2023 Fall Worship Schedule-Two Services!

Reflections on Summer Together

~ Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

Dear Trinity Wellsprings Church,

I’ve been encouraged by our Summer Together  for a few reasons:

1. It pulled together different worship services under “one congregation” for the summer season. “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133:1). “Summer Together” reminded us of our unity in Christ – we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28)!
2. I believe we created more momentum heading into the Fall as compared with last summer.
3. I believe we stumbled onto something beautiful in worship over the summer months by being super intentional in embracing the full repertoire of our worship. We intentionally embraced the full breadth of “Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs” (Eph 5:19) with which we are urged from Scripture to “address one another”. A few Sundays ago, here was the line-up of our worship and praise:

• How Great is our God (released in 2004; contemporary classic from nearly 20 years ago; anthem/hymn-like but with a modern feel; most everyone in our congregation knew it)
• Holy Forever (released this year on the radio on March 10, 2023, peaking at #15 on the “Hot Christian Songs” published by Billboard. Did you know Christian songs could be hot? Apparently so.)
• Holy, Holy, Holy (1861 – a favorite hymn of the church for 162 straight years and counting!)

As a staff, we are intentionally seeking to embrace “ancient-modern” in our worship by wrapping our arms around all genres and everyone’s heart worship language: from young to old to everyone in between! So young people: learn a new hymn from 400 years ago that you’ve never sang before! So older saints: learn a new spiritual song because that also delights the heart of God. And remember: if you don’t like a song—It’s not about you anyway!! We aren’t there to worship you!

Remember: “a mature Christian is easily edified”.  We are aiming for maturity in the body of Christ (Col. 1:28).

• We continued to break bread together and fellowship together in meaningful ways. We ate together FOUR of the eight Sundays thus far in June & July, including twice on “Second Sunday Brunch/Lunch”, VBS Sunday, and last week’s spontaneous chicken lunch. This is a real healthy indicator of a church family: do people feel invited to stay and get to know their brothers and sisters in Christ within the church? Yes, we do at Trinity!

In addition, I believe we were able to talk openly and honestly about some of our institutional challenges in our Listening Meetings.

What you can expect starting in the Fall:

• On August 6^th, we will go back to 9:00 am and 11:00 am services. [Historically, Trinity has seen an increase of 100 people in attendance from end of July to the beginning of August.]
• You can expect “identical services” at both services. Same songs. Same liturgy. Same “ancient-modern” worship experience. We are removing the consumeristic tags of “contemporary”, “traditional”, “blended” from our website. Our focus is on Jesus, and every week might be a little different!
• You can expect the Choir to come back from its summer break on September 10^th. Want to sing in the Choir? We’d love to have you – young or old!
• You can expect to hear more in the weeks to come about the 10:00 Community Hour with possible options of Life Groups and Christian education.
• You can expect full children’s ministry (infants – 6^th grade) at the 9:00 service and childcare for children 0-5 at the 11:00 service. Know that we’d love, in the future, to expand our children’s ministry as more young families continue to be added to our congregation!

If you’ve been gone or traveling during the summer months, we are excited to welcome you back into the worship of God with the people of God!

Thankful to be with you on this journey of following Jesus,

Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

Lead Pastor/Head of Staff

Excerpted from July 27, 2023 Enewsletter.  Subscribe below: