Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
Have you ever had an unexpected guest?
That moment of panic when the doorbell rings and you're not ready?
Well tune in this week as Rob shares about his own story of an unexpected guest, as well
as some stories from scripture and the importance of making sure that we are always prepared
to welcome others.
Today our reading is from the Gospel of Luke chapter 24 verses 13 to 30.
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus about seven miles
from Jerusalem.
They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and
walked along with them.
But they were kept from recognizing him.
He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along?
They stood still, their faces downcast.
One of them named Clopas asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not
know the things that have happened there in these days?
What things? he asked.
About Jesus of Nazareth they replied.
He was a prophet, powerful and word indeed before God and all the people.
The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified
him.
But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.
In addition, some of our women amazed us.
They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body.
They came and told us they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.
Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said.
But they did not see Jesus.
He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have
spoken.
Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?
And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in the
scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he was
going further.
But they urged him strongly.
Stay with us for it is nearly evening.
The day is almost over.
So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to
give it to them.
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight.
The word of the Lord.
I wanted to show you a picture.
This is a picture of the apartment building where Sally and I lived for four years right
after we got married.
It's located in Cambridge, Ontario and we lived right on the floor.
It was floor, 15th floor, apartment 8.
So 1508.
And when we were there, that was kind of the place where we learned all about hospitality.
Hospitality is what we've been learning about as a church for the last number of weeks.
So that's where we started to open up our home and invite people in.
And I can remember, I think we'd been married for a year or two and we decided that we were
going to invite some friends from university over.
Their names were Sean and Kristen.
And we were going to invite them over one Saturday for dinner.
Now that Saturday morning we slept in for sure.
But that was okay.
I mean, Sean and Kristen weren't coming over till dinner, right?
And we kind of got up and the house was a total mess still.
We hadn't cleaned up anything.
But that's okay because Sean and Kristen weren't coming over till dinner.
We hadn't even really worked out what it was we were going to eat that night.
But that's okay.
Why?
Because Sean and Kristen weren't coming over till dinner, right?
And so it was about noon and we were probably still meandering around the apartment, probably
still in our pajamas or something like that.
And all of a sudden we heard a buzz coming on our little intercom in our apartment building.
And I don't know if they still have these, but that's how people who were in the lobby
downstairs try to get you to open the door to let them in so they can come visit you.
We thought, well, that's kind of strange because Sean and Kristen aren't coming over till dinner.
And here it is noon.
And so we slowly approached the buzzer and we said, hello?
And it was Sean and Kristen.
And they were coming over for lunch.
And we really didn't know what to do.
We had no choice.
We had to let them in.
And so we buzzed the button to unlock the door.
And then something that has probably never happened before, there was such a flurry,
a miraculous flurry of cleaning that happened because it was 15 floors up and our elevator
was sometimes busy or sometimes slow.
Sometimes it was even out of service.
And we were like, oh, maybe we've got time.
So we were jamming stuff under couches, shoving stuff in closets.
We were sweeping up.
We got changed.
We were brushing our hair, putting on some deodorant, all that stuff.
And then finally, I don't know how to this day, but somehow four minutes later when there
was a knock at our door, we were able to somehow open up the door and act like nothing happened
and be like, hey, yeah, come on in.
Come on in, guys.
Oh, we're so glad that you're here.
You know, today, if the house is a mess, we usually blame it on having kids.
But back then, we did not have kids.
And it was our own fault.
And we certainly learned a lesson.
And the lesson that we learned is that you have to always be ready.
You have to always be ready for the knock on the door.
Always be ready for the doorbell to ring.
Always be ready for the buzzer to buzz.
Always be ready.
In fact, it reminds me of what Paul wrote in Romans 12.
He said, when God's people are in need, say it with me, always be ready to practice hospitality.
Today I want to ask you, are you ready?
We've been learning about hospitality for eight weeks now.
Watching how Jesus did it, are you ready to do it?
Always be ready.
Ready to open your home.
Ready to open up your lives to those who are coming in.
Are you ready?
But the second thing I want to ask is not just are you ready, but are we ready as a
church?
Here at Trinity, we often say things like, oh, we want to be a warm, welcoming, and hospitable
church.
We want to be a place where whenever that doorbell rings out there and whenever a guest
walks in that they feel warmly welcomed, but are we as a church ready?
I got to tell you, Jesus was always ready.
Hospitality was the primary means that Jesus used to launch his mission, his mission of
the kingdom of God.
Hospitality actually reveals both the method and the mission of Jesus.
What was his mission?
Luke 19 tells us that the son of man came to seek and save the lost.
That was the mission.
And then in Luke 7, we learn about the method.
The son of man came eating and drinking.
His mission was to seek and save the lost.
His method was to do that by gathering around tables and eating with people.
Jesus, therefore, as we've learned, eats his way through the pages of our Bibles.
But the meals that he ate were never just about food.
They were deliberate statements about the coming kingdom of God.
Now this is a long quote, but it encapsulates what it is where we've been learning.
Jesus's practice of table fellowship with sinners was a crucial aspect of his ministry
symbolizing the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God.
The act of eating with outcasts represented a powerful gesture of acceptance, breaking
down social barriers and extending God's grace to those on the margins of society.
To eat with a person in biblical times was to accept them.
And the Jewish people were actually very, very choosy about who they ate with because
if you ate with the wrong person, you became contaminated.
You became unclean, ritually defiled in some way.
But Jesus paid no heed to that.
Jesus ate with the impure.
He ate with the outcasts.
And in so doing, he was declaring an end to all those social hierarchies that kept people
apart.
And he was showing us this is what God's rescuing love looks like.
And I would say nowhere in human history do you see someone engaged in such radical hospitality
as we see with Jesus.
Another New Testament scholar, a guy named Joshua Jipp says this, the entire ministry
of Jesus is appropriately captured in the phrase divine hospitality to the stranger
and the sinner.
Jesus didn't run projects.
He didn't establish ministries.
He didn't create programs.
He didn't put on events.
He just, he ate meals.
Now you might say, okay, yeah, we've learned that.
We know that now.
2000 years ago is what Jesus did.
What does that have to do with us here and now today?
A whole lot because when we open up our homes, when we practice hospitality, there's two
important things that happened that we need to end this series on and remember today.
And that is this, that when we practice hospitality, we be Jesus to other people.
And secondly, we see Jesus in other people.
Hospitality is important because it's how we be Jesus and it's how we see Jesus.
Let me explain.
First, hospitality is how we be Jesus to other people.
You know, 2000 years ago when Jesus walked the earth, he could only ever, I suppose,
be in one home at a time.
He could only ever sit at one table at a time.
He could only ever eat one meal at a time.
But now we know something has happened.
Since Jesus rose from the dead, he then sent his Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Jesus,
which lives in the hearts of all those who believe and trust in Jesus, which means that
right now there are, I'm going to use Donald Trump, billions and billions of Christians
that are filled with his Spirit embodying Jesus to the world, which means there are
billions of tables and there are billions of chairs and there are billions and billions
and billions of meals being eaten every day that we can use to continue the ministry of
Jesus because we in those spaces and places embody Jesus to the world.
Now that is what Jesus meant when when he was leaving this earth, he said, it's okay
that I'm going away because you're going to do far greater things than I did when I was
with you.
This is how it happens.
Jesus lives in us.
The mission is amplified.
So he's he's not just setting an example for us to follow.
He's actually calling us to be Jesus to the world.
And that is exactly what the early church did.
That's exactly what they understood that they were doing.
Ben Witherington says that the early church, as depicted in the Book of Acts, often gathered
around meals in homes and why the practice was a continuation of what Jesus began.
The spirit of Christ lives in you.
Therefore, the hospitality of Jesus works through you.
We're the ones who embody the love of God to others.
We be Jesus to others.
And man, doesn't the world need us to be Jesus?
Has there ever been a time when the world needs us to be Jesus?
We live in this graceless culture of constant competition.
Everyone's trying to get ahead and everyone's trying to, you know, prove themselves.
Everyone's insecure.
It's a dog eat dog, cat eat cat.
Just for you make sure everybody who is a cat person doesn't feel left out.
It's a cat eat cat.
It's a rat eat rat.
It's a rat race world.
It is a world where it's all about holding grudges and envying others and protecting
yourself.
It takes a toll on everyone.
It's we're all suffering under this, but in the middle of that disconnected society,
do you know how powerful it is when you invite someone in to share a meal?
You're offering them a moment of grace in the middle of all that something different,
a different way of life, a different world.
Tim Chester, he says, our meals offer a divine moment, an opportunity for people to be seduced
by grace into a better life, into a truer life, into a more human existence.
In short, what I'm trying to say is when we open up our homes, it does not matter what
we put on the table in front of them.
We're really offering ourselves to them as an embodiment of Jesus.
But if that's true, why do we still hesitate?
Why do we struggle with this whole idea of offering hospitality?
Now there are a few reasons.
The first is I would say that in our world, we have become way too solitary in our thinking.
There's a book written, it's an old book now by Robert Putman called Bowling Alone.
And in that he says there's been a 33% decrease of families eating together over the past
three decades.
And half of those families are watching television when they eat together.
There's been a 45% decline of people entertaining friends in their homes.
Most families only eat together three times a week.
Most meals only last 20 minutes long.
And in fact, most homes don't even have a dining room anymore.
Everyone's off somewhere else.
Everyone's doing their own thing.
But we don't eat together.
How do we be Jesus to each other?
Or maybe it's not that we're too solitary.
It's just that we're way, way too busy.
I mean, if you can barely fit in meals to eat with your own family, how do we fit them
in with others?
I mean, life is full.
When we do have a spare evening, we just want to come home and slump into the couch and
watch Cobra Kai.
It's true.
That's a really good show, by the way.
Being Jesus does mean rearranging your calendars.
It means reorganizing your priorities.
But it doesn't actually take much because 21 times a week you've got this opportunity
to be Jesus.
Actually, I want to tell you a story of something that happened last night.
We took our daughter to Montreal this weekend, dropped her off at basic training.
And then we had rented a car from a fellow over here on Aaron Mills.
And I was taking the car back to him last night.
And Sally was going to pick me up there.
Sally said, I'm just a couple of minutes away.
Anyways, I pulled his car into the driveway, took out the key and knocked on the door,
gave him the key, said thank you very much.
He's like, oh, it's so cold out.
Why don't you come in?
And I'm like, oh, honestly, his name was Salam.
And I said, actually, it's totally fine.
My wife is literally going to be here in two minutes.
He's like, no, no, come in, come in.
Come on, I'll give you a drink.
I'll give you something.
So I was like, OK, why not?
Why not?
So I went in and there was this thick layer of smoke that was kind of hanging just below
the ceiling.
And he said, hey, do you want to smoke?
And I said, I don't smoke.
But I said, and he said, well, let me get you a drink.
I said, actually, it's fine.
I don't really need it.
But I couldn't even before I even finished saying it, he had already poured me a glass
of apple juice.
And he's like, sit down.
He's had a nice leather couch there.
So I sat down on the couch and immediately we started talking.
And just as we started talking, my phone buzzed.
And it was Sally saying, I'm here.
And I was like, but anyways, he told me in a very short time.
He had come to Mississauga seven years ago.
They were new to the country.
They lived in a couple of different places.
But they loved Canada.
Canada was definitely their home.
He even told me why he rents his car out a little bit.
While we're talking, his cat walks over.
I don't know.
It just sticks in my mind.
And so I was clawing his leather couch.
And I was just like, why do people put up with this?
Why do people?
Anyways, I remember it very well.
And anyways, the time came.
I said, listen, thank you very much.
I got to go.
And I was just going outside.
And Sally had parked just around the corner.
He's like, I don't see her.
Come back in.
And I'm like, no, no, she's definitely here.
She's definitely here.
Anyways, I did find Sally.
And off we went.
And actually, we left something in the car.
So we're going to have to go back sometime this week
and pick it up.
But it doesn't take much.
It only takes a glass of apple juice.
And hospitality can happen, even in a busy, busy life.
A third thing that might keep us from hospitality
is we just find it a bit too, too scary.
Whenever you invite someone into your home,
you're putting yourself on display.
You're putting your cooking on display.
You're putting your housekeeping on display.
You may even be putting your parenting on display
for other people to see.
But again, what we've been learning
is hospitality is not about performance.
And meals don't need to be elaborate.
Our homes don't need to be spotless.
You can do hospitality with a glass of apple juice
and smoke in the air.
And even with cats, you can do hospitality.
I never thought I'd say this.
But usually, cats ruin everything.
But even if you have a cat, you can open your home
to hospitality.
In fact, sometimes actually, the more formal you are,
the less intimate the experience can be.
So entertaining is not about impressing others.
It's about serving others.
That's how we be Jesus to each other.
And then maybe the last thing that keeps us
from doing this more is that we say it's a bit too costly.
Food costs money, correct.
Hospitality takes time, costs us time.
Things could get broken.
There's always collateral damage that comes
when people come over to your house.
Something got spilled on the carpet.
You're going to be left cleaning up the dishes.
They're going to raid your pantry.
And yes, there is a cost.
There is a cost.
But remember what it cost Jesus to welcome you
into his home, his own blood and his own body.
Jesus' hospitality was incredibly generous,
but it was also incredibly costly.
And that's how we do the same.
That's how we can be Jesus to others.
So too solitary, too busy, too scary, too costly.
Yes, there are barriers.
There are barriers.
But if we can overcome them, then we can change the world.
I love this quote so much.
If every Christian family in the world,
billions and billions and billions of them,
if every Christian family in the world simply offered
good conversational hospitality around a table
once a week to neighbors,
we would eat our way into the kingdom of God.
One house at a time, one table at a time,
one meal at a time, one encounter at a time.
That alone would deconstruct all the fear
and all the alienation that we have with each other
and reconstruct a sense of shared humanity.
I wanna be clear though, listen, meals don't save people.
Jesus saves people.
But meals create natural opportunities.
They create relationships that allow us
to share that message in word and action.
So when you set a table, when you cook a meal,
when you wash the dishes, what you're really doing
is you're just providing this space,
this place where the Holy Spirit can move.
You probably already noticed this connection,
but the English word hospitality originates
from the same Latin root as the word hospital, right?
Our homes are to be hospitals.
Refuges of healing, radiating the light of heaven,
and our dinner tables are to be operating tables
where broken souls are made whole again.
When we open our doors, then the healing power
of the gospel can begin its work.
But hospitality is not just how we be Jesus to others.
It's also how we see Jesus in others.
Numerous times in the Bible, we come across this fact
that Jesus himself shows up at our front doors
when we least expect it.
Let me show you just a few examples.
Then Jesus said to them,
whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me.
Or Jesus said, anyone who welcomes you,
he was talking to his disciples, welcomes me.
And anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
There's this famous verse from Hebrews 13.
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing so, some people have shown hospitality
to angels without knowing it.
In Matthew 25, Jesus paints a picture
of what it will be like at the end of time
and when God asks us how we treated his son Jesus.
And people will say, well Lord, when did we see Jesus?
When did we feed you or give you something to drink?
Or when did we invite you in or clothe you?
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
And then the king replies, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine
you did for me.
In our reading today, we read that when Jesus
was at the table with them, he took bread, he gave thanks,
he broke it and began to give it to them.
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.
Jesus is the child, Jesus is the visitor,
Jesus is the stranger, he's the neighbor,
Jesus is the hungry person, Jesus is the thirsty person,
the sick person, the prisoner.
Jesus is the traveler who you met along the way
who you met along the road but didn't realize it was Jesus
until you sat down at a table and began to eat something
and then your eyes were open.
So don't you see that when we offer hospitality,
it's not just that we be Christ to others,
that's how we see Christ in others.
In the rule of Saint Benedict, all of the followers
of that order were told that all guests who show up
are to be welcomed as Christ for he himself will say,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Just think about it for a second,
what would have happened to those disciples
in our reading today if they hadn't welcomed
that traveler into their home?
It would have been the biggest missed opportunity
of their lifetime.
What will happen to us if we refuse the stranger?
We too may be shutting God out of our lives
because God has disguised himself as the broken,
as the poor, as the stranger, as the neighbor
and hospitality is the lens that lets us see
through that disguise to Christ himself.
Hospitality, it's not just a privilege we extend to other,
it's a gift others extend to us.
So I began with these questions, right?
Are you ready and are we ready?
When the doorbell rings, when the buzzer buzzes,
are you ready to offer hospitality?
It's how Jesus came to us, it's how we be Jesus to others
and it's how we see Jesus in others.
But it wasn't just a question about you and your homes,
but it was also a question about here at Trinity,
at Trinity Church, are we ready?
You know, Trinity Streetsville is,
it's not just a church building really,
it's our church home.
And since 1841, this home has been welcoming visitors
and travelers and strangers and visitors
and strangers and neighbors and guests
for nearly 200 years.
People have been knocking and ringing and buzzing
at that door and coming into our space.
Now in 1998, this building burned down
and this building opened up in the year 2000.
And actually that makes Trinity
one of the newer Anglican churches in the country.
And yet, it's 25 years old, this building.
And after years of wear and tear,
it's time to do a little home improvements here at Trinity.
Time to invest in some much needed upkeep
that will make our place more welcoming and more nurturing.
It's because we want to make sure
that when the doorbell rings
and when people come to this, our church home,
we are ready to welcome them
and that they experience the best hospitality we can offer.
But are we ready?
Yes.
Fresher and Lives I need five bigger
That's what I'm talking about.
Power up
Director Actually
Hey, look who it is.
Come on in.
Well, I think we all want to make a good first impression whenever we welcome somebody into
our home.
Well, this is our church home, Trinity Streetsville.
And every year, thousands of people walk through those doors and hundreds of those are guests
and visitors who are coming in for the very first time.
And when they arrive, what is their first impression of Trinity?
When the doorbell rings at our church, are we ready to welcome them?
Well, that's what the gather and grow initiative is all about.
Trinity, it's time for us to clean up, freshen up and fix up our church home to better welcome
those that we are inviting in.
And so today I want to take you on a little tour of our church house and show you some
of the improvements and changes that we as a church family need to make.
Well every visit begins at the front door.
Whether you're driving by in your car or you're walking by the sidewalk, this is where we
make our first impressions.
But we've got some work to do.
Our signage is old and wobbly and frankly not that visible.
These steps are slippery, they're cracked and water is leaking into the building.
These handrails are rusted out at the bottom.
So here's what we want to do.
We want to install a brand new digital sign here that's clear to see and tells everybody
what's going on at Trinity Streetsville.
We want to add to our landscaping, we want to resurface and re-texture these steps and
we want to replace these handrails making this a safe entrance for everyone.
Well every home has a front door and a back door.
The weird thing about Trinity Streetsville is our back door kind of is our front door.
Truth is 90% of the people who visit us at Trinity come in through these doors.
Now you know this is an entrance and I know this is an entrance, but for a visitor or
a guest this looks more like an emergency exit than a front door.
What we need to do is make this look like the front door that it actually is.
We need to make it visible and accessible.
We need to make it welcoming and attractive.
We need to make sure there's clear signage, a nice awning, brand new doors.
Something that says yes we're Trinity Streetsville, you're in the right place, come on in.
So let's go on in.
Entrance ways are where we greet our guests and it's where we make that first visual impact
with people.
So for our guests who actually make their way into this space, this is what they are
greeted with.
They're greeted with cracked floors, worn out steps, outdated decor and no clear signage
telling them where to go.
Where's kids church?
I don't know.
Where's the offices?
I don't know.
How do I get to the washroom?
How do I get to the bathrooms?
Who knows?
It's not at all clear.
Is this the kind of space that we want our guests walking into?
The answer is no.
What we need to do in this space is replace the flooring, refresh these stairs, repaint
the walls, redecorate the whole stairwell and add really clear signage letting people
know where to go.
We may even add a beautiful mural pointing families in the direction of kids church.
So whenever you invite someone into your home, you want to make sure nobody is excluded.
And that is why the elevator here at Trinity is so important.
It makes sure that everybody can access our building.
The only problem with the Trinity elevator is that it's complicated to use and yes,
people really do struggle with it and we get it.
We actually explored what it would cost to replace the whole elevator with a brand new
car and a brand new shaft.
It was going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and would mean remodeling this
whole stairwell and the kitchen as well.
It just wasn't going to work.
So what we have decided to do is to invest in this elevator, to make it as functional
as possible, to make it as easy to operate as possible and to make it accessible for
everyone.
So whether you take the stairs or the elevator, the next place you come to in Trinity is the
corridor here and the lobby.
Now normally the last thing you notice when you go into somebody's home is the floors.
That is unless those floors are really, really dirty.
And here at Trinity, these floors are 25 years old and man, oh man, are they showing their
age.
They're covered in marks and stains.
Hey, do you remember that cup of coffee that you spilled back in 2016?
There it is.
Do you remember that piece of birthday cake you dropped?
There it is.
It is time to replace the flooring here in the corridor and in the lobby and replace
it with something that is versatile, attractive and easy to maintain.
We also want to make a few other changes in here.
We want to, again, improve the signage.
We want to add additional seating areas.
We want to install an AED for medical emergencies and create a volunteer hub where people can
find out how to get more involved in the life of Trinity.
So next we come to my favorite place in any home and that is the kitchen and the dining
room.
Here in Trinity's Parish Hall, this is where we gather around tables to eat together and
meet together.
The only problem with Trinity's tables are that they are worn out and they are beat up.
And the problem with our chairs, I believe the technical term for it is that they're
gross.
But it is time to make some changes in here.
So we're going to begin by bringing that new flooring from the foyer here into the hall
as well, tying together those two spaces.
We're going to replace the tables and the chairs, update the lighting and the window
fixtures and add a couple new features to the kitchen, including a new refrigerator
and some barbecues.
The last place we're going to visit today is the basement.
Now in most homes, the basement is where the family room is and the rec room is.
It's where you go to relax.
It's where the kids hang out.
Now here at Trinity, the basement is where the kids hang out.
We do kids church down here, youth group down here, but we also hold all sorts of meetings
down here.
But notice again the flooring.
It desperately needs to be replaced.
In fact, flooring represents a huge part of this overall project.
We want to replace in total something like 26,000 square feet of flooring.
And not just that, look again down here at these tables and chairs.
They have reached the end of their lifetime.
Rest in peace.
They need to be replaced.
As well, this is a good opportunity to talk a bit about lighting.
We want to replace the lighting in several places in the building, including the basement
down here to make Trinity more visible and accessible for everyone.
Jesus tells us that whenever two or three are gathered together in His name, there He
is in the midst of them.
And the Bible reminds us that whenever we welcome a stranger, whenever somebody rings
the doorbell, we welcome Christ Himself.
The Gather and Grow initiative is an opportunity to improve both the accessibility and the
hospitality of our church home, Trinity Streetsville.
And there is lots of work to do.
We have signage and flooring and tables and chairs and more.
To do all of this work is going to cost $250,000 and we aim to accomplish this work over the
next two years.
And so we are inviting you to participate in financially supporting this work through
your generous pledges and donations.
To find out more, please visit trinitystreetsville.org slash gather and grow.
So the Gather and Grow initiative is inviting you to just that, to help us raise $250,000
over the next two years.
And the work as well we also want to accomplish over the next two years by the end of 2026.
So today when you leave church, everybody's going to receive a package on their way out.
And of course, we'll mail out packages to the rest of the parish if you're not here
in person.
It includes a letter from myself.
It includes a nice brochure explaining the Gather and Grow project and a pledge card
as well.
I want to say that for those watching at home, even now if you wanted, you could scan the
QR code.
You could go to trinitystreetsville.org slash gather and grow and you could access all of
these materials there, including an opportunity for you to pledge and make a donation toward
this project.
It is our hope that most or all of these pledge cards could be returned by the end of the
month of November so that we can enter into the Advent and Christmas season with a new
focus on other things that are important for that time of year.
If you've got questions about what you've heard, and I'm sure you do, we're actually
going to be holding a town hall meeting next week between the two services.
So you can either come early or stay a little bit later to get your questions answered.
But really what we want you to do today and in the days ahead is to first pray.
Please ask God to guide you in determining how much you can do to support the Gather
and Grow initiative.
And secondly, then to decide.
Decide how much you will give over what period of time.
And then thirdly, to pledge and give to complete that Gather and Grow form that you're all
going to get or the one online and get it back to us as soon as you can.
I'll just end by saying this again.
Our church is not just a building.
Sometimes I think of our church as a partner in ministry.
It's part of the team.
It helps us do what we do here.
But this building is also our church home.
It's the place where we be Jesus to others.
It's the place where we see Jesus in each other.
We want to ensure that it continues to do that for years to come and generations to
come so that we're always ready to welcome people when the doorbell rings.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Trinity Sermons.
This podcast was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario on October
27th, 2024.