You've got questions
This is the whole reason that Trinity Gathering plans on being a community where our conversations with one another can help dig into the truth. Jesus did the majority of his teaching by listening to questions and launching into truth-telling and stories that helped explain what He was about.
Below you will find a few big questions and our answers to them. These are not exhaustive studies around concepts, but the opening of a conversation about that question. If you have comments or questions, feel free to ask.
This is in no way an exhaustive list of truths, but it should help you discern whether or not you want to be a part of a Trinity Gathering. Of course, if you are considering joining us or visiting, we suggest you spend some time praying about it.
Questions are not wrong or bad or scary. God is big enough for anything you may want to know. Let’s look together:
In today’s world, truth has become a moving target. It used to be that pretty much everyone agreed on a certain baseline of truth; a set of accepted principles that shaped the foundations of our legal system, our government, our schools, and our churches. In fact, there was an entire cultural assent to foundational truth and people who refused to acknowledge the truth knew that they were rebelling against it. Unfortunately, having the truth rest with the culture as it happened 500-150 years ago, led to the adoption of assumptions about things that were true that could be dis-proven with science. Instead of understanding The Truth behind cultural truths, society and the church rested on its own assessments of what was true for them. And these seeming inconsistencies gave the secular-scientific-doubting-agnostic a foothold to stand upon and in doing so, threw out large swaths of what almost everyone believed under the guise of scientism or modern critical thought. The decent into a post-truth world is not recent. It has been brewing for hundreds of years. God isn’t surprised by it, or unable to address it.
So now it is your truth, my truth, truth that culture or media tell us for a season. All of those “truths” may be different from one another. We have for hundreds of years come to believe that there is the possibility of no absolute truth. We at Trinity Gathering turn to scripture to decide if something is true. We know that God’s Word is trustworthy and use it as a litmus test for discerning other truths.
There can be a place, where you are loved, and people find a common Truth to center on, and you can find the Truth.
Keep in mind, that knowing the truth, and then having that truth change the way you live are two separate things. Many people know the truth, but don’t know the One behind the truth. It is more important to know God, through Jesus Christ first as a foundation to knowing the truth.
A people, together in a community, allowing the Spirit to lead them into Truth can be a powerful force for change in their city and in the world. We may adjust our methods of communication or the manner in which we connect, but we must never try to adjust the truth to accommodate a cultural interface. Truth that comes from scripture and from God is a foundation that will not move or change. We should stand upon that foundation and stay anchored to it as we reach out to bring others into truth with grace and love.
Jesus is the Son of God, but he wasn’t created like the rest of us. Instead, Jesus has always been. He existed when the world was created, and His coming to the earth was foreordained as part of the plan for re-creation, redemption, and restoration of relationship with The Father and all of God. Jesus is the primary character in the Bible story, and He fills many roles throughout scripture. He is the Son of God, the perfect sacrifice, the founder of the church, our Lord and Savior and the hope of all mankind.
It is Jesus who lived a sinless, perfect life, and became the sacrifice on our behalf so we could be granted a clean slate and a right standing with the law and with God. Jesus then rose from the dead and demonstrated victory over death. All authority in both Heaven and here on Earth has been granted to Jesus. He is the one that we submit our entire lives to, and is the One who is building His Church and will return in Glory at the end of this age to present His Kingdom to the Father in victory.
Church isn’t somewhere we go. Church isn’t something we do. Church is who we are as Christians. Church is when we as Christians, gather into a community and decide to live life with each other, under the love and the Heart of the Father, the Lordship and Leadership of the Son, Jesus Christ, and the empowerment and fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. It involves commitment to one another to see the life of Jesus began to grow and make its way out through each of us, as we live our lives out in the community. God’s powerful reign in our lives means significant opportunity for change in our communities. It is His work, and The Church is called to participate in the work of God, bringing the Love of God and the Kingdom to all those that God puts in our paths. The Church is you, The Church is me, The Church is we – all on mission, bringing the Kingdom to wherever we are.
Church can gather in small 2-3 person disciple relationships, in house or apartment gatherings for worship, relationship, and study. Or, Church can also gather in larger groups to worship and to hear teaching. But Church primarily is you, and those around you – seeking the Father together and growing in love for one another and the world. Jesus said that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He will be there. This is one of the reasons we are calling this Trinity Gatherings. The people that come together, will be built into the church God desires us to be.
Come join us –
We at the Trinity Gathering believe the Bible is God’s Word to the world. It is made up of Sixty Six books, all God inspired to writers who wrote the words given to them by the Spirit. We believe that all scripture is helpful and without any error.
The spiritual gift of prophecy today is NOT Scripture. We believe that there is no new revelation being given, even in prophetic utterances that would ever be in contradiction or would need to expand upon the scripture. We believe that the Bible stands alone as authoritative and can be understood through Holy Spirit insight. Paul said that he wished that we all would prophecy, and we believe that God still speaks today through the Holy Spirit gifting people with insights and visions. But none of those will contradict scripture, nor will they add new revelations beyond what scripture has given us. The Bible is sufficient, but we are called to live as biblical, spirit-filled believers.
The Bible is not merely a recipe book, or a manual for blessed living. It is The Story, of a Creator God, making the Universe, and carrying out the ultimate plan to bring all of creation into relationship with Him.
The Bible is meant to be learned together, in community, to be heard together, in community. It is also a relatively new phenomenon that each person can have a Bible to study themselves personally. That kind of study is helpful, but real truth that transforms from Scripture comes from hearing the Word together, and living it out in relationships with one another and the World.
Fundamentally, Sin is the short-sighted attempt to get our way for our own good, apart from God’s will. Our willfulness opposing God’s will is Sin. We rebel against God’s will by doing our own thing. We sin by actions we do – sins of commission, and we sin by actions that we choose not to do – sins of omission. In all cases, it is us attempting to get something we want through our own means, effort, or manipulation.
Because at the core of sin is selfishness and our own desire for us to be powerful enough to feed our selfishness, it is not compatible with living in community or living in relationship with anyone else.
Because of sin, we can not truly have real relationship with anyone else. Instead we ultimately will end up serving our own needs and desires to the detriment of another.
This functions the same way with a relationship to God. God has no sin in Him, because it is not in His nature. He is holy, completely and sin of any kind is not able to enter into His relationships.
At the core of our relationships with others and with God is the need for sin to be overcome. Because sin fundamentally breaks relationships through selfishness, we must have a way for sin to be defeated in order for love to truly happen.
In our own strength, we may be able to suppress sinful action or inaction for a season, but it is simply a fools mission to try and overcome sin on our own. We will hold it down and immediately be full of pride that we held it down. We will use that pride to position ourselves above others and think poorly of them – Voila! Sin again…
Repent and believe – what does that mean?
Repentance in Hebrew has a connotation of turning in the opposite direction. In the Greek world, most of the time repentance is referencing a transformation or changing of the mind. If you put these two concepts into an understanding that foundational Sin is essentially caused when we mistrust God and His intent and desire for us and instead try to satisfy ourselves outside of God’s will – the need for repentance is real.
At the very core of repentance is this: Do you believe that God is God and You are NOT God? Because the central changing of our mind must be that we acknowledge that God is who He says He is. That the God who is asking us to be in relationship with Him is THAT GOD (The One and Only Big G God) – who created all things, and is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-present, all-just, and all-loving. That God is completely trustworthy and has a perfect plan for us. The plan He has for us includes God the Father, desiring you to be his child, Jesus the Son providing righteousness and a clean slate on your behalf and the Holy Spirit coming to fill you with God’s presence and power as well.
We then give up our own pride of thinking that by not trusting The One True God, we can solve our own issues and make our own strategies and come up with our own knowledge. Our shortsighted pursuit of shortcuts and solutions to our problems without acknowledging that we trust God will ALWAYS lead to pain and suffering in our lives and those around us. Maybe not immediately, but eventually we will break things and hurt people without foundational repentance.
Some have said prayers of “repenting” for sins they have committed, but have never given up their own will and acknowledged God as the ONLY One to get answers from. Instead, they mistakenly view God in a transactional way, using confession and repentance for specific sins as bargaining chips with God, thinking that they will give Him something – a sin or two – and in return He will give them something – Maybe salvation, or blessing. In this case, there is no foundational repentance and a person is still functioning as their own god, calling the shots and telling or demanding from God what they want. Others emphasize the believing side and think that their own “faith” will force God to bend to their own will and bring about salvation. Again – that is not foundational repentance because a person who does that does not give up being their own god and acknowledge the True God as trustworthy to follow and be submitted to.
We at Trinity Gatherings will help you see this true foundational repentance and walk with you through it and on into the freedom that comes when you give up your role as your own god and submit to the ONE TRUE GOD in humility and brokenness. We all have to go through this in order to be free. God will grant you faith to believe, and the power to turn. Come join us in this freedom!
Grace is the extension of love, acceptance and relationship from one person to another without strings attached. In the context of Christianity, Grace is God, extending love, acceptance, and relationship to us, even though we are not holy enough to deserve it. Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf allows Grace to function and because of God extending Grace to us, we can be drawn into an adoption relationship with God. Because Grace is more than simply extended to us one time, but actually in a continual state, we can be free to worship and serve God with all our lives.
We as a Church get to then extend grace to others – to you – to those that come into our path as we go out. Grace is not an acceptance of people’s behavior or an explaining away of what someone has done, it is an extension of love and acceptance of a person. Once you know that you are loved as a person, not based on your behavior or performance, it supernaturally frees you up to finally be yourself and not hide anymore.
It is God who extended Grace to us, when we were absolutely unable to acquire it through our own work or effort or acting. So – we can now extend grace to you, even if you don’t deserve it. Paul said in Colossians that God extended this grace and lifeline to us while we were absolutely dead. Using that imagery was intentional, because Paul knew that grace is a free, undeserved gift from God. If we had even one breath of life left in us, we’d be tempted to think WE did the work of salvation and WE caused God to extend grace to us. So – God does it when we are utterly dead. That keeps us all humble, authentic, and willing to share God’s grace with others.
Learning to extend this transforming grace to one another and to the world around us is one of the key values of Trinity Gatherings. God’s love in action is God’s Grace flowing from His heart through our lives. Come experience it, and join in relationships of Grace with us.