The Already & Not Yet of Advent

This Sunday, December 1, marks the first Sunday in the season of the church calendar known as Advent. That statement likely brings up a few questions in your mind. The first of which likely has to do with the Church calendar. You may be wondering, “What in the world is the church calendar?” 

I’m glad you asked. We all live according to some type of calendar; a system that orders our days and seasons. In the western world we live according to the Gregorian calendar which was instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. Over the course of our normal calendar year we experience certain seasons like summer and winter in San Antonio (it’s rumored other areas of the country also experience spring and fall). And we celebrate certain special days - we call them holidays - like President’s Day and Memorial Day and July 4th.

Just like the society we’re apart of orders its life around a calendar - looking forward to certain days and seasons - the Church throughout history has also ordered its life together around a calendar known as the Church calendar. While we can fully engage in our society’s calendar and enjoy it, we also have our own special calendar as the Church. This calendar very intentionally follows along with the life of Christ through the year. From the anticipation of his arrival known as the Advent season, to his birth known as the Christmas season, to remembering his journey to Jerusalem to die which is known as Lent, to his final week where we celebrate Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter, to the season of ordinary time where we focus on growing in normal, mundane life as followers of Jesus. The Church has always ordered it’s life according to a calendar that is intended to shape and form our focus as the Church through the year. 

This Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent. Advent is a word that means arrival. It is a season where the Church around the world patiently waits and longs for the arrival of the Savior. In this season we look back at Christ’s once in history coming in humility and we look forward to when he will come again in glory. Advent is meant to be a season characterized by hopeful longing.

As Christians that live in a time where Christ has already come in humility but has not yet come in glory, we look back at Christ’s first coming with joy and thankfulness. We also look forward to Christ’s second coming with expectation and anticipation. Over the course of the next 4 Sundays we will sing hymns that both express the longing for Christ to come fully make all things new and express our joy over the fact that Christ has already come to truly begin his work of renewal with his incarnation. 

Over the next four weeks, we will throw ourselves into the season of Advent as a church on Sunday mornings. We would also love to invite you to jump into this season of eager expectation at home. With that in mind, below are a few links to some resources that you might find encouraging and helpful as you enter the season of Advent.

Jesus Storybook Bible Children Advent Devotional

Village Church Advent Guide

Trinity Grace Church Advent Guide (Written by Pastor Michael - Sundays not included since we gather to worship as a community that day.)

It Takes a Village

“Do you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting the parents in the Christian nurture of this child?”

If you’re a regular at Trinity Grace Church then chances are you’ve heard the question above during a worship service where one of our covenant children received baptism. If you’re a member at Trinity Grace then you’ve actually been asked to respond to this question with joyful consent! The question above is the one posed to the congregation as a whole when one of our covenant children are baptized. It’s an important and a beautiful responsibility to care for one another as members of the same church family. Isn’t it a comforting thought to know that our children have different “voices” in their lives pointing them to the beauty and grace of Jesus? Isn’t it encouraging to know that our children are being cared for by the teenagers as well as the grandparents in our congregation? Isn’t it exciting to think of the role you can play in blessing the future generation of the Church?

It’s an important and beautiful responsibility we have as the family of God to care for one another, especially the littlest among us. One of the ways you can jump in to serve and love our church family is by volunteering in our nursery. As we continue to grow, there are more children in our nursery on Sunday mornings. It’s not always glamorous, serving in the nursery isn’t always a “walk in the park”, some Sundays are more smooth than others. Yet, the cumulative effect on the hearts of our children from hearing the Gospel week in and week out cannot be overstated.

We’d love to invite you to consider volunteering to serve our families and our children in the nursery. The goal is for you to serve in our nursery 4-5 times per year. We have a group of Nursery Team Leaders that take care of the teaching every week. So if the idea of teaching a lesson to a group of toddlers is daunting, you can breathe a deep sigh of relief. Although, if you’re interested in teaching our children we’d love to discuss that too!

As you consider serving in the nursery, please know that you are tangibly serving the families of Trinity Grace Church. As you care for our covenant children, you are coming alongside our parents in cultivating a love for Jesus in their kids’ heart. Also, as you serve in the nursery, please know that you are offering a warm welcome to our guests at Trinity Grace. There are many young families that live in our area of town. Our hope is that as they walk through our doors on Sunday morning that they will find a warm, safe, and Christ-centered nursery for their children. In short, service in our nursery is crucial to our mission of seeking to reach and renew San Antonio with the hope of the Gospel.

We hope that you’ll consider volunteering in our nursery. We’re committed to meeting our need in the nursery through willing volunteers - not compulsory obligation. So consider this your invitation to join us in loving and serving the family of Trinity Grace. Whether you’re a young professional, a parent with multiple children, or an empty nester there is a place for you in our nursery. Our children will be blessed by your smile, your encouragement, your presence. As we seek to cultivate a love for Jesus in our children, it’s good to be reminded that it takes a village. I am personally grateful to be a part of this “village” - this church family called Trinity Grace!

In order to volunteer with our children, we do ask that you move through a background check. This helps us ensure the safety our children. You can complete the background check by following this link.

And for your viewing pleasure, I wanted to share this video that really captures what we hope becomes true with members at Trinity Grace. If you call our church home - if Trinity Grace is your family - then we want you to be a host! This is your church, and we want you to be excited to welcome our guests as their host.

https://youtu.be/8avSrGj6JzU

Who Is Your One?

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

As we launch into a new ministry year at Trinity Grace, it provides a great opportunity to pause and thank the Lord for his goodness to our new church plant over the past year. We have much to be thankful for in the way God is building this local expression of his Church in northwest San Antonio. We also have much to look forward to as God continues to work in our midst over the coming months and years.

As we continue the work of planting a new church for San Antonio, one of our prayers is that God will use us to reach those who are searching for truth, those who are spiritually starving, those who haven’t been to church in years. Our hope is that our friends and neighbors will experience the love of God in Christ for them. We want to be a new church that seeks to reach and renew San Antonio with the hope of the Gospel.

As we enter a new fall season, we’re beginning a new sermon series on the book of Acts, we’re launching Neighborhood Groups to build friendship and cultivate Gospel growth, we’re starting Bible studies so that we might dig into the Bible and know God better. As we enter into the fall season, it’s a perfect time to invite someone to be a part of what God is doing at Trinity Grace.

I know how daunting the prospect of inviting someone to church can be. It is especially hard when we consider the call of evangelism and outreach in large, theoretical ways. If we don’t make outreach practical, we may never get started. So, in an effort to make outreach and invitation practical - in hopes of making it doable for you - I would love to invite you this fall to consider the question: “Who is your one?”

If you were to spend 5 minutes thinking about the relationships in your life, who is the one person that comes to mind that would appreciate being invited to Trinity Grace? It’s likely that someone comes to mind fairly quickly. Maybe it’s a neighbor, a coworker, a friend from your child’s school, a family member. It may be that multiple people come to your mind. That’s great! Now, a good question to process as you consider inviting them to join you at church is: “What am I most excited about when I think of Trinity Grace? What do I appreciate most about this new church plant?”

Maybe for you it’s the beautiful, formative liturgy on Sunday mornings. Maybe it’s the rich songs we sing during worship. Maybe it’s the amazing children’s ministry opportunities we have on a Sunday morning. Maybe it’s the Gospel centered messages on Sunday mornings. Maybe it’s the warm community and friendships that are being built in our church. What attracted you to make Trinity Grace your home church? Excitement is contagious. As you think about how to introduce our new church to your friends, spend some time thinking about how you can communicate your excitement with an invitation.

You can pick up one of our small invitation cards on the welcome table and use it as a simple way to convey the details about when and where we meet.

This isn’t meant to be a “gimmick” or a “church growth” strategy. Outreach and invitation can be scary, but it’s what we’re called to as a new church for San Antonio. As we launch into a new ministry season at Trinity Grace, we want to make an intentional effort to be an outward facing church that seeks to love our neighbor. After all, we are the ones who have been loved so well by God himself. One simple, practical way you can love your neighbors through the fall season is to ask yourself: “Who is my one?”

We would love to welcome them into the life of Trinity Grace!