Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Just Trying to Keep Up!

One year ago we had no clue what building we would be worshipping in, who our Student Pastor would be, or what direction God would take our church. In fact there were far more questions than there were answers. To give a major understatement, as your Pastor I faced 2014 with more than a little apprehension. What a difference a year makes!!! We are in a new building, serving with some of the greatest men I have ever been around, with a church in a place that feels like home, being Pastor of a church that I could not imagine not being a part of. As "change" has become a way of life for us, and there is so much facing us in the coming days, I just want to give you some dates to take special note of:

This Sunday we will have our first BFGs in our new building with our new Master Teacher format.  We will have my class and John Miller's class in the worship center and Jon Rushing and Bubba Crowder's classes in the Gym.  Students will also be in the gym area, in the "checkerboard room."  Classes begin at 9:00 am and your small group leaders should be contacting you this week with more information.   By mid February we should be able to meet in our separate rooms in our new educational wings, downstairs for preschool and elementary school and upstairs for all adults and students.  I keep reminding myself that this construction is only for a season.  Thank you for your patience during all of this as well. 

Service will begin this Sunday at 10:30 am and we will kick off this new schedule by recognizing those who joined Trinity during this last round of New Member's Classes and having Baby Dedications. What a blessing it is to watch how God is working in our Trinity family.   (Parents, please remember to pick up children ages 5 and up after BFG and take them to worship services with you as we have not yet started back to children's church)

Don't forget we are also kicking off our Wednesday night services tomorrow night, Jan 7th with Wednesday night supper at 4:30 and services beginning at 6:15.  We will be in the Worship Center for BOTH tomorrow night as the gym is under renovation this week.  
If you haven't made your reservations yet, please call the church office at 662-349-3333 or email Debbie@trinitysouthaven.org to make reservations as soon as possible.  

By Friday, you will be able to make those reservations online on our new Trinity Website.  Our website goes "live" Friday morning and it looks great.  One of the new features to the website is a "members area" for you.  You can create a log in and once accessed, you will be able to see and update your family profile, see a virtual "online directory" of our membership, see classes and activities for our church and all the different calendars for the different ministries in the church.  The website is where you can register for those Ladies' Bible Studies beginning this week on our property (in the building we will eventually use as office space), find more information and links to the RightNow Media resource we have available to all members. and keep up to date with when your ministry area is meeting.  Not only that, but we are also registering for the second round of Way of the Master Classes and Conversational Spanish classes online.   If you have problems logging in to the system, email michele@trinitysouthaven.org for assistance. 


Wow...I know it is a lot.  And this is really just the beginning.  Over the next few weeks we will see lots of changes in the building.  For a little while, it will look worse before it looks better.  Next week we can look forward to the foyer and bathrooms being demolished or "gutted" and renovated - again, more mess before it becomes beautiful.  But, we are on a journey and we are making progress!  Only a few more weeks of stacking chairs, meeting on Saturdays to put them back out and going home with construction dust on our clothes, and then we will settle into our new home and be able to tell the stories of "when we first moved here we had to..." for generations to come.    We are assured from our contractors that we will be able to use classrooms and be "in" the educational areas by our Grand Opening Celebration Day of February 22nd.  We pushed this day back some so that we would actually be celebrating IN the full building.  There will still be renovation to be done on areas like the kitchen and offices, but we will have use of the entire facility by that date.  Can't wait to see it all!  

So, put these dates on your calendar and be in prayer for our construction crews, our staff and those working behind the scenes on all these different projects and ministry areas, and that the inspections and approvals are all timely so that construction dates can be met easily.  Just think, not long and this building will be a great tool for us to be able to reach our community for Christ!