Council President’s Annual Report
This year we celebrated the 75th anniversary of this church - not the building, but our family of Trinity Lutheran Church. The theme of the event to recognize this was "Honor the Past, Celebrate the Present, Envision the Future."
We all appreciate the history and respect the contributions of those who helped establish Trinity as a vital part of our community - open doors to all who would enjoy visiting and worshipping with us. We occasionally honor those founders and we still have a number of those builders and creators here with us. Thanks to them for the foundation of what we have. Take time when you see some of these icons to acknowledge their contributions.
Our present consists of a vibrant family of members and a great facility in which to carry out God’s mission. Thanks be to God for all of the collective skills, inspiration, contributions, and achievement to accomplish the task of creating more space for worship, education, and fellowship. This obviously also provides for our future vision.
A number of articles and statistics point to the reality that the Church in America faces a number of challenges as an institution. Membership, attendance, financial support, etc. all suffer as people question the relevance of the Church in their daily lives. But our membership, attendance, and financial support here at Trinity have continued to increase; it appears that more needs are being met each year. The strength of youth programs, worship experiences, faith development, social ministry, education, and other programs provide benefits to all of us individually and as a congregation.
Someone mentioned to me in the Narthex that we were very lucky to have such a great facility. I replied that I think we are "blessed," which I think is different than being lucky. Rather than just falling into some good fortune, or hitting the right number, we have been blessed with leadership, vision, determination, skills, and faith among staff and our community of believers here at Trinity Lutheran Church.
Our vision is to grow "Up" and to grow "Out." We hope that we can increase our individual faith, fellowship, support, and love for one another. Hopefully we provide more opportunities to accomplish this as we mature in our beliefs and understanding of God and of each other. This greater engagement benefits us individually and as a family.
We also hope to grow in numbers. Physical expansion of our educational, meeting, and fellowship areas provide for more people as our programs have continued to grow. We also hope to invite more of our friends to visit and worship with us in our facility.
In many cases, our reports and messages are like singing to the choir; most of us understand what we are doing, why we spend money on our physical plant, programs, etc. We hope that some of our message can be shared more directly with others. By example, by invitation, by initiative, we hope that more of us will become even more committed and engaged to carry out God’s work to the best of our abilities.
Thanks be to God.
Gary Ringus, Church Council