Trinity Church Wichita

“T’shuvah: Returning to the Right Path” (Joseph and his brothers). Families are weird. Families are not the Brady Bunch where everything gets worked out in 30 minutes. Families, and relationships of all kinds, including in the church, are filled with quirky personalities, generational dysfunction, and complicated and ever-changing dynamics. Even Jesus had his struggles with his disciples. So, we’re in good company. On Sunday we will explore the relationships between Jacob and his sons, and between Joseph and his brothers, and the role ”t’shuvah” and God play in their story, and ours. See you Sunday!

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Sunday Worship, August 27, “God Makes a Covenant” (Noah and the Flood). God’s great experiment has failed. Humans and all of creation have run amok. And now God is having second thoughts and wanting to wipe the slate clean and start over. Creation is just not living up to God’s standards and expectations. All of this has made God heartsick, or sorrowing (like when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree). But there is a ray of hope. His name is Noah and his name means “comfort.” We will also have a Mission Update on the Great Plains Diabetes Camp.

Sunday Worship, August 13, Communion. “Faith is Living From Our Hearts,” Matthew 14:22-33. Calvin defines faith as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” But as much as I respect Calvin, this definition makes faith sound like it is static, that there is no place for things like doubt, hope, or our hearts. Peter’s desire, attempt, and failure to walk on water like Jesus illustrates that his faith, little as it is, is filled with doubt, but also with a hope and a passion that propels him forward. When our faith learns, grows, and deepens, it can move us forward in all the ways Jesus needs us to move forward, even if we have doubts.
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Sunday Worship, August 6, “What is Love (and why do people hate)?” 1st Corinthians 13:1-13. In this last year we have learned that just when we think we have put a particular hate away on a shelf, someone decides to take it off the shelf, so they can open it up and spread that hate, for whatever reason. The church has a special calling: we cannot stop bearing the weight of sharing God’s unconditional love, even when the need seems out of proportion to our numbers. Join us for worship at 10:30am!

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Sunday Worship, July 23, Guest speaker David Doering and friends from Union Rescue Mission. David will share some background on the mission and help us to understand how the mission has positively impacted its participants. Trinity regularly supports the mission, so this is an opportunity to hear the personal side of their work.

Sunday Worship, July 16, 10:30am, “The Extravagant Sower.” Matthew 13:1-9 and 13:18-23. God, the sower, is extravagantly scattering the seeds of the Gospel to reach as many people as possible, even though it may mean most of the seed is wasted because people will respond in various ways. We, too, need to be extravagant in our relationships and ministries with each other and our neighbors, no matter how we are received. As Risk Taking Faithful Partners with God, we can learn to create new ministries and appreciate the relationships, and let God do the growing.

Photo from John Lanazini, Unsplash.com