Quarterly Newsletter Winter 2015

12.6 Elect New Officers

12.13 Christmas Caroling

12.24 Christmas Eve Services

5pm Kid-friendly Narrative

8 pm Candlelight

2.14.16 Preschool Early

Enrollment for Members

2.14.16 Annual Meeting

Mark Your Calendar I loved “Show & Tell” when I was a child, and I love it now as a pastor at Trinity!

Inside this newsletter and all through Advent you will find my top four things I love to show & tell people when they ask how things are at the church.

New Music Director starts in January This newsletter will introduce you to Stephen Varney, a gifted pianist, organist, choral conductor and worship leader, who will be joining our staff team in January as Music Director. He loves making choir rehearsals fun and worshipful for all ages. A new era of music ministry is about to begin! Special note: Interim leadership from Bill O’Neill and Craig Morey has been such a gift to this church and we praise God for them!

International New Members Class God has sent us Christians and new Christians from around the globe, three of whom were baptized on November 22nd, and they are grateful to be here to join us in knowing and following Jesus.

Our Mission Partners From December 1 through 24 we will be sending you stories of “God-things” that are happening through our members’ involvement with Trinity’s mission partners locally and around the world. You have to receive the email blast to get these videos and stories, so sign up on our web site. Special note: Instead of the Alternative Gift Market this year, you will find links to each ministry at the end of these stories and opportunities to give directly to them.

Sticky Adventures in Youth Ministry We are exploring a new model for youth ministry, and mission involvement is at the heart of it. Check out what happened in October with our high school students and their parents, and what is coming up this spring.

Show & Tell at Trinity Pastor Mary Graves

 

A series of questions about the resurrection of the dead, new creation, and the Spirit-filling power of the Spirit were thrown at me before the 150 people gathered at Trinity Presbyterian… a church in Mercer, PA. Funny that my “examination” occurred at the namesake of my internship, one of many subtle graces that have caused me to smirk over this past month. The examination marked the final test of my journey toward ordination within the PCUSA, a journey that will culminate on December 13th in an installation/ordination service. Just a little over five months ago I preached my final sermon at Trinity San Carlos. Since then it’s been a windy road. The road took my whole family to living in the far north suburbs in Chicago where I became a barista at Starbucks. While making lattes, I was also attending interviews in the mile high altitude of Western Colorado; the 32nd floor of a skyscraper overlooking the Chicago River; a big-steepled, wide-lawned church campus in Atlanta, GA; and the rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania. And it’s the latter, Western Pennsylvania, where the call came. I am now the Lead Pastor of Bell Memorial Church in Ellwood City, PA and will preach my second sermon this Sunday as their new pastor. All God. All gift. All grace. Jeannine and I both appreciate beyond what words can convey the love and support we received at Trinity San Carlos. I myself gleaned much from rubbing shoulders with your pastors, leaders, and community. No doubt I will be using that wisdom very soon as I have been given much to steward. My prayers are for your God-given strength, your growing knowledge of Christ, and your fellowship in the Spirit. Much love from Ray, Jeannine, Micah, and Jayden. Grace, love, and peace.

Update from Ray Medina

New Music Director Begins January! Your Personnel Ministry Team is thrilled to introduce you to our new Music Director, Stephen Varney, and he has provided a personal note for that purpose: “I am so blessed to join the ministry team and congregation at Trinity! For the last 18 years, I've served as the music minister at the Berkeley Methodist United Church. It is an exciting time for me as I'm called to join the Trinity family, and I look forward to getting to know everyone and serving the congregation through music. I'm originally from Kansas City, and moved to the Bay Area to study piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (B.M.). I also studied at Holy Names University, earning a Masters in Choral/Orchestral Conducting and Piano Pedagogy. I have had the amazing opportunity to travel across the

U.S. playing piano duo concerts and teaching piano master classes to young people of all ages. Concert highlights include our Carnegie Hall debut recital, the Chautauqua Institute, and the New York Philomusica. I enjoy working for the National Federation of Music Clubs as a board member and conductor of the NFMC Festival Chorus. In San Francisco I am the conductor of the Jewish Folk Chorus, which is celebrating its 90th season; the California Choristers and Sequoia Choir, two lively senior choirs. Many of you may know my sister and brother-in-law, Reverends Christy and Ben Pierce. They speak with so much love for your congregation. I'm blessed to be joining the community at Trinity!” Join Stephen for his first choir rehearsal January 7 at 7 pm.

One of Trinity’s goals was to be a more connected church in 2015. I think we were successful in reaching our goal. I met many people that felt like Trinity was a welcoming place and that there was a variety of ways for them to get connected. One highlight of my first year at Trinity was getting to know Ali and his faith journey. Ali moved to San Carlos from Iran earlier this year and it was his dream to one day worship God at a Christian church. How wonderful is it that he felt like this was a hospitable place where his young faith could be nurtured and he could get connected to the people of this church. The Connections Ministry Team at Trinity supports the New Member process, provides a spirit of hospitality on Sundays, and seeks to engage and invite newcomers to Trinity. If you have any passion or nudging from the Holy Spirit about finding a way to get involved at Trinity, we really need a few more people to be on this Ministry Team. After worship on January 10th, 2016 Chuck Litchfield and I will be hosting a brunch in the Fireside room for the Connections Team and people that would be interested in helping us do this work at Trinity. Send me an email or find me and talk to me about it sometime. Pastor Kurt, kheineman@trinity-pres.org

Connections in 2016

Matt & Christina Pearson

Hung Ly

Ali Zandkarimi

Kay & Sidney Chen

Trinity’s Newest Members Caroline & Joel Hintz

Jeff & Amy Hathaway Smith

Online Directory Update Half the church has finished the process of signing up for the Online Directory! Make sure to get signed up at http://www.trinity-pres.org/#/home/online-directory

Yes, it's getting to be that time of year again, when high school students begin thinking about the awesome Mexico Mission Trip they will make during Spring Break. The dates are set, and the planning has begun. Interested students and parents should come to our Information Meeting on Sunday December 6th (time to be announced), and mark these dates on your calendar: • Saturday April 2nd, depart from Trinity at 4am. • Friday April 8th, arrive back at Trinity at about 4pm. There will be meetings, fund-raising, and other important events between now and the trip. All the dates will be made available in the registration packets to be handed out at the December 6th Information Meeting. We look forward to your participation in this life changing trip! The Mexico Leadership Team

2016 Youth Mexico Mission Trip Mark Your Calendar 12.6 Parents’ Meeting 1.10 Student Packets Due 2.5-2.6 Garage Sale 2.28 Fiesta Auction 3.13 Deacon’s Dinner 4.2-4.8 Mission Trip 4.9 24-hour Reunion 4.17 Sharing Service

Why I’m excited for Mexico By Bradley Schulz

All my life, I’ve heard stories every year about the Mexico mission trip. I’m told about how fulfilling it is to aid those much less fortunate than us while bonding with other people from Trinity. I’ve been there when my sister is getting ready to leave the night before at Trinity and I have seen the excitement on her face. I’ve seen my brother, stressed out from school come back happy and at peace. On my dad’s video camera, I’ve seen and heard the laughter around camp and the life changing stories told by people I know. To me, it looks like there is just something magical about that trip, and I can’t wait to experience it for myself.

The Youth Ministry at Trinity under the most capable direction of Pastor Kurt has been using The Sticky Faith Model to develop and support long lasting faith in teenagers. The research determined that churches should focus on doing three things well to support the development of “Sticky Faith”:

• Preach a gospel of grace, not rules

• Include teens in the whole life of the church

Empower parents as the primary influence of the faith formation of teens

Sticky Adventures was a month long program at Trinity designed to help High School Youth and their Families participate in local mission opportunities. To help create a longer impact in the faith formation of those involved, we had two meetings to prepare for the work (October 4th and 11th) and one meeting to debrief the mission work (October 25th). We gathered as families with teens to hear David Shearin, Executive Director of Street Church inspire us with his faith story. We all agreed on one of three mission projects including helping with Street Church, participating in Sandwiches on Sunday, or doing clean-up for Trinity’s homebound.

The Ditzler and Schulz families teamed up to spend one Saturday afternoon at the home of Dorothy Baker, one of Trinity’s founding charter members. Dorothy is 97 years old and is living with her daughter and granddaughter in San Carlos. She is currently homebound as walking is quite difficult for her, but enjoys attending Trinity services when possible. The two families arrived with the objective of painting Dorothy’s bathroom. In addition, the family had identified a few other things that Trinity could do to help Dorothy. Four parents and three teenagers, including Steven Ditzler and Becca and Bradley Schulz, worked seamlessly together to paint a bathroom and the staircase hand railing, pick apples for applesauce from the extraordinary collection of apple trees in Dorothy’s backyard, install a new disposal and fix several leaks under the sink, bake chocolate chip cookies, fix the railing on the back patio steps, and make Dorothy a bouquet of roses from her gorgeous rose bushes. Dorothy sat close by watching and chatting with the Trinity team. She thanked our hardworking teenagers with some delicious See’s chocolates and the treat of seeing some of her photo albums and learning more about her life.

It was truly a blessing for all involved; we were able to see God at work in so many ways. It was wonderful to show Dorothy God’s love from the church she helped to start so many decades ago. God was clearly present in helping the two families work in harmony together to accomplish multiple tasks in a short period of time. Most of all, it was a joy to see the three teenagers hard at work learning about the blessing of giving to others.

Sticky Adventures in Action By Lynn Seely

Children’s Ministry We added a class for our growing numbers and now have 5 Sunday morning offerings from birth to 8th grade. We’re off to a good start and the new K/1 class is a bundle of energy! Our middle school class, Phish Phood is also growing as our children “age-up” – this is exciting as well! We’re blessed with many dedicated leaders, but are often challenged to cover all the classes due to busy schedules. So, if you feel called to serve Trinity’s children once a month, please contact Kristan.

Preschool Happenings By Jenny Waddell

Thank you Kyle Check out the before and after pics of the landscaping transformation on the west side of our building! Thank you Kyle and friends for making your church home your Eagle Scout project!

Bible Explorers 101 Family Bible Intro Class Children's Ministry Partners with Families as We Follow Jesus and we want to provide tools to help parents nurture their children's faith at home. Understanding the Bible, how it's organized and how to use it is important for every age. Our Bible Explorers 101 class is for families with children in 3rd - 6th grades. We will offer a four-week session; each session is about 1.25 hours. Children and parents will work together and at the end of the series, the children get their Bible and cover with their name engraved on it. We will also recognize the accomplishment of these families in worship as a part of our Sticky Faith priority. This will only happen if we have enough interest and commitment from you. We’d like to offer the series on selected (non-holiday) Sundays either before church or in the evenings in January and February. If this sounds like something for your family, be sure to let Kristan know. kverv@trinity-pres.org

Children’s Classes Nursery (birth to 2.5 years) Seeds (Preschool Age)

Sprouts - K—1st NEW!!! The Vine - 2nd -4th Phish Phood - 5th- 8th

The Preschool is in full swing! Our children and teachers are enjoying a lovely fall together as we are learning, growing and making new friends! Trinity Presbyterian Preschool is such a special place to be. You will always hear laughter and excitement as the children delight in exploring the environment and experiencing all our program has to offer. We focus on giving children the foundation to be good friends and kind, responsible human beings. Our enrollment period for next year begins in January. Church members have priority enrollment status. If you are interested please visit our website http://trinitypreschoolsc.org for more information.

In my evening prayers, I confess to our Lord that if I were to try to list the day’s blessings, I would be up all night and even then could enumerate only a small fraction. Our Lord has been exceedingly generous with me. He has blessed me with health (my lung cancer, for example, is in remission), excellent medical care, a loving and supportive family, a place to live where I don’t have to worry about random acts of violence, a caring and supportive church community, a comfortable home, and on and on. The more I think of the day’s blessings, the greater is my awareness of their abundance and how impossible it would be for me to unbundle and enumerate them. Two thoughts always enter my mind. Those to whom much is given, much is expected. And the greatest blessing of all is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is always prepared to receive us, irrespective of our moral condition.

How has God blessed me? By Miguel Mendez (with Gabriela and Arabella)

Giving Pledge Update Spiritual Formation

in 2016

Sign up online for a four-week learning group with Pastor Mary

or Kurt in 2016 Go to www.trinity-pres.org

Non-Profit

Postage Paid

Permit #54

 

1106 Alameda de las Pulgas San Carlos, CA 94070

www.trinity-pres.org

All-Church Christmas Caroling December 13

We’ll gather on Sunday, December 13 in Fellowship Hall for pizza at 4:45. Then, we’ll divide into groups to sing the joyous music of the season to Trinity shut-ins and other folks in our community. This is a great chance to connect all ages and share the Good News of Jesus during the holiday season. A small donation will be requested for the pizza. RSVP to Kurt - kheineman@trinity-pres.org