Dear friends in Christ,

As I am writing this, this past Sunday we held a “Multigenerational Bible Treasure Hunt” here at Trinity.  Adrianne Bolland put in a lot of effort to set it up – you should thank her!  Thank you Adrianne!

I mostly just observed and tried to keep up with Sophia so that my wife and other children could participate.  But it is difficult for me to find the right words to express the joy I felt at observing.  The participants, who ranged from about 4 to, well…I won’t specify an age (I think it may have started with an 8 or even a 9), worked together to find clues spread throughout the church facility.  The thing that guided them to find these clues?  God’s Word.  I talked to several participants who had a great time.

But the reason that this event really brought me joy is because it allowed us to live out in a small way what it is God has created here at Trinity: a community of people, brought together in Christ to belong to one another.  A community where a five-year-old knows who she is in the eyes of her Lord, has friends who share that faith, has a set of caring adults who care about her, gets to have dozens of extra grandparents and great-grandparents who love her, and gets to have a community to which she will always belong.  It is a community where a 75-year-old who is concerned about where the world is going has an opportunity to support those who are raising the next generation and can even play a role in helping to form them, because in Christ we are one.  It is a community where parents can be supported and strengthened in their God-given task to raise their children by the generations that have gone before and the Word that gives us life while giving their kids a safe community in which to grow.

I really don’t know of any other place in this world where we form bonds of love and care with people outside our families and outside our peer groups, relationships where, without any “strings attached,” we are brought together.  Where else can you talk super-heroes with a four-year-old, small engines with a fellow in his forties, college options with a teen, community history with an octogenarian, and grand-child exploits with a new grandparent?  And you can do it all with people that you love and care for, and who love and care for you – not because you’ve earned it or deserve it or because they have to, but because they belong to Jesus and you belong to Jesus and He’s brought us together in this place to be His people.  How cool is that?

As I watched the teams in the Treasure Hunt race around the facility, talk through the clues together, accomplish their tasks, and celebrate together, I couldn’t help but smile.  When I watched the children of our church thrive while interacting with adults from the congregation outside their families, building relationships of love and trust that will benefit them for years to come, my heart was warmed.  But when I contemplate that all of that took place in our Lord’s House, involved study of our Lord’s Word, and helped all involved experience and participate in our Lord’s family and its life together, I was overjoyed.

Let’s continue to live that life together, bearing one another’s burdens, sharing one another’s joys, supporting one another amid the challenges of life in this world.  Let’s love and care for our neighbor within the household of faith, as Paul terms it in Galatians 6:10.  Let’s be patient with one another, bear with one another in love, forgive one another’s faults, and confess our own failures.  Let’s spur one another on in Christ, both because we love Jesus and we love each other.  Let’s invite and welcome others into this community in Christ that we have here at Trinity, so that we can share these blessings we have in Jesus, blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation, but also the blessing of belonging, of knowing who we are, and knowing that we are loved and cared for by our Lord and by our fellow believers.

Peace in Christ,
Pastor Lieske