Life Groups 
Pastor Jake Malone
Extree, extree! Read all about it!  Gardening now considered a legitimate life group at Trinity!  No longer must the hands of phytophiles lurk timidly up the coat sleeves of their owners, fearing that an errant speck of dirt under the fingernail may expose them as the plant-lovers they truly are!  Unite, godly gardeners, and join in solidarity in discussing all things dirty, plant-y seedy and watery!  Also, the spiritual concepts of growing and gardening that are used in scripture may arise as well.  OK, I get to have a little fun once in a while right? 

Anyway, we do have a number of new Life Groups (including a gardening group) that are part of our post-Easter mini life-cycle of 6 week groups focused on CONNECTING and COMMITING. Why this focus you may ask?  Well, just like every year we have LOTS of visitors on Easter.  People are also very in tuned to “church stuff” around Easter time so we thought “why not target our efforts around connecting with these people?"  Besides, we might actually have some fun while doing it!  Thus the focus on Connect and Commit groups was born.  The 6 week time frame allows for an easier commitment for new-comers AND it lines up perfectly with the end of the spring/beginning of summer.

As always, our regular existing life groups will continue as scheduled (Sunday morning groups like “Chosen” and “Adult Classes”) but we are encouraging people to TRY OUT one of these connect or commit groups and invite someone in who has not been involved yet! Click on “Connect Groups” or “Commit Groups” under the Life Groups section for more info.  Here are just a few of the great new groups:
Gardening
Disc Golf
Ethnic Dining
Life Groups are popping up EVERYWHERE at Trinity it seems!  This is great news since we know that building intentional relationships is not only the vision behind life groups but it is at the heart of the true gospel.  Jesus went out of his way and made an effort to build a relationship with us. We should follow his lead and do so with each other!  Have fun! As always the question is… what do you NEED or what will you LEAD? Pastor Jake

Life Groups
Bruce Steinbrink
Hello Life Grouper’s! We are about halfway through our second cycle of life groups for the year. We are going to share with you what our plans are for the rest of the year before the summer break.  First, thanks to all of you who have been involved in the various life groups that have been meeting regularly this year. We continue to hear good reports about groups and the various ministries and interactions you are having within your individual group. We continue to hope and pray for all of your groups that they will add life to your interactions with each other, with your communities outside the church and with Jesus We wanted to let you know what will be happening for the rest of the year with our Life Groups. 

Our second round of groups will be ending at about Easter Sunday.  After that there will be about 6 weeks until schools let out and the summertime schedules begin.  During this 6 week period we wanted to encourage you to consider doing some type of “connect” group which would allow new folks to try out your group for this shorter cycle.

Easter Sunday service is our second largest attended church event of the year.  We would like to have groups available that will be able to incorporate any new people that may want to enter a group.  So, think about starting a new group or doing something different with your ongoing group by inviting new folks to join in. We will be available in the lobby for Life Group sign ups on Easter Sunday.

If you would like to start a group or would like some ideas about things to do, please talk to Jake Malone, Jeff Allen or Bruce Steinbrink. If you would prefer to continue your ongoing group as is, we encourage that as well.  Each of you knows what is best for the folks in your group.  Thanks for all your work and effort.  You are the Life of our groups and we pray for all of you to be filled with hope and encouragement as you meet one with another.

Pastor Jake Malone

We are right in the middle of our first “Life Cycle” of the year and our Life Groups are growing strong!  Over 30 Life Groups kicked off in September and since then God has already added 3 more! We have Groups growing in all 3 categories (Connect, Care and Commit) and, based on our last leadership survey, we have over 50% of Sunday attendance connected to a Life Group! This is such a huge blessing and a sign of LIFE in our church!  

One of the goals of the Life Group leadership team is to create a culture of creating new groups at Trinity. The idea is that people should feel supported by leadership so that when they see a need, the first reaction is “I should start a Life Group for that!” We saw a perfect example of this recently with some of our young adults.  There were a number of people in their early 20’s, just out of college, who felt like they didn’t really connect with the College Bible Study anymore.  Life changes a lot when you start a “real job” and they needed something specific to their stage in life.  Now, some people in the same situation would have come to me and said, “We need you to start a Young Adults Sunday School Class for us” but not this group!  They stepped out and started their own Life Group and it’s AWESOME!  They have about 10-12 people involved at this point, a great leader (Trevor Guyette), two beautiful hosts (Andrew and Brittnie Edwards) and an exciting topic (The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis). 

This Commit group is an inspiration and I am so proud of all of them!  They are putting into action 1 Timothy 4:12. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers.”  Well, the example has been set, are the rest of you up to the challenge??? 

What need do YOU see?  The question is... what do you NEED or what will you LEAD?
A new Life Cycle of groups starts in January so start thinking now about what group you may want to start or join.  If you have an idea for a new group, email Sandy Kaiser.

We also want to invite any prospective new leaders to the December Leadership Huddle.  It’s on December 4th, your choice of time: 9:00 am in ED5 or 10:45 am in ED6.  

See ya soon- Pastor Jake

P.S.  If you’re NOT in a Life Group (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t be) you can ALWAYS join any time! A list of current groups and a registration is on the menu bar on the left of this page. 

Pastor Jake Malone

You would never know by looking at it but Jamba Juice turns out to be a great place to lead someone to Christ! Just last week I sat drinking my “Mango-a-go-go” smoothie with a young couple who had been to Trinity’s Current Service twice. They were interested in what “the Baptist thing is all about” and “how to get closer to God”. I told them that I wouldn’t be much help with the first question but that the second one was right up my alley!

We talked for an hour about Jesus, what church is all about, and yes- even baptism! I found out that the young man had accepted Christ when growing up but had drifted away in High School- He wanted to re-dedicate his life to walking with God. The young woman had been to camp as a teenager but never really prayed to accept Jesus as her savior. She really wanted to. We did. All of heaven rejoiced! The reason I tell this story here is not just because I’m so excited about a new life in God’s family but because it underscores something that is important for all of us “church people” to remember: God is moving and he wants to use US! Are we expecting God to move? Are we expecting to be part of that movement?

That is really what the new approach to Life Groups coming this Fall is all about. The genius of the gospel is that it happens through relationship. Jesus came down here not only to die for our sins and defeat death by rising again but to show us something revolutionary, something world changing, something beautiful. He showed us that when we love God and then love each other that somehow God shows up and changes everything! Remember Jesus said “…just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples…” (Jn 13:35).

Evangelism is good. Missions trips are good. Worship services are good. Outreach projects are good. But if we “have not love” (that means “don’t have love” in non-Bible speak) we are nothing! The flip-side of that is that if we HAVE love AND we have all of those other things then we get to see the very power and presence of God break loose like we have never seen before!

I don’t know about you but to me, this is exciting! When we love each other God shows up and shows Himself to everyone we come in contact with- sounds good to me. There’s only one problem- we don’t NATURALLY do this! We don’t naturally seek relationship with each other. We don’t naturally connect, we don’t naturally care, we don’t naturally commit to each other and to God. And that’s where “church” comes in. Remember church is designed to spur us on! (Heb 10:24) That is the goal behind the new approach to Life Groups; to spur us on as a church in the way we love each other and how we show that love to the world.

As I met with the Life Group Task Force to design the structure of what Life Groups would look like this Fall we asked the question “what is the purpose of a Life Group?” The more we talked the more we realized that having only one purpose for all of our Life Groups wasn’t working. When I say “Life Group, Small Group, Cell Group…etc” most people think “a Bible study based in a home.” Now don’t get me wrong, studying the Bible is great, BUT the fact is that if we are expecting God to be moving and drawing lots of people to himself through Trinity then we have to be realistic about something; not all people need a Bible study. There are some people who don’t care about God or Jesus much at all and if you try to get them to join a Bible study you might as well invite them to a meeting of “lice infested anonymous”. They don’t want to be around it and they don’t want to catch it!

On the other end of the spectrum are super-mature Christians who have been in weekly structured Bible studies every week for the past 30 years. They have a strong personal relationship with God and they are feeding themselves through personal Bible study. In order to be challenged spiritually these people do not need another study on the book of James, they need to get out and have some fun and build relationships with non-church people! Or they need to take on the project of mentoring someone who is younger in faith (like the young couple I mentioned earlier). There is another chunk of people who are really struggling with difficult issues. Their marriage is falling apart, their kids are on the edge of disaster, their finances are in trouble, they are struggling with addiction or recovering from abuse… If we tell these people “join a Bible study on the book of Hebrews” we are falling short of the call to love them!

So what’s the solution? Well one way to think about it is this… What if we had different types of Life Groups? Some of them would be Bible studies for those who need that. Other groups would exist just to connect with new people. Still other groups would be focused on supporting and caring for people who have specific needs. This is the vision for Life Groups this fall- Three categories of groups:

Commit Groups exist to provide structured commitment for growing in your faith. Bible studies, mentorship relationships, accountability groups, leadership development, discipleship groups (like the Discovery Course) fit into this category.

Care Groups exist to respond to specific needs and issues that people are facing and to bring the word of God and the support of relationships to bear in those lives. Addiction and abuse recovery, marriage support, financial counseling (like Financial Peace University) fall under this category.

Connect Groups are based on the belief that God has given us all gifts and passions. When we use those gifts God shows up! These groups exist to form connections and relationships around something that you are passionate about. It could be cooking, gardening, tennis, fine dining… The challenge is to do something you love, invite others to do it with you and look for ways to bring the presence of God into the relationships that develop. If you have taken "Walk Across the Room" this concept will be familiar.

I know this new approach raises some questions… What exactly will these groups look like? What will the curriculum be? Who will lead the new groups? The answer to all of these questions is the same… YOU! The goal of this program is to create a structure that brings direction to the ministry of the people of Trinity. The role of the church is to support the ministry of the Life Group leaders, not to micro-manage their passion and gifts. This is about releasing people into the gifts and passion God has given. In order to do this we are also implementing a support structure for Life Group Leaders. We are praying that God will raise up a handful of “Mentor Leaders” who will provide prayer support and encouragement to our leaders. Someone to call and ask how we can pray, someone our leaders can contact with issues that may arise in the group that need deeper attention. If we support and encourage our leaders we will see God move in some amazing ways!

Another change we are implementing in this new approach is to create “Life Cycles” of 10-12 weeks for Life Groups. We will have 3-4 cycles throughout the year. All of the groups that are a part of this new direction will start at the same time and will conclude and take a 3 week break at the same time. This system has a number of advantages. First, when you sign up for a new group there is no longer an expectation that you will be in that group until Jesus comes back! Also, being a group leader is not an indefinite commitment- if you need to take 12 weeks off and come back in the next cycle you can do so without disrupting the system. Lastly, these cycles will help keep Life Groups in front of the congregation all the time. On any given week during Sunday services we will be either promoting and signing up for new groups or hearing testimonies from existing groups or asking for ideas for new groups and leaders. We believe that this approach will create significant “suction” in getting people to participate in Life Groups.

One question that may be in the back of your mind is “aren’t we already doing all of these things?” It’s true- I think we are doing some of these things to some extent. The purpose of this new approach to Life Groups is to bring VISION and DIRECTION to the way that we do all of these things. I believe that if we are moving in the same direction as a church it will bring more energy and more effectiveness to the way we do ministry. God’s word says that “without vision the people perish”. I believe that the opposite is also true. With a clear and compelling vision the people flourish!

Well, obviously this only scratches the surface of what Life Groups are all about but I hope that it has piqued your interest and gotten you thinking about the possibilities. We have a great leadership team that is working on designing this structure. The team is headed by Jeff Allen and Bruce Steinbrink and has been doing a great job thinking through the details. If you want to be a part of getting this new approach off the ground please let us know. Here’s how you can help:

1. Pray that God would guide us as we design the framework for this system. It won’t be perfect and we’ll need YOUR help working the kinks out!

2. Consider being a new Life Group Leader. We got great feedback from our survey in June. You all had great ideas for new groups! Below are some of the top responses of new group ideas in each category. If you are interested in leading one of these groups contact us!

Connect: Hiking, Cooking, Fitness
Care: Addictions, Grief, Unemployment
Commit: Mentoring, Prayer Groups

3. Get Ready to jump in with both feet and join or lead a group when we start the first Life Cycle in September. Signups start September 4th, there’s a Leadership Training on Sept 10th and the first week of groups meeting starts September 25th.

I am so excited about how God will use this new direction! Keep praying for our church and for me as we grow this together. If you have questions or input please drop me an email… I would love to hear from you! 

God Bless, Pastor Jake