship experience, which may include occasionally going off campus to maybe Doko Park, as

4 we partner with local community congregations, like we will do with the planned Community Thanksgiving Service on November 19th here at Trinity. A recurring theme which the team heard also from you in our listening sessions is the need for Trinity to become a more diverse congregation. Quote: “Trinity is blessed to be in a growing community. It is a strong church with a significant potential to reach a growing and more diverse population. Our mission has not changed and our opportunity now and over the next five years is to re-interpret that mission to better reflect the diversity in our community.” We will continue to “brain-storm” ways to accomplish this, and I believe we are well on the way to accomplishing this through programs like the Mission’s Committee initiatives like Family Promise, the Summer Food Program, and filling Backpacks for needy children to begin the school year, among numerous ministries to assist the less fortunate in our midst. Back to worship, we also will begin what hopefully will be a long relationship with Journey United Methodist Church as we look to help heal racial tensions and facilitate healing and reconciliation, not just in our community, but in community congregations. Our final initiative is Facilities, which includes helping make Trinity a “full service campus”. We will continue to meet and strategize about this this and all the other initiatives, but I am truly excited and interested to see how we can fulfill the goal of making Trinity a “full service campus”. Please feel free to share any ideas you have with any of the Vision Team members to help us attain this worthy ministry and all other goals. Our Vision and Ministry Plan Team believes the following: “We know that in order for our campus to reach more of its full potential, we must maintain the commitment to have a wide range of successful programs in place. In addition, we must also maintain the commitment to provide the financial resources needed to help meet our vision”. As just stated one of the keys to meeting this initiative is financial, and we have the faith that financially we will continue to return to previous years where your selfless and

5 intentional giving helped facilitate building the Youth Building, and expanding the CCC, and other campus facilities. In anticipation of this financial growth we will conduct a formal review of our campus plan and update/revise as we attempt to ascertain how to best link it to this Vision and Ministry Plan. This will be a phased process driven by our ability to financially support. Yes, Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus reminds them and us that God has equipped His church with a variety of gifts, and it is these variety of God given gifts which will help us attain the goals outlined in the Trinity Vision and 5 Year Ministry Plan. The Vision Team believes that our ministry can be best summed up in the phrase “Connecting, growing, and serving.” The activities and ministry opportunities which I outlined in this message will lead us to “Find God (Connecting), find ourselves (growing), and find your way (serving)”. I want to assure you that we will continue to be diligent in intentionally meeting the goals outlined in this document. This process has not ended…this is the beginning as we work with this strategic plan which is a living document. In the words of our chair at the Church Council meeting this past week… “This is not a culmination but a coronation.” Church I am confident that we will find God both in the church and at different places he places us in our community and world. I also believe that we will grow through worship, through fellowship, and through reaching out to our community, and through studying God’s word and applying it to our lives both individually and corporately. To that end let us spend a few minutes where you are seated in silent prayer, reflection, and meditation.

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