Have you ever wondered how it looks for church planters to set up and tear down church week after week? Check out this video and see for yourselves as an elementary school gym and cafeteria are transformed. You’ll see Trinity Church “Come Alive!”
April 29, 2012 at First Baptist Church, Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Tim Whitesides shares the sermon “Do you really know Him?” Him is capitalized, referring to Jesus Christ.
Tim shares using “The Beginner’s Bible, Timeless Children’s Stories.” He uses two stories to challenge us: “Jesus Calms the Storm” and “Jesus Blesses the Children.”
Tim and Andrea Whitesides also take an opportunity to thank First Baptist Church for their generous support and prayers for their ministry in Portland. They show the video “Trinity Comes Alive” that highlights their church plant set up in a school gym.
Tim shared the message at Trinity Church on April 22, 2012 from John Chapter 4, Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. Using several verses in the chapter, Tim shared that everyone has their own story to share. Two church members also gave their personal testimony. As Christians, we should be ready to tell our personal story whenever the opportunity arises.
Click on the link below to hear Tim’s sermon ”All Things to All People: My Story”
Congratulations Jeremy! We will be in North Carolina to celebrate our son Jeremy’s graduation from Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina on May 5, 2012 and will meet with some of our many ministry partners while we are in the area. We would love to spend time with each and every one of you. However, time just does not allow us to meet with everyone on this trip. You are invited to visit with us at any of the following church services where Tim will share God’s word.
First Baptist Church, Kings Mountain, NC: Sunday, April 29, 2012 at the 8:30am & 11:00am.
Plainview Baptist Church in Dallas, NC: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 6:30pm.
Fallston Baptist Church, Fallston, NC: Sunday, May 6, 2012 at their 10:30am.
Seven believers in Jesus Christ were baptized at Trinity Church in a portable baptistry unit after the morning worship service on April 15, 2012. There were 123 attendees this day. What a blessing to be a part of this service!
We were fortunate to experience the wettest March in recorded history for Portland. As mentioned in an earlier newsletter, it rains a lot here! But the rainy weather didn’t dampen the spirits of 26 Trinity Church volunteers who headed out on the last day of March to deliver nearly 650 door to door flyers promoting the upcoming Easter Worship Service, Easter Egg Hunt, and three summer sports camps.
Our Trinity Church Easter Egg Hunt was our first BIG outreach event since we arrived in Portland. We didn’t know what to expect. We asked for your prayers for sunny weather and a good turnout, and you prayed. God answered with a beautiful sunny day and over 400 attendees. This was the largest crowd ever at a Trinity Church sponsored event. WOW!
The event took place on a neighborhood soccer field surrounded by many homes. This same soccer field will be used in July for our Upward Soccer Camp. Our hope is that parents living in these neighboring homes would welcome our church and our event held specifically for their community. Having multiple events in the same community will allow the foundation for personal relationship building.
It was awesome to see so many people walking to the park to our event. Over 30 Trinity Church volunteers helped provide face painting, a fun-foam craft, a bouncy house (first time use), four age group egg hunts and our very own Easter Bunny photo booth. This was followed up with drawings for Applebee’s gift cards. But the most exciting part was that ALL of our 57 Children’s Beginner’s Bibles were given away FREE to those who wanted one. These Bibles had been provided to us free from our partners in North Carolina and Georgia, and we have many more Bibles on the way to us! (We took EVERY Children’s Bible that we had to this event…) What a blessing to give away God’s word to those who are thirsting.
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:37-38 NIV.
God’s Servants to Portland,
Tim & Andrea
This year’s Easter Sunday brought a record 152 attendees to Trinity Church, our highest attendance ever. At least two visiting families came that took part in the previous day’s egg hunt, which is a huge blessing to us!
Prayers are requested for a rain-free morning on March 31, 2012. Why this may seem as an unusual request for most of you, Portland may very well record the wettest March ever recorded, depending on what happens on this final day of March.
Trinity Church members will be walking neighborhoods beginning at 9:00am and delivering door to door flyers to promote information on our Easter Egg Hunt for April 7 and Easter Worship Services for April 8 at Trinity Church. If you live in the Northwest, you know that a little rain doesn’t necessarily keep people indoors. However, it would be nicer to be out walking our communities with opportunities for us to meet some of our neighbors, who are more likely to be outside if there is little or no rain.
http://www.trinitychurchlive.com/happenings/door-hanger-promo
Trinity Church members, along with a team of volunteers from Casper, Wyoming’s Baptist Student Union Ministry Team, made some new friends at a Spring Outreach Project: A Free Pancake Breakfast in a local mobile home park.
Tim received a call from our friend, Ed and Rebecca Tharp, from Casper, Wyoming. Ed leads Boyd Avenue Baptist Church Youth in Casper, Wyoming and is also director for Baptist Student Union at Casper Community College. Ed told Tim that he would be serving alongside another Southern Baptist Church on the west side of Portland during Spring Break, and he really wanted to see us again and work with us. (We have been working with Ed in Calgary, AB and in Wyoming for the past three years, so a strong friendship has been made.) Tim was excited, so he took this to Trinity Church leadership, and they together developed a ministry plan for outreach.
The mobile home park where we had the Free Pancake Breakfast has been an important ongoing ministry project for Trinity Church, who has done some prior outreach activities in this community. After meeting with the manager of the mobile home park, they were excited that we wanted to offer this act of kindness and service to them. We printed flyers which were delivered to all sixty mobile homes. It was such a blessing to set up tables, chairs, and tents and to serve these folks free pancakes and free coffee. It was a great opportunity to tell them that we love them, to hear their concerns, and to let them know about us and that we (Trinity Church) are here for them and we love Jesus, and Jesus loves them. God even provided sunshine for us on this Spring day!
The newly formed Trinity Church Outreach Team has started making plans for community outreach events this summer. Upward Basketball & Soccer Camps are being scheduled for the first time ever by Trinity Church. These camps along with the 2nd annual Survivor Camp will be the hi-lites of the summer. If funding for a bouncy house can be met, many neighborhood Kid’s Fun Day events will also be scheduled. We will continue giving away free Bibles to all children that attend our events, just as we did in Calgary. If you would like to support our Bible drive or help with other needs for summer outreach, visit our Wish List page!
Our first major outreach event with be an Easter Egg Hunt on April 7th. More details are coming soon!