Guiding Principles 2025-2026 and Vision Casting 2026-2036
September 19, 2025

GUIDING PRINCIPLES 2025-2026 and Vision Casting 2026-2036
Resilient Witness: Spreading the Gospel in the Power of the Holy Spirit


Key verse: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).


The spread of the Gospel from Acts 2 To Acts 28 takes about 30 years (ca. AD 33 to ca. AD

65). It takes time for these events to unfold but in the narrative, things happen very fast,

one after another. We will use Acts as our "resilient witness" theme for the year. In spite (or

perhaps because) of opposition, the Word of the Gospel spreads throughout the

Roman empire and to "the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In Acts we see the fruit, but this

fruit is against the backdrop of three decades and a lot of hardships and opposition. The goal

is that TCC would grab hold of the call of God and the commission that is upon all of us.

We are all ministers of the Gospel as members of the Body; that we would be emboldened

to bear witness by the power of the Holy Spirit here in Metrowest ("Jerusalem"), in our

country ("Judea and Samaria") and throughout the world ("the ends of the earth"). The hope

is that we too will be able to testify that "the Word of God grew and multiplied" (Acts 12:24)

in and through us this coming year.


VISION CASTING: BUILDING UP THE BODY (2026-2036)

Looking beyond next year

One of the themes in the book of Acts is community. How did the early Church interact with one another and with the world? What can we apply and learn from them? How can we fulfill our mission to “Be and Make Disciples of Jesus Christ” in the years to come?


Building up the Body Through Growth Groups: Being Disciples, Becoming Disciplers

This year and in the years to come, we are building upon the foundations of last year's launch of our program for discipleship and outreach. Growth Groups focus on transformation, intentional community and outreach in line with the church's mission "to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ." By God's grace, Growth Groups will accomplish several things this coming year:

1. To welcome new believers into the faith in close community semester by semester. This fall we have six growth groups scheduled.

2. To strengthen our walk with the Lord for those of us who are already established in the faith. The curriculum for fall 2025 will be Mateus de Campos's lessons in discipleship from the Gospel of Mark

3. To pursue outreach initiatives in our community with the goal of conversion and discipleship. The Book of Acts exemplifies what outreach to the community is: bold proclamation of the Gospel to others. It is simply not enough to provide community services to our neighbors if the Gospel is not at the center of the outreach. Community is also grounded in our unity in Christ, in caring for one another and in growing in love for one another as fellow believers. In the early Church unto this day, this love and unity becomes a powerful witness to the world around us (and conversely, factions and divisions projects a poor witness, as in the case at Corinth! See 1 Corinthians 1-4).


Building Up the Body: Pastor-Planting (2026-)

The Book of Acts commissions all of us to be missionaries (the word in Acts is "witnesses") to our neighbors, and to the world. Some of us have and will physically relocate because of the leading of the Holy Spirit, while most of us will stay here in the Wayland area and continue to bear witness in our daily lives and various callings. Whether sent out locally or regionally or internationally, TCC is a sending church empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19-20).

This coming year, we are excited to build upon the successful pilot residency program that launched Aaron Verbosky into a senior minister role at South Peabody Congregational Church in 2024. This past year, we have had an internal candidate for the Residency program in the person of Jen Calverley to prepare her for the role of Minister of Community Life.

In 2026, the goal is to launch a new initiative to form and send out pastors who will fill pulpits in our region. By partnering with Made to Flourish Pastoral Residency Program, TCC will bring in one pastoral resident in the fall of 2026 for a duration of two years. During this residency period (much like a medical residency), the candidate will learn and grow in the skills needed for a successful and long-term tenure as a senior minister in a local church. The short-term goal is to launch the program next fall. The long-term goal is to send out pastors in New England to fill the many vacant pulpits to bear witness to the Gospel in this post- Christian generation. Instead of church-planting, this is a pastor-planting vision to train future pastors in preaching, leadership and pastoral care in existing churches in our area. Other churches nation-wide have joined in this movement (about 80 of them) and we are excited to be able to partner with Made to Flourish in this coming year. God willing, Made to Flourish will provide some of the funding for the next five years to help us launch this program to compensate our residents.


Building up the Body: Long-term Maintenance of Our Facilities (2026-36)

TCC has inherited a wonderful physical space for the worship of the Lord. Thanks to the "Higher Ground" initiative of the 2000's, we have first-rate facilities for our many ministries (completed in 2009). One area that remains in need of 'higher ground' is the sanctuary which has not been updated since the early 1970's. In a rapidly changing world, the technology in the sanctuary needs updating and the space needs a refresh to a more energy efficient space. In addition, the long-term upkeep of our buildings requires setting monies aside for future expenses such as the roof and the AC systems in the main building (installed in 2009). For the next 10-12 years, we will need to spend considerable amounts of money to upgrade these systems.


In 2026, the goal is to implement a plan of action that prepares us to address these long-term needs so that we can 'hand off' our facilities in better shape than we found them to the next generation of worshipers at TCC. The space we have inherited was designed to be poised for numerical growth. the Book of Acts teaches us that it is God who "adds to the numbers" of His people (Acts 2:47). For our mission at TCC, the number of 'people in the pews' can never be confused with spiritual growth. One can fill large sanctuaries with large crowds, but are they disciples in the way the Book of Acts describes? The models of church ministry of the past such as stadium outreach in the 1950's-80's or "seeker" sensitive church services of the 90's-2010's simply cannot be re-applied to our post-Christian and post-modern context today.

Numerical growth at TCC will not come by clever marketing schemes or programs or buildings or personalities. God is the One who will bring the growth as Scripture tells us (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). Our responsibility is to grow in Christ and bear witness to this growth with our public display of the fruit of the Spirit. In these spiritual realities, we are trusting in the Lord for 'Route 20 Revival' which means we need to prepare ourselves and our physical space for the next wave of Awakening in New England (after the First Awakening in the 18th century, the Second Awakening in the 19th century, and the Third Awakening in the mid-20th Century in our area). God has done it before, and He can do it again! We need our physical space to be ready for what the Lord is doing.


By-Laws Boundaries and Accountability Principles

The Board, committees, Senior Minister, Pastoral and support staff, and the congregation as a whole come under the accountability structures established in the TCC By-Laws of 2010. We are all accountable to the Lordship of Christ and His Word. In Christ, the Judgment of the Last Day has already come to us as “righteous” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Also, we will all

have to give an account on that Day as to what we did in the body in our justified state (2 Corinthians 5:10), whether we were zealous for good works or not (Titus 2:11-14).

Guiding Principles for 2024-2025

By Tom Petter • September 5, 2024
Trinitarian Congregational Church Guiding Principles for the Ministry Year 2024-2025 Ministry Theme: Return and Rest Theme Song: "Another In The Fire" by Hillsong UNITED (video below) Key verse: “Thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15 This ministry year we embark on a journey into the depths of the Gospel according to the Book of Isaiah. Some people have called Isaiah “the fifth gospel” because of its profound impact on the gospels (“the suffering servant” of Isaiah 53) and the rest of the New Testament. Isaiah’s call to rest in the Lord in the challenges of life, whether existential, physical or emotional (or all of the above) rings so true today! In an election year and a world in turmoil, the prophet, empowered by the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11; 2 Peter 1:21) asks us: Who do you trust? Your “chariots and horses” (Isaiah-speak for our own resourcefulness), “Egypt” (=political parties, elected officials, ideologies)? To know who you trust will inevitably be tested in these troubling times but here is the promise: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-2). The goal and the prayer for TCC this year is that Isaiah’s call (“Here I am! Send me.”) will spark our own call to “dream big” (“they shall declare my glory to the nations” 66:19). World evangelization and preaching the gospel to our neighbors are impossible tasks, but we serve a God that is far greater than we can ever imagine, for whom nothing is impossible. As to the how this can be done, Isaiah is convinced that the power of God’s Word draws people in, not marketing strategies or fancy programming (is this what the American church trusts today? Isaiah would be sure to ask us!). Instead, it’s the Word alone that serves as the attractional pull and He (the Word is Jesus Himself) never returns empty (Isaiah 2:1-4; 40:8; 55:1). This year we commit ourselves to returning and resting in Him and His Word. In an age where the proclamation and application of Scripture is increasingly deemed irrelevant, if not viewed downright offensive, we instead put the Spirit and the Word at the center of everything we do. Such a commitment to the sufficiency of the Word of God will inevitably demand we cut back on certain things and add others. We are committing ourselves to resetting priorities to bring the good news to our neighbors (“for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” 11:9). We are the hands and feet of Jesus; so these “boots [or feet] are made for walkin'…” (“How beautiful are the feet of him/her who brings good news…who declares ‘our God reigns” 55:7)! Growth Groups This year we are launching a brand-new program of discipleship and outreach. To fulfill our mission for intentional biblical witness and discipleship at TCC, we are implementing a semester-based small-group format that runs in the fall and spring (with option for groups during the summer as well). Groups focus on transformation, intentional community and outreach which create a social space where we learn God’s character and live in openness and brokenness with one another. In the fall, Growth Groups will all read and discuss the book Empowering Missional Disciples. In the spring, one of the options will be integration of Isaiah’s themes such as repentance, the fear of the Lord, how to hear God’s voice, intercessory prayer, biblical meditation will be the topics of weekly discussion. Facilitators with the support of the pastoral staff will choose topics and themes. An integral dimension of our Growth Groups is outreach: together we will participate in outreach events such as sharing our faith with others in our communities and works of service. For TCC to fulfill her destiny in this generation and for her to lay firm foundations for the next generation, we need to recover, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer what “religionless Christianity” is all about (as opposed to rote church attendance as a religious ritual without any noticeable transformation in our lives); we need to recapture the vision for community and “life together;” we need to reconsider what the true “cost of discipleship” means as followers of Jesus Christ in the 21st Century. Sanctuary Renovations “I will beautify my beautiful house” (Isaiah 60:7). Our beautiful facilities at TCC are instruments for worship. Once in a while, we must tune them and make sure they function properly. Funded from bequest funds, we are thankful for this provision though we do anticipate the inevitable additional costs (included in the proposed budget for 2025 as part of our stewardship campaign). Scheduled for February of March 2025 (if everything goes well), the much-needed sanctuary renovations will include a newly reconfigured stage, lighting, sound, along with other aesthetic and structural improvements. The project timeline is two or three months during which time our worship service will take place in the Gym.

Growth Groups

By Tom Petter • August 9, 2024
To carry out our mission “to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ,” regular (weekly/biweekly) church attendance is not enough. Ongoing small groups consisting of the same people over periods extending years can foster a strong social bond and spiritual support among trusted brothers and sisters. However, from feedback received, with life at a pace that requires changes and adaptation, Life Groups (LG) at TCC have experienced uneven attendance with the resulting lack of effectiveness to foster growth in discipleship. In addition, the open-ended commitment that LGs require (some have met for decades) can be daunting and lead to leader and participant burnout, with few options to explore other social spaces. For our newcomers, it can be difficult to find the “right group” with many competing schedules. To fulfil our mission for intentional biblical discipleship at TCC, we are implementing a semester-based discipleship program (10 weeks) utilizing a small group format (see description below) that runs in the fall and spring (with options for groups during the summer, as well). We are calling them “Growth Groups.” There is a real need and cry for new models of small groups as a way to meet new people and grow together. Growth Groups focus on transformation, intentional community and outreach which create a social space where we learn God’s character and live in openness and brokenness with one another. Topics such as repentance, the fear of the Lord, how to hear God’s voice, intercessory prayer, biblical meditation and more and are all part of the variables of the curriculum. The format of 10 weeks allows the facilitator to coordinate and lead the group, with the assistance of an apprentice, with a definite purpose and goals to accomplish within a set time period. Facilitators can opt to roll off and pass on the mantle to the apprentice or stay on for one more semester, alleviating the burnout we often see in Life Groups. An integral dimension of our Growth Groups is outreach: together we will participate in outreach events such as sharing our faith with others in our communities, works of service, and even fun days! Jesus concludes his teaching on the mountain in Matthew 5-7 with the contrasting image of the house built on sand and the house built on rock. The latter’s firm foundation is for the disciples who not only hear the Word (through teachings, preaching, biblical meditation, podcasts, devotionals, Bible reading plans, etc.) but also apply it. Someone once wisely observed that the early Church in the book of Acts was a missionary-sending, outreach-focused Body. There were no churches consisting of non-missionaries. For TCC to fulfill her destiny in this generation and for her to lay firm foundations for the next generation, we need to recover, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer what “religionless Christianity” is all about (as opposed to rote church attendance as a religious ritual without any noticeable transformation in our lives); we need to recapture the vision for community and “life together”; we need to reconsider what the true “cost of discipleship” means as followers of Jesus Christ in the 21 st Century. Implementation of Growth Groups will happen in fall, 2024. Existing Life Groups that wish to remain together may continue meeting as they have been, or they may choose to alter their structure to fit the Growth Group model. The Growth Group model is based on the structure outlined in Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups. More information about Growth Groups will be coming soon. Sign-ups will take place in September and groups will begin on Monday, September 30.

Pastor's Note: Revised Service Structure 2024

By Jeridan Dyck • January 9, 2024
Happy New Year, TCC! As we prepare for all that God has for TCC this year, we are excited for where and how God is leading us! We, the pastoral team, have been praying and seeking the Lord’s direction for this new year. It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to hold fast to the directions he gave us in the fall which were (1) to continue to implement truly inter-generational worship as a united body, (2) to set out a theme of preparedness for the coming of the Lord (Matthew 24:44-47), (3) and to put attention and effort behind the TCC mission statement, “to be and make disciples.” (Matthew 28:18-20) After a strong summer coming out of Camp TCC, we were excited about the momentum and the theme of readiness. We were eager to implement the Biblical Discipleship Hour (BDH), age-appropriate, biblical education and discipleship. Kids’ hour accommodated 0-5 th grade, Youth BDH, 6 th – 12 th grade, and Adult BDH, college students to pensioners. During the 9:30 service hour, the hope was that families would be able to come to BDH and Kids’ hour to be discipled in the word of God then transition together to the 11:00 service to worship as a family. The momentum was strong at the beginning of the fall, but as time went on, we had fewer and fewer attend the Biblical Discipleship hour. As we evaluated how the fall services had gone, we recognized this loss of momentum. We felt that part of the problem was the competition between the 9:30 service and BDH. Asking families to come an hour and a half early for worship to participate in the education hour was a stretch even for the most stalwart especially with school, sports, and other weekly activities also making demands. In answer, beginning in February, we are going to implement a one-service model at 10:00 with a fellowship / coffee time from 11:00-11:30, followed by Biblical Discipleship Hour from 11:30-12:15. We hope this will facilitate a few different things. (1) A return to the summer worship schedule will reunite all of us into a single worshipping body; a better reflection of our unity in Christ (Ephesians 4:3). (2) Competition between a 9:30 service and BDH will be eliminated; it is more palatable deciding simply to stay after the service than expend the effort required to come early. (3) The worship team will have an extra half hour of prep and could also participate in BDH if they choose. (4) Pastor Tom, having to preach only once, will be free to participate, teach, and be more actively involved in the discipleship element on Sunday morning as well. The one downside is for the staff and volunteers regularly serving our kids in LTA (coinciding with worship). If things continue as they are, they would be unable to participate in the worship service. To facilitate their participation, we will need a rotation of volunteers who are willing to serve our kids one or perhaps two Sundays per month. Would you be willing to regularly serve on a rotation? We pray that this structure will better serve the vision the Lord has given us. If you have any questions or concerns, please email, call, text, or visit me on site during office hours. May God our Father bless us richly through the unity of the Holy Spirit as members of his only Son, Jesus Christ! Jeridan Dyck Pastor of Family Ministries and Outreach jeridan@tccwayland.org (406)849-0675