Minnesota Stay at Home orders have been extended through the middle of May.

Trinity’s building will remain closed and all in person worship and activities will be cancelled or postponed through Wednesday, May 13, 2020.

Again, I want to say thank you to the Trinity Community, which is expanding everyday, for all the ways you have been ministering to each other in this time. I’ve seen you be creative, I’ve heard how you are checking in on each other, I’ve felt your care and support too. Well done good and faithful servants! And keep up the good work. We are not out of the woods yet. I pray that you have endurance and good courage to face what lies ahead of us. We do this work together. You are not alone.

Worship continues online, on KLFD Radio, and local access TV [Nuvera Chanel 13, Mediacom Chanel 7]. Help others connect!

Trinity’s phone and e-mail are being monitored. We will update you with the latest news as best we can.

Pastor Megan will continue pastoral care by telephone, e-mail, and mail, and in times of emergency.

Electronic giving is available for your regular financial gifts. Information can be found at www.trinitygrovecity.org under the giving tab. To give by text message, simply text the amount you want to donate to (320)345-3538. Don't worry! If you still prefer paper checks, we can accept them by mail. Thank you for your generous support!

With love,
​
Pastor Megan

Governor Tim Walz has issued a stay at home order from March 27, 2020 – April 10, 2020.

Trinity’s building will remain closed and all in person worship and activities will be cancelled or postponed through Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020.

• Ministry will continue! It has been awesome to see all the creative ways you have been living your faith at home, in your workplaces, alongside your neighbors (from a safe distance), and online!
• Worship will be offered online, on KLFD Radio, and local access TV. Help others connect!
• Trinity’s phone and e-mail will be monitored. We will continue to communicate with you as best we can.
• Pastor Megan will continue pastoral care by telephone, e-mail, and mail, and in times of emergency.
• Faith formation, Sunday School, Confirmation, and other activities will happen in different, yet creative ways. Continue to reach out to each other in this time. Use your gifts and imagination! Try something new!

Please know that electronic giving is an option for your regular financial gifts. Information can be found on our website under the giving tab. To give by text message, simply text the amount you want to donate to (320)345-3538. Don't worry! If you still prefer paper checks, we can accept them by mail.

In times of distress, it can be hard to trust. When everything feels upended, it can be hard to find our center. When we feel afraid, it can be hard to see beyond our own needs. Remember – the God who spoke you into existence – the God who walked this earth – the God who died and rose again – the God who conquered sin and death – that God dwells with you, claims you, loves you – always.

With love,

Pastor Megan

Thank you, Trinity community, for extending so much grace this week. I’m proud of the ways you all have been working hard to make good choices and reach out and care for each other. You are the body of Christ – living your faith – trusting God’s promises even in the midst of hardship. Well done, good and faithful servants.

I wish I could say that our physical and social distancing can end. Unfortunately, we will need to continue taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus.

We have decided to cancel all worship and activities through March 31, 2020.

Here is the good news – we will find creative ways to gather virtually, be fed, communicate, hear God’s word, and share life together.

Pastor Megan will continue to provide worship and devotional opportunities through Facebook.
              -Wednesdays at 6:30 pm & Sundays at 10:00 am.

The Litchfield area ELCA churches have teamed up to provide worship on KLFD radio and local access cable.
              -KLDF (1410 am/95.9 fm) - Wednesdays at 6:30 pm & Sundays at 8:30 am.
              -Local Access cable – Sundays at 11:00 am

Please know that electronic giving is an option for your regular financial gifts. Information can be found at www.trinitygrovecity.org under the giving tab. Mailing your checks is also an option.

My prayers to you all - God’s peace, courage, and endurance for the days ahead.
​
With love,
Pastor Megan

Lenten Greetings,
​
During this season I invite you to join me on a sabbath journey. Could you use a little less frantic and a little more peace? Could you use a little less noise and a little more harmony? Could you use a little less busy and a little more savoring? This lent, my soul is craving sabbath. Pick up a copy of our Lent devotional and Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems and rediscover the gift of Sabbath. Enjoy this sneak peek poem:
 
-Pastor Megan


​“What if, in the high, restful sanctuary
That keeps the memory of Paradise,
We’re followed by the drone of history
And greed’s poisonous fumes still burn our eyes?
 
Disharmony recalls us to our work.
From Heavenly work of light and wind and leaf
We must turn back into the peopled dark
Of our unraveling century, the grief
 
Of waste, the agony of haste and noise.
It is a hard return from Sabbath rest
To lifework of the field, yet we rejoice,
Returning, less condemned in being blessed
 
By vision of what work can make:
A harmony between forest and field,
The world as it was given for love’s sake,
The world by love and loving work revealed
 
As given to our children and our Maker.
In that healed harmony the world is used
But not destroyed, the Giver and the taker
Joined, the taker blessed, in the unabused
 
Gift that nurtures and protects. Then workday
And Sabbath live together in one place.
Though mortal, incomplete, that harmony
Is our one possibility of peace.
 
When field and woods agree, they make a rhyme
That Stirs in distant memory the whole
First Sabbath’s song that no largess of time
Or hope or sorrow wholly can recall.
 
But Harmony of earth is Heaven-made,
Heaven-making, is promise and is prayer,
A little song to keep us unafraid,
An earthly music magnified in air.”

Hello lovely Trinity people!

Are you a roller coaster kind of person? As a kid I HATED roller coasters. Spinning was not so bad, but any ride that involved loosely strapping myself to a seat that was soon to fall out of the sky . . . No thanks! I’m not sure what I found worse, the slow ascent . . . click, click, clicking away our last seconds before certain death, or the actual dropping part . . . stomach in my throat, butt floating freely, hands gripped to anything within reach.

Even though I was not a huge fan of roller coasters, I found myself at amusement parks quite often growing up. Eventually I got tired of politely tagging along and watching everyone else have fun so I would swallow my fear, grit my teeth, and take deep breaths as we inched along in line. I vividly remember one sunny day at Six flags. My group wanted to ride the coaster that had the highest drop in the park. After hours in line and lots of positive self-talk, I finally stepped into my seat and pulled the lap bar toward my waist. With ample space to spare between my body and the bar, I pushed harder to make it more secure. It didn’t budge. PANICKED, I looked up at the young attendant on the platform and shouted, “this won’t move down any further!” He looked at me and shrugged. SHRUGGED! And then he stepped back as the cars started to move. EVEN MORE PANICKED, I looked at my friend and said, “I’m literally going to fall out of this seat!” She didn’t know what to say.

Click . . . click . . . click . . . I’m feeling faint . . . (probably because I was no longer breathing deep) . . .
Click . . . click . . . click . . . I’m clenching every muscle in my body. . . (maybe my rigidity will save me?) . . . Click . . . click . . . click . . . and we drop . . .
 
Surprise! I didn’t die . . . physics and that coaster were friends and I lived to ride another day.
​
It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a roller coaster, but as I look forward to another year on this planet, I’m strangely feeling drawn to the amusement park. I’ve decided on two goals for my year:

1. Have more fun
2. Take more risks

Maybe I’ll make plans to visit a Six Flags this year. I would dare say that certain roller coasters were fun 😊 Super Man ride – I’m looking at you! And to the inventor of shoulder restraints, in addition to lap bars, I thank thee! At any rate I’m hoping to channel the amusement park spirit and step into fun and risky opportunities I might otherwise politely watch from the sidelines.

Here’s to a roller coaster of a year. Yee-Haw! (I already feel a little sick 😊)
​
Pr. Megan

Happy New Year! As we enter 2020, I’d like to share an article about having deep honest conversations about faith. Enjoy! -Pastor Megan

​The Biggest Hindrance to Your Kids’ Faith
Isn’t Doubt. It’s Silence
 
During a three-year study launched by the Fuller Youth Institute, a parent with three post–high school kids reflected on the changes she’s witnessed over the years: “I think if I were to go back and re-parent,
​I actually would allow my kids more freedom in their high school years to explore and express their questions about faith.”
 
According to our study, which looked at 500 youth group graduates, over 70 percent of churchgoing high schoolers report having serious doubts about faith. Sadly, less than half of those young people shared their doubts and struggles with an adult or friend. Yet these students’ opportunities to express and explore their doubts were actually correlated with greater faith maturity. In other words, it’s not doubt that’s toxic to faith; it’s silence.
 
Researchers for the National Study for Youth and Religion discovered that young people have become inarticulate about their faith, often lacking the language to express their beliefs and convictions. Further exploration revealed another telling part of this story: so have their parents. Somehow, young people and their parents have lost the ability to speak of faith in real life. Like learning Mandarin as a young person then forgetting it as an adult, Christian adolescents often become less fluent in faith over time. What we call “faithing,” or the ongoing act of faith, depends on practice and use for it to become deeply part of us. It is through faithing that language, behaviors, beliefs, and values are internalized.
 
As we interact with parents nationwide, they confess that when it comes to discussing spirituality, they’re worried about saying the wrong thing and either messing up or revealing their ignorance. The good news for parents is we don’t need to be theologians or super-Christians to talk with our kids about our faith or theirs. We only need to be willing to go there. Faith in many families has become a lost language, but parents can bring faithing language back into everyday life by finding small ways to speak it again. Like any language, it will seem awkward at first, but consistency will bring fluency.
 
First, create spaces for faithing to happen.
When my (Steve’s) daughters were in their late teens and early 20's, I made a point to use coffee outings to talk about meaningful topics. It was hard at first. As a parent, you want your kids to come to you and ask you about the meaning of life, but that rarely happens. Instead, they often expected me to bring up important topics, so I learned to take some risks with them by asking them about friends, politics, current events, and God.
 
One question that I regularly brought up with them was, “What is something you don’t believe that you think I still believe?” I also turned the question around: “What is something you believe that you don’t think I believe?” Sometimes the answer would be, “I can’t think of anything,” and sometimes they had a list. I held my breath each time wondering what they might say, but what gave me courage was knowing that faithing is a process best fueled by honest, regular conversation.
 
Every once in a while, I (Kara) ask my kids this question: “When do you feel closest to God?” My son, Nathan’s answer: “During worship.” He has felt close to God through worship music since fourth grade. He now plays guitar and regularly leads worship at our high school ministry. Krista tells me she feels closest to God when she’s at church with her friends. She’s always been social, and she comes alive when she’s with people who get her. For Jessica, our most introverted child, it’s in our backyard by herself. She loves nature and experiencing God’s creation.
 
Second, bring faithing to their big questions and dilemmas.
Encourage your teenager or young adult to articulate their doubts so that both of you can better understand what they might be working through. For example, when your kid says, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” you might respond, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in anymore.” Acknowledge that their confession is courageous. You might even say, “I don’t believe in that kind of God, either” and then articulate what you believe. Compliment them for noticing the contradictions and ask them how they would live differently. Recognize, too, that intellectual dissent or questions often are evoked because of new and broadening relationships and experiences. Simplistic faith responses to issues of equality, science, and politics now feel unsatisfying. Acknowledge these new complexities. Invite other adults to join your family conversation who will listen, honor, and respond well to your kids’ questions. Avoid offering either-or solutions that constrain them to only two options when there may be more. And work toward considering new, creative ways that honor their experiences and faith journeys.
 
Third, tell your own faithing story. (It’s part of their story, too).
Somewhere along my parenting journey, I (Steve) realized I had not told my girls my spiritual story. So with each of them, I tried to find moments to ask, “Have you ever wondered why or how I found a connection with Jesus and his story?” When I asked them if I could share my story, each one graciously responded, “Yes.”
 
In the same spirit, tell your story to your young adult kids. It doesn’t have to be told perfectly. And if you told them once long ago, tell it again. Tell them about times when God’s grace has sustained you. Share how you are experiencing God in your daily living. Our kids need a starting point, and articulating our own stories is a great way to begin.
 
Finally, support your kids in their unique faith stage.
To best grow in faith with our families, we need to develop unique postures that match the key struggles and questions of what we call the learner, explorer, and focuser stages. As high school students, learners make sense of their faith through the modeling of others. Parents can help their learner kids’ faithing by:

• Recognizing that learners highly value what adults and peers think. For them, being faithful often means fitting in. Doubting can challenge their sense of belonging in their church, leaving them asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Assure them that they belong and that their questions can help, not hurt them.
• Teaching them how to seek helpful answers that encourage their maturity. Encourage them to talk with an expert, read an article, or listen to a podcast. Follow up with them and ask them to teach you what they’ve discovered and what new questions have now surfaced for them.

 
Since explorers are journeying through the first half of emerging adulthood, they make sense of their relationship with God by asking more critical questions, often comparing and contrasting what they have been taught by their families and faith communities with their new encounters with diverse people, experiences, and worldviews. Parents as guides can help their explorer kids’ faithing by:

• Creating room for them to critique their families and their faith. They need adults who will be patient with their underdeveloped and sometimes harsh judgments and who can resist becoming defensive.
• Gently encouraging them not only to voice the problems in their families or home churches but also to reflect on what they may have appreciated.
• Receiving their spiritual quests as part of their journey, encouraging them to move beyond doubt, and coaching them to search for new answers to their new questions.

 
As focusers move from emerging adulthood toward adulthood, they are likely gaining clarity in their careers, relationships, and beliefs. They are becoming more comfortable with their own relationship with God and searching to find common ground—even with those who hold differing perspectives. Parents as resourcers can help their focuser kids’ faithing by:

• Recognizing that focusers are starting to consider the fingerprint they want to leave on our world. Their doubts are an expression of their longing to make a difference and their fear about whether they will live up to their aspirations. They ask, “What’s wrong with the world and what can I do about it?”
• Creating space to talk with them about their relationships, vocations, and spirituality. They need a mutual conversation, not a teaching session.
• Connecting them with other adults who may have similar vocations, passions, or aspirations.

 
As we seek to communicate openly with our kids about matters of the heart, we sometimes assume that their faith journeys are so influenced by our attitudes and actions that we have to do it all. What we do matters, yes, but nonetheless there is no formula that can perfectly predict our kids’ relationship with Jesus. Instead, we need the peace and strength that come from knowing that God loves each of us, is pursuing us, and desires to give us a full life. We can rest in knowing that, while we want our kids to believe in God, God always believes in them. And in us.
 
Kara Powell, PhD, is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. Steven Argue, PhD, is the applied research strategist for the Fuller Youth Institute and associate professor of youth, family, and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. This excerpt was adapted from Growing With by Kara Powell and Steven Argue. Published by Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Copyright 2019. Used by permission. BakerPublishingGroup.com
​

Dear friends,

At the annual fall conference for pastors in our synod, I had the opportunity to hear from Professor Todd Green of Luther College. He teaches religion and has devoted his life’s work to dismantling Islamophobia in the US and around the world. I was very moved by his passion for this work and his care for our Muslim neighbors who suffer daily assaults, increased hate crimes, and rampant discrimination. His urgency for making change and combating hate toward Muslims in Minnesota has prompted me to take stronger actions in my advocacy.

This month we have a great opportunity to join in fighting back against Islamophobia in our own community.

The Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign is hosting a Faith Over Fear training event in Willmar, MN on November 15 & 16th.

Through Faith Over Fear trainings, participants learn effective strategies to better advocate against a narrative of fear and divisiveness in our country. This training shares up-to-date research, tools, and effective strategies for the work of faith and community members who wish to counter anti-Muslim bias, discrimination, and violence in the United States.

The Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign is a national coalition-based campaign of religious denominations and faith-based organizations and communities that are committed to ending discrimination and violence against Muslims in the US by equipping, connecting, and mobilizing faith leaders and community members to effectively take action. Shoulder to Shoulder trains, provides resources, and empowers people to address anti-Muslim bigotry within their own communities and in American society.

Some may wonder how advocating for people of a different faith background is congruent with living out our Christian faith. I can’t think of a more appropriate way to follow the example of Jesus, who crossed religious, cultural, and social boundaries on a daily basis, showing how God’s love is not hindered by the things that we perceive as dividing us. To be a Christian is to love your neighbor as yourself. Yes, even your Muslim neighbor.

Please join me in attending this valuable training to work together to build a community where all people, no matter their religious or cultural background, are treated with fairness, dignity, and respect.

To register visit: https://www.shouldertoshouldercampaign.org/trainings

WHAT: Faith Over Fear Training - Willmar, MN
WHEN: November 15-16, 2019
*Friday, November 15, 2019: 5:00 - 9:00pm | Opening Dinner & Program
*Saturday, November 16, 2019: 9:00 - 5:00pm | Training (snacks & lunch provided)
WHERE: Willmar Community Center
​
-Pastor Megan

Happy October!

It’s been a few weeks since I returned from maternity leave and I’m so glad to be back in the swing of things with you all. It was really important for me to take time with my family this summer, especially with Emmett having special concerns as a premature baby, but I did miss you all terribly. I missed worship, I missed the community time, and I missed my routine.

Between feedings and diaper changes, I’ve spent quite a bit of time these last few months writing thank you notes. People have been so generous in helping us prepare for Emmett’s birth and future. I’m always overwhelmed by the giving nature of my community. I remember when Erik and I were married, I had a hard time making a wedding registry because I felt guilty asking people to buy me things, but I was reminded again and again that people wanted to be part of our story. Family and friends wanted to show their support as we began a new adventure, a new challenge, and they wanted to give back; I heard stories from aunts, and cousins, and family friends about how much they needed their community when they were at my stage in life, and offering me a set of sheets was one way they could show their gratitude for all the support they received over the years. Beginning this new adventure and challenge into parenthood has been no different. It’s amazing to me that at times of life transition we remember how much we need each other, and how deficient our lives would be if we were to try and do this thing called life all alone.

 As I’ve been filling my mailbox with thank you letters going out, I’ve been receiving hospital bills coming in. Modern medicine is quite amazing and I’m so glad we had the option of care in the NICU, but of course the expertise comes at a cost. It can feel overwhelming at times to see our savings rapidly depleting all because we decided to do a pretty normal thing—have a child. I probably worry more about personal finances than I should, but in uncertain times like this, I am especially tempted to draw into myself. I ask myself, “Should I stop my charitable giving for a while?  Should I stop giving to the church until our expenses go back to normal? Should I hold back my giving in my community, like to the fire department, this year?” I usually decide to wait until I feel less panic. No decision can be a good one when made in the height of fear, I tell myself. And so I wait—and eventually I come to the conclusion that retreating into myself is really not helpful.

There are plenty of ways to be responsible with my financial resources, but quitting my giving is not one of them. The generosity shown to me breeds confidence that I don’t have to be afraid, I’m not facing the future alone, and it launches me into increased giving. It’s actually quite freeing to lean into gratitude and generosity, giving thanks for the abundance I truly do have, and letting go of the fear of the unknown, letting go of the pressure to buy ALL THE THINGS for my son, letting go of the isolation of putting my wants above all else. I find I’m never more content than when I acknowledge the immense gifts I have been given and then sharing those gifts for the betterment of my community and planet.

This fall, in the midst of much uncertainty, I’m choosing to lean into gratitude. I’m choosing to prioritize sharing. I’m choosing to let go of my fear and my greed. I’m choosing to say thank you and pass the generosity forward.

That you may have a joyous, generous, and grace filled fall, I pray.
​
-Pastor Megan