Some serious momentum

At the beginning of this month, we made the move into the commons of PRMS and also began our new emphasis upon Simplicity, Community and Generosity. The change has been life-giving and the newly acquired momentum is envigerating. I'm more fired up about the direction of our church right now than I have been in years. And after about 6 months of spinning our wheels and lacking any sort of positive momentum, this is a wonderful place to be, as pastor and as a church.

Last Sunday was another piece of the newfound momentum, it was the baptism of Travis Bottcher. I'll post Travis' testimony from Sunday below:
Some of you may be wondering who I am because I am not here very often on Sunday’s due to my job. So I wanted to talk briefly about how I have come from not really caring or thinking about GOD to being dunked in this kiddy pool, which is a nice touch I must say Donnie.
When I was younger my family and I attended a small country church in Sedalia and I was baptized when I was 12. I am very glad I was baptized there but it has a totally different meaning to me now. We continued going there for a while but we eventually stopped and I really never got involved with another church.
In November of 2004, Amy and Billy started coming to Trinity Family as the church started up. I pretty much avoided the place at all costs for the longest time. As I look back, I think it was mainly because I felt like I didn’t need church or GOD in my life. I didn’t want to go to a place where it was being pounded down my throat all the time or here that what I was doing was wrong. I believed in GOD and that was good enough.
One Sunday, I finally came and met Donnie and other people from Trinity Family and the next thing I know I am having weekly bible studies with Donnie. A while later I am having bible study groups at my house.
Even when I was going thru my divorce and couldn’t make sense of anything, GOD and Trinity Family was still with me. Then when I found out I was expecting another baby, I was so happy but I knew it wasn’t the perfect circumstances to bring a child in to this world with two parents who were no longer together. I fought for several months in my head and did not really talk to GOD because I guess I was ashamed or something a long those lines. It was not like I blamed him but I could not understand because I felt like I had already been thru so much. Then in August I am not sure exactly what happened but I was talking to a dear friend and it was like something came over me. I felt like GOD was talking to me and said it’s alright. I won’t give you more than you can handle. Now I have said it before but I am not a real bible pounding kind of person but this was a moment I felt through my whole body and it is hard to explain unless you have had this moment.
I sent a text to Donnie right away and said I want to be baptized now. Keep in mind Donnie and I have been talking about me getting baptized for well over a year and I kept telling him, I’m not ready and I’ll know when its time. It would have been great to see his face when he got that text but I think he replied with a “Wow” and let’s do it. Now our schedules haven’t worked the best so it has been a couple of months but over that time I have some special friends in my life who are helping me find my “true self”. Not only has my relationship with GOD gotten stronger but my relationship with my friends and family also. Not everyone gets to see these changes and some people may not even notice them and that is some of the things I am still working on, but I know there are certain people who can see and feel those changes. I hope and pray that these changes can be passed on to my two beautiful children, Billy and Gabrielle, who was born on November 2nd. That has become one of my goals and dreams.
Now our schedules have finally worked out and I am here to take this step!!!




Travis' spiritual journey over the past year parallels what has happened in TFC. After some initial excitement and momentum, Travis hit a wall. But he's pushed through that difficult spot and found the deeper joy and contenment that comes from a spiritual maturity, a spiritual maturity known only to those who have persevered through difficult times.

Our new logo = our new direction as a church

Sunday's Advisory Council Meeting

Sunday was our monthly Advisory Council meeting and I'm pleased to report we made some significant decisions for our church. As I've been sharing, the new direction for Trinity Family is to commit ourselves to Simplicity, Community and Generosity. Here are a few of the decisions from Sunday that will help move us in that new direction.

1) Simplify and enhance our website I'd been thinking that our current website is too 'brochure-like' and not set up for community building. We're also paying $50/month for web hosting. We're going to switch to a server that only charges $12/ month, rewrite the content to fit our new direction and integrate Church Community Builder into our current site. It's going to take a few months to make this happen; first we'll redo our current site and then we'll launch and integrate CCB.

2) Refreshments Not a huge financial decision and we're already doing it, but we formalized the decision to redirect some of the money we're now saving on rent toward Sunday morning refreshments.

3) Giving to the under resourced This is what has me the most pumped. TFC is already modeling generosity in the fact that we give away 13% of our offerings; 7% is for for local ministry through our district and 6% goes to our overseas mission work. A part of our denomination's mission funding goes toward Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.
But beyond that 13%, we're trying to find more ways to give. Decisions such as cutting rent and using a cheaper web service are all ways to cut expenses so we can give more. We're cutting as much operating cost as possible so more money can be given away!
We haven't finalized it yet but we're currently considering allocating these newly freed resources in this way; %30 for helping people within our own congregation, 60% given to organizations that serve the poor in our local community, such as Gardner Multi-services Center and 10% will be given to efforts to serve the global poor. We'll also continue to have special offerings to serve the world's poor, such as the offering we took in July for World Vision.

And this is just the beginning of the larger impact TFC is going to have on our local and global community.

A New Era begins for TFC

There was an energy level among the congregation on Sunday that I haven't experienced for a long time. People kept telling me, through smiles and hugs, how much they love the changes that have just happened.

These changes have been a long time coming. Last spring, we began a numerical slide that has resulted in our Sunday morning worship attendance being between 2/3 - 1/2 of what it was a year ago at this time. Toward the beginning of that slide, after a very lowly attended Sunday in March, I spent a sleepless night talking with God and wrestling with my fears and hopes. My fear was that if we continued to "do church" as we were at the time, we might not continue to exist. That fear lead to a hope, a hope that TFC could stop focusing on "doing church" and become more intentional about "being the church." At about 4 AM, I got a pretty clear picture of the changes we could make.

I began sharing those changes with staff, the board and then ministry leaders; everyone was on board with the ideas. Last summer, we polled the congregation to find out approaches were working and to gauge their openness to the potential changes. The surveys revealed an almost unanimous support of the structural changes our leadership was considering.

In August, we took a big first step in introducing Discussion Groups to Sunday AM worship. To say these groups have been a success would be the understatement of the year. Every Sunday, over 90% of the congregation participates in discussion groups. This past Sunday, only ONE person skipped discussion groups and that was because of a family emergency. It was almost hard to hear the other members of my group over the dull roar of the conversations happening all over the commons. The introduction of Discussion Groups, as well as "Ask Anything" Sundays, have all been a part of our effort to take a more dialogical approach to Sunday morning worship.

The immediate success of Discussion Groups allowed our leadership to take a bigger step in this move from "doing" to "being." In summary, our new focus as a church is upon three main values, Simplicity, Community and Generosity. Let me explain our new focus on these areas.

Simplicity = When TFC launched 4 years ago, I was determined to make us into a church that would wow everyone who showed up for worship. 4 years later, I've broken (been broken is probably the better way of saying it) out of that consumerism / attractional approach. Our unique niche in the Kingdom isn't going to come from what we do but in what we are. Our first major step in simplification is in moving out of the auditorium of PRMS and into the commons. In making this move, we've eliminated as much set-up as possible, focusing on the essentials for corporate worship. Elements such as stage lighting and moving backgrounds have been lost in our move into the commons and I'm not sure whether we'll be able to find them again.

Community Also left behind in our move were the cushy but permanent chairs of the PRMS auditorium. We've now got portable chairs that can be arranged in a large half-circle for corporate worship or into smaller circles for Discussion Groups. It's amazing what changing from rows facing one direction to a circle of chairs does for group dynamics.
Moving into the commons is saving us a LOT of money in rent payments, lowering our operational overhead by thousands of dollars. Our Advisory Council is considering using some of the saved money for an online service designed to help churches build community.
We're also rebudgeting some money for morning refreshments. Worshiping in the commons means we're able to have coffee and donuts again! Amazing how something so simple can go so far in community building.
Following the advice from last summer's surveys, we're also going to be having regular community meals as a part of our worship. Our first community meal will be Nov. 22nd.

Generosity This is what has me more fired up than any of our changes - the more we lower our operational expenses, the more we can give away. The less we spend on rent, the more we can give to organizations that serve the poor and under resourced, both locally and globally. My constant challenge to our congregation is "spend less on self so you can give away more." I'm glad to say that TFC is taking another step in that direction. We do already give 7% of our offerings to local ministry work and 6% to global evangelism, but we'll be able to do more now. Our Advisory Council is also working out a process for setting up a fund to help families within our congregation; having funds available for those in immediate need - allowing us to live out the New Testament value of taking care of each other.
What do you think honors Jesus more, spending our resources on facilities or on serving the poor? If you're not sure, check this out.

While these changes may not seem too radical on the surface, they're indications of deep changes that have happened within me. My whole understanding of how a group of Christ-followers are to live together as a local expression of the Kingdom of God has been turned upside-down over the past 9 months. Last spring was a season of disillusionment and failure within the typical North American protestant model. Last summer was a season of depression and hopelessness (to read my self-confession to my church from a few weeks ago, click here). This fall has been a season of rebirth for Trinity Family, a rebirth into a new model of church that greatly parallels the old model we see in the New Testament.

And it's my sneaking suspicion that the approaches that make TFC different from just about every other church in our area are going to be common place within the next couple of decades.

Below are pictures from Sunday, including our TFC Kidz area. We would've moved into the commons sooner but it took a few months of planning to figure out how to make TFC Kidz work in a different space. I'm proud to say Pastor Andy figured it out.


The tech guys figuring out the digital sound board DONATED to TFC, which helps us further simplify our set-up process.