Trinity3.0

Pentecost

2010-05-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

This coming Sunday is Pentecost, the celebration of when the Holy Spirit first came on all believers. The liturgical color is red, so if you have something red you want to wear you'll have an opportunity to join with millions of other Christians in this celebration. We are also welcoming our confirmands this week, so it should be a pretty great week to be at church.

Palm Sunday

2010-03-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

This week our service was quite a bit different than normal. It was made up (mostly) of a combination of scripture readings and songs (but no sermon) and designed to help us, in some small way, re-live the events of Holy Week. Because of this format we were, unfortunately, not able to create a podcast from the service like we usually do.

Below is a series of links (and comments) intended to, as best as possible, help you join us in this experience.

Scripture Reading- Matthew 21:1-11
Hosanna
Scripture Reading- Luke 22:14-20
Communion; unfortunately we can not offer you bread and grape juice through the computer but please pause to reflect on the Lord's Supper and it's significance.
Scripture Reading- Luke 22:21-34
Humble Thyself
Scripture Reading- Luke 22:35-46
Prayer Time; please take a few minutes to praise God and thank him for all that he did while on Earth and to ask him for help with any burdens or worries you have.
Scripture Reading- Luke 22:47-62
Take My Life
Scripture Reading- Mark 15:1-20
Lead Me to the Cross
Scripture Reading- Mark 15:25-39
Were You There
Scripture Reading- John 19:38-42
Beautiful Scandalous Night

I pray that this might beas meaningful for you wherever and whenever you are as it was for us at Trinity this morning.

5 months, really?

2010-02-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

Well, clearly I'm not much of a blogger... 5 months is a very long time between posts, and its a shame because a lot of great stuff has happened during those 5 months.

In a nutshell, we had our first baptism, welcomed new members into our church, have seen a lot of familiar faces coming more regularly and have enjoyed a lot of good times of worship and fellowship. Our church is growing and so is the excitement about that! We're really looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us this year. If you haven't been in a while, come check it out again, we'd love to see you; and, if you've never been, you should definately come see what the excitement is about.

I will try to post more often and provide more information about what's upcoming- like the Ash Wednesday prayer vigil from 8am to 8pm in the prayer room of the new (big brown) building and the Workcamp 'stock sale' in Historic Trinity the evening of 2/28- as well as sneek peeks at future services (Nate is preaching next week and we may hear a message from Chris sometime in the next few months...). I know that this tool is currently being under-utilized and we will continue to look for more and better ways to put it to use.

Thanks for reading.

Rally Day

2009-09-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

This week we celebrated our annual "Rally Day" in which we combine all three services into a single service incorporating elements of each and followed by a picnic and games; it also marks the beginning of the sunday school year. This year's service featured some music from our praise band, some from the organ and choir of the traditional service and a special collaboration between the praise band and the chancel choir on "Amazing Grace my Chains are Gone."

Pastor Jeff shared a message about denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Jesus from Mark 8 and there was a Trinity3.0 style sharing time in which Nate Lange shared about what's going on in his life and about trusting God in hard times. Both of these are available as podcasts.

Beginning next week (9/20) we will be back in Historic Trinity at 9 am and will now be offering an adult (and young adult if you're not doing something with Paul and Ginny) sunday school class at 10:30. Hope to see you there.

approaching week 10

2009-09-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

wow, it's hard to believe that we've had 9 services already. things have been going surprisingly smoothly. we've had technical difficulties a couple of times, we're still mastering the nuances of powerpoint (anyone know how to go directly to a specific slide while in dual monitor presentation mode?) and twice we've had computer issues that resulted in losing/ruining the podcast (one was this past week, apologies to those who hoping to hear it) and on 8/30 the woman who was going to share about her faith journey couldn't make it to church but stan ellson did a magnificent job filling in on the spot.

we've put out a form for feedback and so far it has been overwhelmingly positive; if you'd like to offer any feedback you can post comments here, at podbean (where our podcasts are) or you can fill out the online feedback form at the church website under the trinity3.0 tab. according to the feedback we've gotten so far, there aren't a lot of people reading the blog but i think i'm going to try going back to writing one (short) entry each week since i'm clearly incapable of writing 'every other week or so' with any regularity.

if you're reading this we hope that it benefits you; we'd love for the blog to serve as a two-way resource so please feel free to comment here on anything you've liked or would like to see/hear. God bless.

been a while...

2009-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

sorry its been so long since the last post; i just wrote an entry summarizing the last 4 weeks or so and then it vanished when i tried to post it and now i'm out of time...
things are going well, we have podcasts up now at podbean so check them out.
sorry this is so brief, i'll try to write more soon.

are you reading this?

2009-07-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

we had another great service this past week: we got to know debbie robinson a little better and were encouraged by her enthusiasm for the future at trinity and pastor jeff shared with us about being rooted in Christ's love.

last week we streamlined the message board at the trinity web site, so check that out and get involved with the conversation. we've also started recording the message at service in preparation for posting them as podcasts; our first attempt came out better than expected so those may be availible pretty soon.

so far we've been posting every week about whats going on but the response to this blog has been... underwhelming and we're wondering whether its worth the effort to post that frequently. we're gonna try instead posting every other week or so and see how that goes. if you're reading this please make some kind of comment about your thoughts on that (both for the feedback and so we can get a feel for how many people are reading this at all). thanks.

this coming week we'll be welcoming back those who have returned from the workcamp missions trip. some of them will be sharing a meesage with us from what they learned there and the youth will be helping to administer communion which we're excited to share this week for the first time as a new faith community. hope to see you there.

another great week

2009-07-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

so far, so good! we had our second weekly gathering yesterday and it went really well. a lot of people came, the worship was engaging, pastor jeff shared a great message about the peace of Christ and paul sipson gave us an intimate look at one of the experiences that really shaped his journey of faith. there have been some other developments too- there is now a tab on Trinity's website devoted to this community of believers, its still a work in progress but there's a message board and contact info. feel free to leave any kind of comments you like including song requests, ideas for making the service better, things you'd like to see outside of service (a bible study or small group time afterwards?) or questions you've always wished to hear answered in a sermon but haven't. also, in the next couple of weeks we should start posting podcasts of portions of our sunday gatherings so watch for that. peace be with you.

first service

2009-07-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

wow. we had some very enthusiastic responses when we started talking about this service so we opptimistically set out 60 chairs, thinking that that way we wouldn't have too many empty seats and joking that we could always get out more when tons of people show up. apparently God has big plans for this service.
so, we started 10 minutes late after scrambling to setup enough chairs to seat everyone- pastor jeff counted 92 people at one point (after the kids and their teachers had left). we were all blown away. there were a few small snags but overall the service went very well. pastor jeff shared with us about our lives being love letters from God to the people around us, we all got to know jim ellson a little better as he told us how serving- especially through workcamps- was a big part of his faith and the praise band sounded great leading worship through music.
it was an incredible blessing to see so many people, both young and old, so enthusiastic about being at church. please pray that they will continue to be and that this service won't be a novelty or a fad but a real opportunity for growth in our congregation.

planning meeting

2009-07-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

the planning meeting last friday went well. we talked about the music- there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm about the praise band- as well as how we can keep the service informal but also include a little bit of the liturgy that connects us with the traditions of trinity, the united methodist church and christians around the world. we also talked about how we can try to really foster a sense of community amongst those who gather with us; one thing we're gonna try is including a time each week when someone will share about their faith experiences or some part of their spiritual journey (i'm really excited about this). so come on the 12th and get to know jim ellson a little better.

Something New

2009-06-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

We're VERY exicted about Trinity3.0, the new service at Trinity UMC. Beginning Sunday July 12th, we will be gathering at 9 am in Historic Trinity to share our experiences and encourage one another as we journey into more intimate worship, a deeper understanding of our faith and fuller lives through service.
Our praise band will lead us in modern expressions of praise and worship and we're looking forward to watching and participating as this new community of faith grows and develops into a unique body of believers committed to God and others.