|
- Radical Hospitality - Passionate Worship - Intentional Faith Development - Risk-Taking Mission & Service - Extravagant Generosity
The presence and strength of these five practices demonstrate congregational health, vitality, and fruitfulness. By repeating and improving these practices Trinity can fulfill its mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. These words are contagious, and capture the core process by which God uses Trinity to make disciples. As a congregation we offer the gracious invitation, welcome, and hospitality of Christ so people experience a sense of belonging; God shapes souls and changes minds through worship, creating a desire to grow closer to Christ; God's spirit nurtures people and matures faith through learning in community; with increased spiritual maturity, people discern God's call to help others through mission and service; and God inspires people to give generously of themselves so that others can receive the grace they have known. The words used to express these qualities are irresistible because they move us from abstract intentions to practical and personal directions for ministry. Once our mission becomes practical and personal, it becomes memorable and achievable.
Christian hospitality refers to the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover, for themselves, the unending richness of life in Christ. Beyond intention, hospitality practices the gracious love of Christ, respects the dignity of others, and expresses God's invitation to others, not our own. Come explore opportunities to share your Radical Hospitality!
Radical Hospitality Opportunities
Passionate Worship
In order to experience passionate worship we need to have a high expectation for it—to have real and sincere expectations that God will be there, moving among us in worship, drawing us closer to Him and to each other, and to stretch us. One of the keys to experiencing sincere and meaningful worship is actually to expect something good and positive to happen during worship—not simply to sing the songs, and pray the prayers—as important as those are—but also to expect God to be at work through those songs and prayers and readings and words and to cause actual lives to change.
Intentional Faith Development refers to the purposeful learning in community that helps the followers of Jesus mature in faith, such as Bible studies, Sunday school classes, short-term topical studies, and support groups that apply the faith to particular life challenges. Learning in community replicates the way Jesus deliberately taught his disciples. People cannot learn grace, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness, or joy, simply by reading about it in a book. These are aspects of spiritual formation that one learns in community, through intentional engagement.
Intentionally Develop your Faith
Risk-Taking Mission and Service includes the projects, the efforts, and the work people do to make a positive difference in the lives of others for the purposes of Christ. Risk-Taking refers to the service we offer that stretches us out of our comfort zone and has us engaging people and offering ourselves to ministries that we would never have done if not for our desire to follow Christ. Risk-taking steps into great uncertainty, a higher possibility of discomfort, resistance, or sacrifice. It pushes us beyond the circle of relationships that routinely define our church commitments. It changes the lives of the people who are served as well as the lives of those who serve.
Extravagant Generosity describes practices of sharing and giving that exceed all expectations and extend to unexpected measures. It describes lavish sharing, sacrifice, and giving in service to God and neighbor. Every scriptural example of giving is extravagant, and churches that practice Extravagant Generosity teach, preach, and practice the tithe. The focus on the Christian's need to give because of the giving nature of God whom we worship.
|
|
|
