Trinity Happenings and Pastor Keith's FRIDGENOTES

2013-06-19T09:34:00.002-04:00

Roadside Field, Suches, Georgia, June 2013

Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.
Mark 9:35b-37

What does it mean for you that we have a God who measures greatness in humility, utility in servanthood, value in child-like wonder?

2013-06-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Cooper Creek, Suches, Georgia June 2013

But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
Isaiah 43:1-2a

Of what are you afraid that you need to give to the Lord this day?
What is threatening to overwhelm you?
What is challenging you?
You do not face it alone.

2013-06-16T11:04:00.002-04:00

Zebra Long Wing on firebush, Parsonage Butterfly Garden, June 2013

[Jesus said] Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
Mark 10: 38b-39

Think your life is ordinary?
Think it is insignificant?
[in baptism you have been crucified with Christ and you no longer live, but Jesus Christ lives in you]

Think again.

2013-06-15T09:12:00.002-04:00

Julia Butterfly on Firebush, Parsonage Butterfly Garden, June 2013

O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples.

Sing to him, sing praises to him;

tell of all his wonderful works.

Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.

Seek the LORD and his strength;

seek his presence continually.

Psalm 105:1-4

Where have you seen the wonderful works of the Lord today?

2013-06-14T23:32:00.003-04:00

TRINITY’S ANNUAL 4TH OF JULY ICE CREAM SOCIAL!!!

THURS, JULY 4 at 7:30pm Bring your family and neighbors!

You can make your SUNDAE of choice. All we ask is a DONATION!

4th of JULY ICE CREAM SOCIAL

We are in need of ice cream (regular & sugar-free) and toppings and that list is on your worship slip. Also, anyone can bring brownies or cookies… Please bring in your items by SUN, JUNE 30th!!! See SAM as to where to put the items! This gives you plenty of time for great fellowship before the fireworks begin about 9pm. Bring lawn chairs and sit out in our back parking lot for a great view of the fireworks from the back of BC South Campus area. Please sign up here, by contacting the office or on your worship slip beginning JUNE 23 if you are able to assist on July 4th with the parking lot…we need you here by 8pm

Let us know if you can bring any of the following:

Chocolate Ice Cream Chocolate Topping

Strawberry Ice Cream Strawberry Topping

SUGARFREE Ice Cream Carmel Topping

Cookies brownies Sprinkles

Also let us know if you can help with any of the following:

Help with the PARKING LOT safety

Help with CLEAN UP

SAM Newton is coordinating this year's event

2013-06-14T23:15:00.001-04:00

HELP STILL NEEDED!
VBS Decorating Schedule

Monday June 17th- 9am-12

Tuesday June 18th- 1-3pm

Thursday June 20th- 9am-12

Friday June 21st- 11am-2

Saturday June 22nd- If Needed

If there are hours that you can or would like to work, let me know, thanks!

Tina

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL REGISTRATION

Have You Registered all of the young people in your life for Vacation Bible School? This is truly the most amazing week of the year. June 24-28 6PM optional meal ($2) then 6:30PM-9PM for some learning about Jesus awesomeness! Register through your worship slip or by contacting Denise Payne our registrar extraordinary

2013-06-14T17:21:00.002-04:00

Knockout Rose, The Parsonage, June 2013

Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD;

his appearing is as sure as the dawn;

he will come to us like the showers,

like the spring rains that water the earth

Hosea 6:3

2013-06-13T21:15:00.001-04:00

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly on Purple Porterweed, The Parsonage Butterfly Garden, June 13, 2013

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus had to remind people that a sabbath's rest is a gift from God. Amazingly, people had made keeping the sabbath a burden that few could bear, rather than receiving God's gift with joy. Religious folks of different sorts like to argue if Saturday is the sabbath or Sunday, or whenever. How much better we would all be to cease such nonsense and enjoy the gift woven into the garment of creation that calls us to regularly cease from our labors and embrace that which gives us the most joy to the glory of God. These photos that I share, they come from my own sabbath walks that restore my soul. What restores yours?

2013-06-13T08:55:00.002-04:00

Tall Cypress Natural Area, Coral Springs, FL June 11, 2013

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1

 As Christians, our "native tongue" is love, so why do we resort to so many other languages that fail to provide us with the words we need to be compassionate, forgiving, and selfless?

2013-06-12T09:10:00.001-04:00

Tall Cypress Natural Area, Coral Springs, FL June 11, 2013

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you
Isaiah 60:1

Each day has its own challenges and struggles, as we await in bed in between sleeping and waking these dance about, daring us to rise and face them. But we are children of the light, of the day, of God, and need not fear what may come this day, for we dwell in the glory of God and walk in the light of promise, of grace, which nothing this day can take from us.

2013-06-11T14:57:00.002-04:00

Tall Cypress Natural Area, Coral Springs, FL June 11, 2013

For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost. 

Luke 19:10  

Thank God for that - because I do not remember a single day, where I did not in ways small and great, feel lost and lacking except for a grace that both surprises and claims me, despite myself. Perhaps this is not unique to me. Perhaps there is a word of grace that you might need to hear today as well.

2013-06-10T10:39:00.002-04:00

Lilies, Long Key Nature Preserve, Davie Florida, June 2013

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:27, 28b, 31-33

Instead of bringing our worries before God, we often let our worries shut God out, robbing us of the very help we both need and desire when we need it most. Our worries need not paralyze us, nor define our life, should they?

2013-06-09T17:54:00.003-04:00

CROSS+GENERATIONAL WORSHIP
(or what really happens at 9:45AM Service)
Amazing morning this morning at our Cross+Generational Worship service.
We split nto two small groups today and armed with Acts 2 and Acts 4 folks had to come up with dialogues about what it means to be the church in light of these texts; dialogues among first century people, believers and nonbelievers, and between our own church members and imagined non-members. In the 10 minutes that they had to prepare their dialogues they had to confront the hallmarks of the early church sharing everything in common and giving as anyone had need. Listening in on their struggles, I went back and forth between our two small groups and was powerfully moved by their conversations as they imagined and built the dialogues that they were about to share. After they shared their dialogues, I asked each group what was most difficult about the activity and both groups spoke about the text about selling everything and sharing with those in need. We spoke for a few more minutes about how we struggle in our own context as individuals and a congregation in living out the heart of this passage. Such conversation and wrestling with the texts is why Cross+generational worship is so important and so humbling as a pastor - to witness the Holy Spirit at work in our midst!

2013-06-08T19:49:00.004-04:00

Unknown Butterfly, Parsonage Butterfly Garden, June 8, 2013

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 

Psalm 139:14  

We look at ourselves and fall prey to the temptation to dislike some aspect of what we see, wishing we had so and so's whatever (Matthew McConaughey's abs, for example). Despite entire industries whose success is built by trying to convince us that we are one purchase away from perfection (or perhaps several purchases), what would mean if we embrace how wonderfully God has made us?

2013-06-08T12:37:00.001-04:00

Sermon on Acts 6 June 9, 2013

It was a test of sorts.

An interesting test:

A disagreement in a congregation.

And we know that these things happen.

Great and small.

The list goes on and on in congregations all over this country and around the world.

What color shall the wine be?

What times should services be?

What hymns to sing?

The age of first communion. The place of children.

Should we trim the wicks or just let them be.

Jackets and ties or jeans and flip flops?

Praise bands or pianos.

Contemporary or traditional or blended, whatever those may mean.

The roles of men and women.

What shall our mission be?

How welcoming should we be to people different from us?

On and on and on.

I leave it to history to remember which ones of those are ours.

And there it is in Bible happening in the first few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Back when the church was young and the Holy Spirit seemed to seep out of each and every pore of the Body of Christ: a disagreement.

And if it did not happen. If things just stayed the way they were and no one took issue and questioned the status quo people may have died. Disagreements as a time for discernment and not a thing to avoid.

Here in the Bible, in the Book of Acts it was time to act.

Would the early church, this newborn faith community, filled with the Holy Spirit, these seekers after the way of Jesus, play favorites? Would the community descend into bickering and finger pointing? Crumble under the weight of disagreement? Start meeting in small groups in quiet corners and whisper conspiracy theories and perceived slights? Would they stick their heads in the sand and declare that everything was peachy-keen? Or was there another way? A way led by the Holy Spirit. A healthy, affirming, Spirit-filled, community building, gift acknowledging, disciple-equipping way?

So many choices! So many possibilities! Do nothing. Do something. Or seek to do what God was calling them to do.

Where so many later congregations have struggled, imploded, exploded and worse when beset by disagreement, this first faith community did not and what they did is important for us to pay very close attention to because it suggests a basic understanding of how a Christian community could function, should function.

The Hebrew widows and the Greek speaking widows were having a bit of a tiff over food distribution. “Our widows are not receiving their fair share,” yelled the Hellenists and the Hebrew Christians must have stood their ground because a food distribution team had to be put together to ensure a equitable share for all. This question about equitable food distribution was no small matter since the widows depended upon such charity to survive. Without such food they could starve. This wasn’t a disagreement over the color of the wine for Holy Communion, but a matter of life and death.

So the 12 disciples call everyone together – the whole community – every man, woman, and child and tell them about the problem. And then they tell them that they are not going to wade into the middle of the conflict, take on one more responsibility and fix it by just doing it themselves. Instead they acknowledge that the Holy Sprit gives different gifts and calls people to different types of service to put those gifts to work. They acknowledge that the gifts needed to ensure equitable food distribution included the gift of wisdom and we assume no small amount of that! And the people needed to be full of the Spirit for as anyone who has witnessed conflict within a group, especially a congregation, knows, a discerning and wise spirit is a must. And the people were told to choose seven with these gifts. They didn’t ask for random volunteers – they wanted people with the right gifts, with a sense of call, and who had lived up to their responsibility as part of the faith community by showing themselves to be faithful. And they wanted the community to assist in that discernment rather than just have people self-select.

The leaders were not abdicating their responsibility, rather they led and empowered the community to equip those with the right gifts and a passionate call and a track record of responsibility. And what happened? The community lifted up seven such people who were then commissioned for service in support of mission, in this case, feeding the hungry widows among their community. The 12 disciples knew their gifts, their passions, their calling: attending to the teaching of God’s word. And they knew that whatever ministry and mission God wanted their community to be about – that God would raise up people with the needed gifts and passion and calling.

I have spent nearly 13 years among you and with the rest of Trinity’s leadership have sought the best ways to help people to discern their gifts and equip and empower them for service. It has been quite a journey and not without its frustration and disappointment, but also filled with amazing and I mean amazing people doing amazing things for the glory of God. There is no greater delight for me then to see people passionately using their gifts to glorify God and seeing how such experiences transform them and impact the lives of others.

As we enter the summer, two things are clear, and not just to me, but to our leadership and a number of others. First, we need a means to disciple adults, helping them discern their gifts, equipping them more deeply in the faith, and encouraging them in their serving. Second, that we need to look one to two years ahead and as a community discern together what priorities for mission God is calling us to be about for the sake of the Gospel.

For the best means to make more committed and encouraged disciples equipped to disciple others, we are taking the next couple of months to look at the best working examples available with proven track records of success and will report back to the congregation before summer’s end.

For discerning our missional priorities, we begin today with a sign up list for summer meal and ministry discussion hosts who are willing to have half a dozen people over for a meal, biblical reflection and missional conversation centered around three questions:

The Three Questions:

1. What is going well at Trinity?

2. What are our biggest challenges?

3. What are your hopes and dreams?

More information on the discernment process and these summer gatherings is on the handout that you received as you entered. Prayerfully consider serving as a host or a participant as we begin this journey in prayer.

Let us pray….

2013-06-08T10:45:00.002-04:00

SUMMER MEAL AND MISSION HOSTS

Why are we doing this?
Fellowship, to get to know one another better, and to begin the process of planning Trinity’s missional emphasis for the next 12-24months.

What’s a “Missional Emphasis?”
We know the through the scriptures God calls us into mission for the sake of the Gospel. We do well when we discern together God’s will for us as a congregation working through the Holy Spirit, our gifts and passions, our interests and resources, and importantly our particular context in the community in which Trinity has been placed. Having a missional emphasis allows us then to seek what God is doing and desires to do in our midst and to focus on building that up.

OK, so you need hosts. What do they do?
Hosts are responsible for hosting a potluck meal one time during the month of June, July or August for up to 6 people including at least one member of the Trinity Congregational Council who will lead the Bible reflection and mission conversation. Following the meal, a brief Bible reflection based upon Trinity’s Mission Statement will take place followed by the asking of three questions as part of our mission planning process. Notes will be taken on the responses to the three questions as part of this process with no names attached to the responses.

The Three Questions:

1. What is going well at Trinity?
2. What are our biggest challenges?
3. What are your hopes and dreams?

Then what happens?

The data from all of the Summer Meal and Mission Gatherings plus additional data through online surveys will be sorted and organized into broad categories.

In the early fall we will schedule a Trinity Missional Planning Day where folks will be able to sign up to attend a conversation for the category about which they are most passionate. As the conversations finish for the day, we’ll share a meal after which data from the conversations will be shared and prayed over.

From this data, Pastor Keith and the Council will craft a missional strategy that when ready will be presented to the congregation for adoption as Trinity’s Missional Strategy for the next 12-24 months.

OK, so to begin this you need some hosts willing to host a meal for some people from Trinity. Sounds good – how do I sign up?

There is a clipboard that will be going around the next several Sundays or you can sign up online through Trinity’s Facebook page or email Pastor Keith directly at pastorkeith2000@gmail.com

2013-06-08T09:56:00.003-04:00

OUR SUMMER REFLECTION ON PSALM 23

WEEK ONE:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

We welcome your photos, reflections, poems and more offering your own reflections on this stanza. Please email Pastor Keith at pastorkeith2000@gmail.com or just post a comment to this post.

2013-06-07T13:22:00.003-04:00

COMING UP THIS SUNDAY
Sunday we will bless high school and college graduates during worship and folks will hear more about our summer Meals and Mission summer events! Please join us!

2013-06-03T16:53:00.005-04:00

Pastor Keith's Sermons
Are now available on I-Tunes.
Go to this link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pastor-keith-spencers-podcast/id651578618?mt=2

2013-05-31T17:04:00.000-04:00

VBS DECORATING SCHEDULE

Monday June 10^th- 9am-12

Tuesday June 11^th- 1-4pm

Thursday June 13^th- 9am-12

Friday June 14^th- 11am-2

Saturday June 15^th- If Needed

Monday June 17^th- 9am-12

Tuesday June 18^th- 1-3pm

Thursday June 20^th- 9am-12

Friday June 21^st- 11am-2

Saturday June 22^nd- If Needed

If there are hours that you can or would like to work, let me know, thanks!

Tina 786-271-3789

2013-05-31T10:40:00.001-04:00

SERMON for June 2, 2013 ACTS 4:1-20

We are a people that like to make assumptions about many things.
For example, we are a people that like to make assumptions about people: what it means if you are a republican or a democrat. About what it means if you are from this country or from some other place. Assumptions about a person based upon the number of children they have, what job they have, their economic status, their sexual preference, the color of their skin. A whole set of assumptions fill in the blanks of what we know about one another. Assumptions replace true knowledge with the arrogance of our own prejudice and the folly of our inadequate wisdom.

People also like to make assumptions about God. They do this not only every time that there is a natural or man-made disaster, but rather assumptions about God have been around ever since people first began to call upon the name of the Lord. Assumptions about what God loves and who God hates. Assumptions about the limits of God’s grace and the rules under which God chooses to act. Many, many assumptions, right?

The Holy Spirit has no patience for our inadequate assumptions about God.

Listen: The Holy Spirit at work before time, at work in creation moving over the waters, the very breath of life, pours out at Pentecost in a new and powerful way, in an unexpected way in the surprise of languages of the world so that the message of salvation in Jesus Christ could be shared with all people. The Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples filling them with all boldness and one of the first things that happens is that the assumptions about God that have defined for people who God is and what God does are found to be grossly inadequate and unnecessary. And as the disciples embrace the full measure of what God has accomplished in and through Christ Jesus being revealed through the Holy Spirit these assumptions fall away replaced in faith with faith. Assumption replaced by trust. By promise. By sacred assurance. Such is the gift that the Holy Spirit brings. Knowledge that the Psalmist says is too wonderful for us, but the Holy Spirit gifts it to us so that we may know God more deeply. More completely.

And so it is through the Holy Spirit replacing inadequate assumptions about God with knowledge of God too wonderful for words that as the time after Pentecost unfolds the disciples declare in our final verse today: “…we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard."

For we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.

These are words of defiance spoken to the religious authorities who have imprisoned disciples, Peter and John, only to free them with the admonishment to speak no more to anyone in the name of Jesus. These same religious authorities stand amazed that these “ordinary and uneducated” followers of Jesus could speak with such boldness. Didn’t they know their place, these simple men. More assumptions, right? Thoughts must have swirled around in the minds of the religious experts: Look at them, those fishermen and sinners and tax collectors who hung around with Jesus and now just can’t let it go and go back to their lives, to their jobs, to their place in the world. What do they know about God and God’s ways? And yet these religious authorities have seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work drawing others to this disciples. Thousands and thousands of people. And they see a challenge to their power and to their authority. And so they act.

Jesus has a lot to say about the assumptions that people are all too eager to make about what is important to God. In and through Christ Jesus, the Kingdom of God is breaking into the world, not to tweak it at its edges but challenge its basic calculus. Even Jesus’ most trusted disciples fall prey to using this calculus time and time again as they confuse what the world sees with what God sees, with what the world considers most important, with what God declares so. The Biblical narrative of the New Testament leaves us wondering why the disciples just don’t understand this as they pull children away from Jesus thinking them not worth his time; as they argue over which one of them is the greatest or who deserves the seat of honor in the Kingdom of heaven or who has a right to speak and act in Jesus’ name.

But then the Holy Spirit has come upon the disciples and they see differently now.

And they act differently (and for that matter, they act boldly).

Not perfectly, to be sure, as we shall shortly see in the coming weeks, but the heart of their witness through the power of the Holy Spirit now engages more fully the truth about Jesus. Everyone who hears the message they share about what they have seen and what they have heard, words filled with grace, words of salvation, respond with a single question on their lips: What then shall we do?

Some answer that question with repentance, turning from their ways to God ways, while others cannot let go of the calculus of the world that has favored them and they instead choose to suppress, arrest, threaten the bearers of those words of grace. Some continue to choose to make power their god; position, prestige, wealth and all that they bring.

Our God is too wonderful for us. Knows our ways and searches our heart.

Are we willing to let go and repent of our assumption-making: our desire to define God, to limit God, to shape God in our own image, characterize God by painting God in the colors of our own sins? Is that a struggle that we are willing in which we are willing to engage with the Holy spirit fighting with us and for us?

And if we are “what then shall we do?”
The life we choose to live will be our answer.
Amen

2013-05-30T10:25:00.002-04:00

BUDGET/SPENDING PLAN VOTE
REMINDER:
During worship this coming Sunday June 2 we will vote on the 2013-2014 Spending Plan/budget during worship. Copies continue to be available in the office and will also be distributed once again Sunday morning.
Our Question and Answer Meeting on the Spending Plan/Budget was held on Thursday May 23rd so this will be to vote on the proposal only.

2013-05-30T10:22:00.002-04:00

BLESSING OF GRADUATES
REMINDER: Sunday June 9th we will be blessing High School/College/Technical School Graduates during worship. We are still collecting names of graduates. If from High school - their school. If from college/grad school/technical school - their school and degree. Also - please let us know if they will be present at worship.

2013-05-30T09:59:00.002-04:00

VBS Volunteers Meeting
Sunday June 2 at 12:15PM in the hall

2013-05-28T15:52:00.003-04:00

BUTTERFLY GARDENING
We are Butterfly Gardening at Trinity Lutheran Saturday morning June 1st from 9AM until noon. Wear comfy "can get them dirty clothes" and bring sun screen and gloves if possible. We'll have water and joy in abundance!