Dear Trinity Church, A week ago today my family was marveling at the majesty of the Pacific Ocean, where giant waves battled giant trees for supremacy of Rialto Beach. I sat comfortably against an old growth stump, my feet in the sand, enjoying a blazing fire already built by campers who left us the best spot on the beach. There couldn’t be a more beautiful site. Which made the question plaguing my heart all the more troubling. “How can I be on vacation in such a beautiful place, surrounded by people I love, and not be at rest? What is wrong with me?” The answer to my troubled thoughts would not come for three more days, and you’ll have to wait for the answer till Saturday night’s Evensong service. Between now and then, please read Hebrews 3:19 – 4:11. As you do, wonder about the P L A C E God describes as the geographical key to being at rest.
I will have 7 minutes on Saturday night to tell the rest of the story, about how “God with something is everything, but something without God is nothing.” Something I’ve been been wrestling with is how to gather as a church come August, and how to hold this year’s Trinity Camp. Today’s staff meeting provided a breakthrough. You know that feeling you get at camps or conferences of being too full? You love all the good teaching, (like last year’s with Iain Provan), but by the end you can barely remember the last lecture, let alone the first? This year we are going to spread out the teaching all month on Thursday nights, and let Sunday mornings give us time to process what we’re learning, and practice what we’ve heard preached. I believe that this leisurely pace could make this year’s Trinity Camp one of the most profound and transforming of all. Please put into your calendars:
Thursday Nights Live Teaching + Sunday Mornings Backyard Church = 2020 Trinity Camp
Details will follow next week, aided by our Trinity Camp co-leaders Amanda Brack and Sarah Duffey, but here is the goal: We want to find a way to gather safely, in each other’s backyards, for a short service combining two things:
Liturgy, Prayer, & Communion with children (15 minutes) followed by
Leisurely time (while children play) for teenagers & adults to talk about all the things that are happening in each other’s lives.
Unless you are either ill or traveling, please dedicate these 5 weeks to reconnecting as the Body of Christ. If you are sick, or know your travel dates, please contact us at hello@trinitywenatchee.org before July 20 when we finalize the Backyard Church Groups. As your pastor, I am asking you to start praying that the Holy Spirit will use these outside-of-the-box Sundays to help us reconnect. Pray that the questions we ask, stories we tell, laughter we share and tears we shed will be Christ himself ministering to each one of us, through each one of us. That’s the miracle of church. God’s Holy Spirit taking people asking: “What’s wrong with me?” and using us to help each other make things right in Christ. Children . . . look out for older folks who need your wonder & good questions. Single folk . . . look out for married couples who need encouragement. Older folk . . . look out for children who are weary of being cooped up with their parents. And may God himself, our Father, find us in Christ in our own backyards, by the power of the Holy Spirit. With growing hope, Pastor Matt