5 Hopes for Trinity
following up on 12 Appreciations about Trinity = 17 years
Earlier this week I refreshed a previously written 12 Appreciations About Trinity. In it, I wrote, “This week will mark the completion of my 17th year serving as the pastor at Trinity. What an honor. I find myself oriented more toward the future than the past.”
This hasn’t always been true. I don’t know anyone more nostalgic than ‘2005 Nathan.’ Joy would tell you the same. If you would have told me then that the denomination of which I was a part, would fall apart, that I would help close Trinity Lutheran School and Lutheran Renewal, that the same college where my parents met and I fell in love with Joy (and studying the Bible) would close… I would have yelled—NO! I couldn’t imagine my life without these past monuments standing and movements moving.
Then I was converted. That’s right. In 2005, I was unconverted. Oh, I was baptized and trusted Jesus for my salvation. But, I was oriented toward the past—nostalgic. Homesick for a previous golden age. Then I was converted by hope. It must have been around the same time I fell head over heals in love with Ephesians. “That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” Ephesians 1.18. And my favorite hope-quote from that theologian of hope, Jürgen Moltmann. Read it slowly, lingering, savoring, digesting, contemplating.
“Hope finds in Christ not only a consolation in suffering, but also the protest of the divine promise against suffering. If Paul calls death the ‘last enemy’ (1 Cor. 15:26), then the opposite is also true: that the risen Christ, and with him the resurrection hope, must be declared to be the enemy of death and of a world that puts up with death. Faith takes up this contradiction and thus becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but it itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.” Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, Harper & Row, 1967 (21-22).
Nothing is more dangerous to the status quo than hope. That is why the political and religious leaders, who didn’t agree about anything else, agreed in their branding Jesus a dangerous subversive. He was and is our Living Hope, and they weren’t having it. In a world, in a heart, in a church where Jesus is Lord, not even the sky is the limit! So, warning label, here are five of my hopes.
1. I hope that we keep saying all of the above #12 appreciations for Trinity’s whole life. I would add, I hope we keep being the kind of church that expects God’s intervention.
One thing that was impressed on me at the centennial celebration is that we have been who we are for a long time. AND, God has been renewing us through many waves of grace. I think Arne Christenson described the Trinity of his childhood to a “T.” “We believed in a God who could intervene.” Yes. A God who actually changes people. A God who reverses decline. A God who renews. A God who actually forgives. A God who does miracles. A God who heals. May it always be true of us, because it will certainly always be true of God.
I hope we keep saying all of the above #12 appreciations for Trinity’s whole life, including that we keep being the kind of church that expects God’s intervention.
2. I hope we grow in to our security as a resourced church and our calling to be a resourcing church.
We have been resourced. First, by God! Abundant and amazing grace. Week after week from his word and in his sacraments. The lavish outpouring of his Spirit on you, his gifted people. His provision of all we need from day to day—our daily bread.
We have been resourced by those who have come before us. They took risks. They believed and prayed. They gave generously. They have left us with NO debt and a facility that is ready, or getting ready for the next seasons.
We have been resourced by you and your faithful stewardship. Our ancestors are not funding our present ministry. Nor are we mortgaging our descendant’s future today. We are seeking to live within our means today.
We have been resourced. But, we are also increasingly a resourcing congregation. Church plants partnership in Thailand, Tanzania, T______, Albania, and Montebello, CA. We are receiving and sending equipped young leaders through Greenhouse. We are becoming very good neighbors to our neighboring schools. Week in—week out food collection, sorting, and distribution through the Food Pantry. Mission Endowment Grants to over 40 recipients over the last few years. Ongoing mission support to those mission partners that are so close and kindred to our hearts. Generous teaching missions to movement partners: CLBI, Mount Carmel, Awaken Project… We have been blessed to be a blessing. I don’t sense a hoarding bone in your body, Trinity. There is way more ahead.
There are many worthy recipients for your legacy. I agree with Carole Peterson that Trinity is at the top of the list. I can’t imagine an organization that has proven to use resources as an engine for worship, equipping, training, mercy, mission, compassion, outreach. I’ll be bold. Consider Trinity in your own long-range giving plans. Leave a legacy. It doesn’t have to be the size of Carole Peterson’s gift to make a really big difference.
I hope we grow in to our security as a resourced church and a resourcing church.
3. I hope we grow into the right size congregation.
The pious thing to say here is “whatever size God thinks is best.” I know that it is not about numbers. Numbers do not equal success. I agree. Vital congregations come in all sorts and sizes. Yes. But…
Can I be honest? I think Trinity San Pedro is supposed to have more like 300 people in weekly worship. There are thousands of religiously unaffiliated people in our town. People who need Jesus. Before Covid, we averaged about 225 on a Sunday. After Covid it was more like 150. These days it has been a little larger. Our facility could easily handle 300. Imagine three services of 100 each. Imagine all of our age groups buzzing with life and activity and growth. At an average of 300 weekly worshippers, we could afford to give more generously to our mission partners, whose costs are also rising (please don’t forget). We could afford to Call another pastor. Maybe a younger, more energetic pastor :). Paul Anderson used to tell me, “Nathan, there is no success without succession.” I am not going anywhere. I have plenty of years and plenty of CALL left in me here at Trinity in San Pedro. And, you have had 17 years of my strengths and 17 years of my weaknesses. Along with that, it looks like God may continue to raise up future leaders from within Trinity, along with others who see that this is a perfect atmosphere to learn and grow while pursuing seminary studies. If we averaged 300 weekly worshippers, we could continue to provide part-time ministry jobs to seminarians that make it more possible for them to complete their education with little or no debt.
I might be wrong, but I think (and hope) that we could grow to 300 weekly worshippers. Of course, we would have to access the evangelistic and outreach commitment that was here in spades during the Hoffmann years (1956-1960). We would have to add a commitment to bold invitation to our commitment to warm hospitality.
I hope we grow into the right size congregation.
4. I hope we can facilitate an affordable housing solution that deepens the stability of our congregation and movement.
We have about 30 individuals involved in our Theta Young Adult Community. If any of them are making long-terms plans to buy into the local housing market, I don’t know about it. Of course, the only way Joy and I were able to buy into the local housing market was to co-own 602 S Weymouth with all of you. Did you know that you own outright about 57%, and we are paying mortgage on about 43%? I only know of a few in the Baby Boomer generation who are planning to stay local. Many are planning, or pondering, or have already relocated to more retirement-friendly states.
This has a deeply destabilizing impact in the soul of Trinity. There is a prior question to “does our parish have a future?” It is, “can anyone afford to live in our parish?”
I have publicly dreamed before about what a “Trinity Village” might look like. Here are some previous communications.
Dream to cultivate stable community in an increasingly unstable culture/community.
A few years ago we noticed that the marks of discipleship were most evident in older adults, so we began to invest our time among younger adults. We began the Theta Community, an intentional community of young adults (HS Senior-29 year olds) with the interns as the residential heart of that community. We called them to a rule of life and rhythm of prayer, and they responded. Now, they clearly evidence marks of discipleship that include weekly worship and daily Bible reading and prayer, a commitment to fellowship, service, and stewardship. Our dream is to call other generations to the same kind of community.
A practical aspect in the solution is affordable local housing. Consider the large lot east of the Alpha House. It’s estimated worth is $700K, and the owner has expressed interest in selling to Trinity. It would be possible to build more affordable condominiums (up to 16 units of various sizes) in a cooperative to young adults, young marrieds, and younger retirees interested in rooting in the Trinity community. We would need to find a temporary investor to make that dream a reality. The old nursery school east of Trinity East is also available, and could be used similarly.
I hope we can facilitate an affordable housing solution that deepens the stability of our congregation and movement.
5. I hope we become a congregations of communities.
I wrote the following to the Collegeville Institute, when applying to be a short-term residential scholar, a role I will take in February 2023.
Building community stability, a core perennial Benedictine value, is increasingly, in our seismic age, a recognized and timely need. For the last 16 years, I’ve served as parish pastor of Trinity, a 100 year old Lutheran congregation in the Port of Los Angeles. In a city known for the automobile (mobility), and networking (utilitarian relationships), and during a time of profound political, personal, professional and pandemic related instability, we founded the Theta Young Adult Community. In our third year, we have seen young adults more deeply rooted because of their experience in a ‘life together’ community.
It is my hope that my writing, and the creation of a “Community Course” would be helpful in building other communities like Theta in our own congregation, as well as in a growing number of congregations and para-church organizations who are asking for an Architecture for Building Community. This would not be meeting a potential need, but an actual need of actual pastors of actual communities.
I don’t mean to use hyperbole or be a cultural chicken little, always crying that the sky is falling. But, I do think we are entering another cultural dark age. The Church of Jesus Christ will make it, because Jesus said we would and we belong to him. But, we will only make it together. I mean, really together. Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his brother, “The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount. It is high time people banded together to do this” (14th of January, 1935).
I hope we become a congregation of communities.
Some of my hopes are connected to dreams and desire. I will hold on to them without squeezing them. Other hopes are connected to promises. Promises made by a really big and a really good God. I entrust you to him. I entrust our future to him. I entrust my self to him. “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Ephesians 2.22.
Blessings in Christ to you, fellow workers in God’s work here in San Pedro. These have been a sweet 17 years.
Jesus’ peace,
Nathan
