PAGE 1 2023 ANNUAL REPORT
PAGE 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS VISION AND VALUES MESSAGE FROM LEAD PASTOR WHO WE ARE HOW GOD IS WORKING STAFF AND LEADERSHIP PRAY FOR WHAT IS NEXT 4 5 6 8 10 13
PAGE 4 VISION AND VALUES VISION VALUES A City Transformed Loved by God the Father Saved by Jesus His Son Empowered by His Spirit Called by God to Reach Our City with His Love GOSPEL a commitment to the story of Jesus as defining and ultimate. RELATIONSHIP a commitment to love each other as Jesus loved us. OPENNESS a commitment to pervasive transparency and candor in all we do. WORK a commitment to put our whole selves rigorously into this effort. OUTWARD FACED a commitment to regularly invite, pursue, and welcome those who do not yet know Jesus.
MESSAGE FROM LEAD PASTOR FROM OUR LEAD PASTOR PAGE 5 are being led to Christ. The Gospel is being shared consistently and by His Spirit, the Lord is moving people to respond in new birth and faith. As we strategize to carry out this transition well, how can we leverage our strengths and work to address our weaknesses? In all of our planning we want to 1) improve how we care for our people and 2) cultivate faithful disciples of Jesus. We have strengths in our Gospel culture, in our values, in our corporate worship and our ministries to children and students. We have mature leaders who are willing to hand off leadership to existing leaders, and (great news!) behind them is a small army of emerging leaders in the rising generation. We are working with a great sense of focus and agreement on how to do this well. There will be much work to do, and so there will be many places in which people who want to labor can find a fruitful spot in the vineyard. Almost every ministry could use more help. This will mean, from top to bottom, faithful, available and teachable people will be needed — from the simplest entry spot for a first-time volunteer, all the way to officers and even new staff. God’s Word calls us pilgrims, which means we’re on a journey. That is a helpful picture because a journey implies that you are going somewhere, but you’re not there yet. What hope do we have for such a trek? This is not the first time that ministry leaders have transitioned out and prepared for successors to take up the work. The Gospel guided them and it is guiding us. We’re humble and yet secure. This is not our church; it’s Jesus’ church, and He promised that He would build it. We believe it is miraculous that He has worked to reach people like us. Our place is to trust Him, serve, give, and even sacrifice so that His amazing love would extend out beyond us to others, and I hope that you would share in this work with us. As we prepare for our 2024 budget and ministry planning, it is important to outline some key points about why we are working on what we are proposing. One inevitability we have to face is the eventual retirement of our founding leaders. No one is quitting, but it is only a matter of time before the leaders who started Trinity are no longer able to be the tip of the spear. This is not only a question of when will I or Timo Strawbridge retire; it is also a matter of how we replace many leaders as over a third of our elders and many community group leaders are older than us. Working on succession planning is good work to do. It’s necessary, but also if we are open-eyed and strategic about it, this is an opportunity to complete a hard task in a healthy way. Second, like any person, our church is a mix of weak and strong, of frail and healthy at the same time. We can own the ways in which we have disappointed people, failed or even caused people pain. And at the same time we can also point to many ways in which God is at work by the power of His Grace. Just as the Gospel reveals us to be, in Christ, sinners and righteous at the same time, so are we as a collective body. We have weaknesses but God is doing something amazing in that we are growing. This is all the more remarkable when so many ministries and churches are declining or closing outright. What are we to make of our cultural moment? All over our country, at every level of involvement in ministry, people are quitting. It’s almost like when people are needed to move in, hordes of them are moving out. Seminaries are seeing plunging enrollments in pastoral ministry degree programs. Pastors and staff from existing churches are quitting in historically record numbers. So I realize this makes our situation all the more remarkable. When people all over our culture want out of church, we’re inviting people in, to work and contribute more than ever, and they are responding! True to our value of being a Gospel-centered church, in almost every ministry people
PAGE 6 WHO WE ARE WHO WE ARE MEMBERSHIP SPIRITUAL LIFE AND DISCIPLESHIP ATTENDANCE MONTHLY AVERAGE MEMBERS DISCIPLESHIP GROUPS PERSON OF JESUS LUNCH STUDY PRAYER COHORTS 417 20 223 552 20 483 97 10 COVENANT CHILDREN SUNDAY WORSHIP REGULAR ATTENDERS YOUTUBE STREAMS
COMMUNITY CHILDREN’S MINISTRY STUDENT MINISTRY WOMEN’S MINISTRY 348 27 3 193 MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 23 ADULT CORE GROUP ADVISORS 12 DISCIPLESHIP GROUPS 7 NEW BABIES BORN IN 2023 128 KID’S WORSHIP (INFANTSKINDERGARTEN) 119 COMMUNIT Y KIDS (1ST-5TH GRADE) 160 CHILDREN’S MINISTRY VOLUNTEERS PEOPLE IN COMMUNITY GROUPS COMMUNIT Y GROUPS NEW COMMUNITY GROUPS BIBLE STUDIES OUTREACH CARE AND CONNECTION AND RETREAT DISCIPLING BY GRACE PARTICIPANTS SUMMER RESOURCE SERIES AND OTHER TRAININGS 113 364 112 64
PAGE 8 $86,500 $2,400 $60,300 $60,300 Campus Outreach CO Serve - Joe Naramore Renew Polk Florida Church Planting Network $24,000 $2,400 $8,400 Parker Street Ministries Compassion Lighthouse $4,800 One More Child $8,174 $3,950 $6,000 Mission to North America Fellowship of Christian Athletes Southwest Presbytery $2,000 $4,088 $2,800 Made for Dominion Presbyterian Church in America Dave Hawes (Navigators) $3,796 $3,804 $2,750 $3,600 Reformed University Fellowship Covenant College Covenant Theological Seminary Southland Student Camps $3,000 $2,000 $1,360 $1,385 RTS Scholarship Heart for Winter Haven Descipleship Ministries Ridge Haven STATESIDE MISSIONS CITY MERCY $80,800 $258,207 HOW GOD HOW GOD IS WORKING $8,400 Salvation Army $10,800 A Women’s Choice $16,000 Gospel Inc. $6,000 VISTE
PAGE 9 $6,300 $6,000 $6,000 $5,100 seeJesus Lamb (Third Mill) Etiene (Haiti) Mission to the World $272,000 $177,280 Mercy Missions Other $1,000 $3,600 $3,600 $6,750 Seeing Jesus Together (Kenya) Carters (Japan) Cobb (France) Savants $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 Knowltons (Scotland) Robbie Sweet (Scotland) Gordons (Panama) Peter Dishman (Columbia) $2,400 $2,400 Nathaniel Adawonu (Africa) Scruggs (UK) TRINITY MERCY $41,448 WORLD MISSIONS $55,150 IS WORKING $449,280 $38,948 Individuals $1,000 Workdays $1,500 Meals
PAGE 10 STAFF AND LEADERSHIP Jason Jacobs Director of Worship Callie Sandman Director of Children’s Ministry Ashley Coleman Ministry Resource & Communications Coordinator Tim Rice Lead Pastor & Director of Church Planning Timo Strawbridge Director of Spiritual Life Frank McCaulley Director of Operations Anna Grace Starkes Front Desk Assistant Krissa Valentine Children’s Ministry Administrative Assistant Theresa Riggs Spiritual Life Administrative Assistant
TRINITY STAFF Jarrod Hurd Worship Administrative Lead Laura McCaulley Assistant Director of Women’s Ministry Julz Zagra Female Discipleship Coordinator Bud Daniel Male Discipleship Coordinator Andrea O’Brien Bookkeeper JoAnn Johnson Director of Women’s Ministry David Springer Director of Campus Outreach Brown Peterson Pastor of Students & Young Adults
ELDERS DEACONS PAGE 12 TEACHING Jerri Gable Jason Jacobs Brown Peterson Tim Rice John Tucker Robbie Davis Andrew Eisner Bruce Gaynair Jeff Sandman Adam Spafford James Spence SHEPHERDING Holland Henderson Timo Strawbridge Matt Tucker Justin Wilson OVERSIGHT Clark Buurma Shawn Jones Scott McBride Frank McCaulley Dwight Smith
PRAY FOR WHAT IS NEXT PRAY FOR WHAT IS NEXT PAGE 13 DISCIPLESHIP SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT Pray for Trinity’s leadership to develop a new discipleship system that will help people grow in faith and their love for Christ and the people around them. CHURCH PLANTING APPRENTICE Church Planting is a vital part of Trinity’s mission and vision. Pray that The Lord will raise up the next Church Planting Apprentice. CAPACITY AND COMMUNITY Pray for opportunities to invite - both to corporate worship and community groups. Pray for new community group leaders to step up and for current leaders/community groups to make room for those waiting to join. LEADERSHIP Pray for our elders as they continue to develop the new leadership structure of Shepherding, Teaching and Oversight teams. Ask the Spirit to help them be faithful and fruitful in the areas of their gifting and responsibility. PASTOR OF SHEPHERDING Pray that the hiring team is fruitful in finding the right person for this critical position.
CONTACT US 301 N FLORIDA AVENUE LAKELAND, FL 33801 TRINITYLAKELAND.ORG [email protected]