Message from the Chair of Council

The purpose of a JNAC is to consider and review the mission and ministry of our pastoral charge and our relationship with the community we serve. The reasons for this needs assessment are varied. It is a way for us to document all of the work that is being accomplished amongst us. It will be helpful to all of us in the congregation to precipitate the changes we will have to make to continue to serve our community. The process will be of help to our Ministers in their mission to best serve God and the community of God.

The changes in our Trinity community continue to be discerned and many activities have been undertaken by a great many of your fellow members to lay the foundation for change. The Governance Team has been working towards a June report for council. A Finance Team has reviewed the 2012 and forwarding years’ budgets and has made a recommendation to council that future budgets must not and cannot be in a deficit. The DOOR team has been meeting bi-weekly since January to discern recommendations for our worship space. They are on target to report to us in June. In May, Council will be attending a workshop designed to study mission and worship in the future. A Congregational retreat on this same topic is being planned for October. All of this has been blessed and directed by your Trinity Council in preparation for change. Revisiting and updating our 2006 JNAC report to reflect all of these changes is the next logical step in our moving forward.

I pray that you will applaud your council and the Reverends Jack and Desmond for their strength and support of all the many works that are being done. We are blessed that all of this work can be done at a time when Trinity recognizes that how we are serving God now will not continue to be the best way in the future. We are blessed that we are not in tsunami crisis and we are able to undergo this work with the help and understanding of our ministers and the clear thinking of our many teams.

We will be officially asking for this work to be initiated with our Presbytery. A further communication will be made during our Sunday service and I, and many of the various team leaders and council members, will be available for discussion after the service.

Thank you for supporting these works for change. Without your continued requests for planning and discernment we would not be able to undertake such important tasks.

To-day we are coventing a Discernment Team. A team of individuals chosen by your council to continue the work necessary to further develop and carry out Trinity’s plans for the future.

For the past several years and in fact, many years before that there has been much talk, discussion and work done on the topic of Trinity’s plans for the future.

I can recall as a teen new to K-W reading in the Record of Frank Morgan’s wish to change the physical use of this sight and the building. In recent years work was done on our behalf for a 4 churches model and most recently, a Trinity Relocate or Restore Team gave us as many as 6 choices on what we might consider.

Last Fall many of you met in small groups to discuss “where and Why’ for Trinity’s future. In the large majority, you told us Trinity needs to continue it’d downtown mission and needs to worship in the area where our mission is carried out.

Your strong message was clearly an affirmation that it is time for a strong next step. The next step is to mandate this committee to review the choices proposed to us and recommend to you the most viable solution. One that shares our group vision as a congregation and makes sense to us.

A group of members chosen by your council for there knowledge, skills and the respect they have earned as they have worked beside you and for you in the life of the church.

Quite simply it is to use the mandate you have given them and the choices presented to us by the TRRT team to work towards a recommendation for trinity’s mission and location.

The first stage is to map out a plan and evaluate which path seems to be the best one. Our congregation demographics, our financial energy, our missions, our long history as a congregation will all be considered and will play a large part of their discernment. It will be their goal that this stage come back to you after Easter and before June.

The second stage, with your permission, will be to develop an action plan and time lines to work towards. The goal will be the 4th quarter.

We could only wish that 3 or 400 hundred individuals could rise up in unison in support of one single solution.

Given that improbability, each of you will need to discern for yourself on this subject. While the team prepares their recommendations you will need to prepare yourself to accept change and answer within yourself what changes will be practical and acceptable.

Do I believe this change is for the well being of our congregation and its ability to do God’s work.

We do not walk alone on this need for change. I will refer you to an article in the January issue of the Observer which is about the subject of the move the general Counsel Office will make in 2015. It is also about the long path to change 2 Toronto churches have taken as they are considered as site possibilities for the National body’s new address.

Next month is the Annual General Meeting. Very soon you will receive the reports of the work done by our committees and the financials for this past year. As you review these results and what is contained in the reports, remind yourselves that they are giving you a message. That message may not be clear, but I think it is there in the things that are not there. Missing is our eroding ability to support as much mission work as we would wish to and missing is our financial inability to plan for an increase in this work in the near future. It has been said that making no decision is in fact a decision. I do not think this is the way we want to continue.

A visioning exercise by our ministers are a few of the tasks being worked on your behalf.

And so this morning as we Covent this group and include them in our prayers, we also include the many others who have and continue to contribute to our work.

An Update from your Council September 2011

Imagine God said to us, “Good ideas about the four churches and amalgamation, Trinity. I know you were ready for the excitement of those events, and I was too, but not everyone was ready. That’s o.k. I have other good plans for them. And I have other plans for you, too. Keep working. I have faith in you. Have faith in me.”

So, where do we go from here?

This summer, a small group of your council met to consider the next step of Trinity‘s future.

We have some good news for you.

In October, your Council is asking you to consider two important questions to help us discover God’s plan for us, in small discussion groups at the church or at members’ homes.

Here are the two questions:

1. Does your vision of Trinity include a downtown outreach ministry? Put another way, we already have that as our Mission right now. Should it continue?

2. Does your vision of Trinity include a worship space in the downtown? Put another way, is this location in the downtown what God is still calling us to select?

We need to meet and talk about these two questions together, as a Church, just as Christ would sit together with his disciples and talk.

Here’s “the where” and “the when.”

You could sign up for October 16th, in a small discussion group at the church, after worship, where a lunch and child care will be provided.

You could sign up for October 17th or 19th, in a small discussion group at our members’ homes.

A facilitator will help guide discussion and keep us focused.

Groups will record their responses and thoughts and we will share our responses for others to read and consider.

You can sign up in church on Sunday Sept 25th outside the Fellowship Hall.

Stuart Cross will be there to assist you and to answer any questions you may have.

So, imagine God said to you:

“Your future is very exciting, Trinity. Keep working. I have faith in you. Have faith in me.”

God’s presence will guide you as you sign up and as you discuss our future.

It has been two months and 2 council meetings since Trinity’s Annual General Meeting. From its very first meeting in March, this council has recognized that it is charged with moving the topic of Trinity’s future forward.

There lies the challenge! For the first time in 100 years, Trinity has the opportunity to think about our home. Whether we rent or own, where we live matters. This applies to congregations as much as it does to individuals. Where and how we live makes a statement about how we see ourselves and what we believe to be important. The future path we chose will be a dramatic expression of our mission statement.

Just like the United Church, Trinity United has a conciliar inclusive system of governance. What this means is that all voices are given an opportunity to be heard. Is this cumbersome? Yes it is. But messiness and vigilance are two important requirements for any democracy, and so we shall try our best to give every voice a chance to be heard. Council members have completed some homework in the past month. They were each part of small group discussions titled ‘What should the process be?’ and ‘What’s the next step?’

At the April 19th council meeting we heard from each of these small groups. Strong messages and a repeating theme emerged. Communicate and interact with the congregation. Review and follow our mission statement. Reduce the number of choices for the church and the Trinity Relocate/Restoration Committee to move forward with. And finally, an informal poll of the council members present showed an overwhelming agreement that Trinity’s future should be in the Kitchener Downtown.

At the next council meeting we will be planning the next step. That step is inclusive for the congregation. Small group discussions at convenient times worked well for the council members. Perhaps this method will also work well for members of the congregation too.

Recently, I have been reading the book of Luke and studying with Ian Cross in preparation for his confirmation this autumn. We have found the stories in Luke to be thought provoking and insightful about many life topics. As you prepare to have conversations about our mission and our future, you to may find it helpful to take some reading time to review some of these familiar teachings and parables.

I must give credit for some of this letter’s analogy to Rev. James Christie. His ‘My View’ article in the May 2011 Observer message was about the 2015 lease ending for the United Church National Office. I thought there were some good parallels to Trinity’s questions concerning our home.

I hope we can all give ourselves things to think about as we enter into the quieter months of the church year.