Gil Trusty

God is good and never gives up on us. He is forgiving. Even when we walk away knowingly or get mixed up in bad theology God will take us back and forgives us and more than that, he will continue to use us and give us the honor of serving him.

One such example of this grace can be seen in the life of Gil Trusty. Gil was well respected at Valley Forge Christian Collage and was a strong student leader. After his graduation he planted a church in New Jersey. Churches sought after him to speak at various places and events. His name became well know. God had given him a great gift. The problem was that Gil was doing everything in gift and he had not been building a strong relationship with God. Spiritual pride entered his life. He felt like the church was ineffective and he walked away from it.

He and a group of other people set up a farm where they taught bad theology. They prayed and worshiped because they felt like they had too and without love. Everything was falling apart because they could not do everything in their own power and sin kept creeping in. Gil realized that the harder he tried to get close to God in this way, the farther away he got and he cried out to God for help.

When Gil walked away from the farm that he lived at for three years he had nothing and worse, he was afraid that people from the church would recognize him and tear him apart. Instead he was received back into the church with open arms. God began to heal Gil and allowed him to serve in his church once again. God gifted Gil to be a pastor and that was still Gil’s passion after everything that had happened. God now allows Gil to run a youth ministry of several hundred junior higher kids. After what Gil did to God sheep God was still willing to let Gil lead his lambs. 

Community leader interview

I interviewed a family friend, April Gilligan, who currently runs a coffee shop and an online store for select items with her husbanded in Florida.

What do you think is the greatest thing about our community?

“The greatest thing about our community is the people. Everyone is so nice. We pull together is there is a crisis.”

What do you feel is the greatest challenge in our community?

“One of the biggest challenges in our community is city planning. There are not enough traffic lights and some of the intersections are dangerous. We have so much tourist traffic that they need to take a look at this.”

What is one thing that would make family life better in our community?

“One thing that would make our family life better not sure that is tough one. We love it here it is about the best place to live and raise a family. There is nothing like southern family life.”

Is there anything you see happening in the future that you are concerned about?

“There some politicians here that want to eliminate our beach as a spring break destination. I is one of our concerns here. For the most part spring breakers here are not bad. They spend a lot of money that the city would loose if they eliminated it.”

What is a new affordable service that would really help our community?

“We are also a large winter destination for older folks from up north. I think a good service to provide them with would be a mail forwarding service. It wouldn’t' take much to rent a building and for a fee they could use it as their address and you forward their mail where ever they may be traveling.”

What is a service that really needs to be improved?

“I think a service that could be improved is greater police presence during big events. This week is bike week and the bikers are showing up and I have not seen much security happing around the beach.”

Thoughts

People just want to feel safe and not just in that they know they wont get robbed but the what to feel safe economically as well. In a place that is dependent on tourists for income, laws that might not seem like that big of a deal can have a huge impact and turn a community upside down. 

Dan Miller

Dan Miller is the lead pastor at Back Mountain Harvest Assembly in Trucksville, Pa. It is there where Dan reaches out to the community in many different ways. Harvest Assembly is all about serving the community rather than providing services for it’s members. They provide athletic facilities for the community and continue to expand and improve what they have to offer to the community. They have also created the Hope Center, which is a place that people can receive free medical care, legal help, glasses, and pastoral care. People in the community see what is happening and more and more people want to get involved to offer their talents to people in need. The Hope Center also helps mothers to be through their pregnancies to give an option other than planed parent hood.

Another one of the things that Harvest Assembly does is send ministers into dyeing churches. They hope to revive other churches in the area regardless of the denomination. It is another great way to reach the community with hardly any cost them. These churches often already have their property paid for and are already set up but are struggling because they have no pastor. Harvest Assembly sends in a pastor, sometimes more and they can revive a church from just a few families to several hundred people. This is a great Example of all of God’s people working together. We need to work together as one church to reach the world rather than fight each other and get jealous because of someone else’s victory. 

Leading from your Strengths

I took the online evaluation “Leading from your Strengths”.  It gave me some insightful information that is helpful to better understand myself. While the people I shared the report with and I didn’t agree completely with, specifically two different parts of the report, we found it to be pretty accurate over all. The report is accurate enough that I feel it would be useful to add to a resume so that so that any potential employer could have more insight into who I am and how I would handle different situations.

One of the things that the report pointed out is that I am objective and realistic. I can look at the facts and show them with out getting too emotional involved. I think this is an important quality when helping to make decisions because it will allow me to be more honest to myself and those around me when I can keep any emotional bias out of the process. In a church this would be important because we need to seek out the truth and seek God’s will. If we cloud the truth for any reason it can become hard to see what God is trying to show us. It is important to be realistic. At the same time, it is important to optimistic because we are serving God and if wants something to happen it will whether or not it seems realistic. From this report and from some comments I got, I learned I might need to be a little more optimistic.

Another thing that this report pointed out is that I like clear detail. When working through a plan or given a task, I’ll work better if there is a clear procedure in place than if it is left open ended. Another place that this came in to play was when the report suggested that I find safety in following the established procedures and rules. Because of this, I am less likely to take risk. Because of the way this report is laid out though, it suggests that it wouldn’t be to difficult for me to pioneer into new territory and break away from the established order of doing things. Looking back on my life I have done both. Generally I stick to what I know will work but sometimes I have found it refreshing and even necessary to work out side of the box.

Overall I found this report to be helpful because it forced me to look at myself in a way that I typically wouldn’t. The parts that don’t seem all that accurate even force me to think about those qualities. When looking for ministry position to fill, I think this report will help me see if it fits my strengths. 

Gerry Stoltzfoos

Gerry Stoltzfoos grew up in an Amish church. When he was about 17 years old he started to ask questions about salvation. He wondered why, if it was so important to receive salvation, no one ever did. Gerry wanted to be in a church that focused on saving people so he left the Amish church and joined a Pentecostal church. Gerry severed there for 12 years and was looking to start a church in Philadelphia.

One day he received a call from a group of pastors who wanted him to start a church in Gettysburg. At first he was reluctant to serve in Gettysburg but God gave his wife a vision of them living there. He accepted that that was where God wanted him to be. Gerry said that they had done every church-planting thing wrong but it still came together because it was what God wanted. They started with about 40 people and now they are up 1200 and have to send people out to start new churches because they don’t have enough room.

Gerry reported that there is no better way to reach the lost than with a church plant. Other methods come and go but church planting always works. We live in a time when 83% of the country is un-churched well just a few generations ago over half the country attended church regularly. We need to reach out to the lost and church planting is the best way to do it.

            

Steve Trader

Well he had already been involved for quite some time in ministry at his church Steve Trader entered into pastoral ministry latter in life (after 23 years in the pharmaceutical industry). Steve explained to us some of the challenges that he faced working in management and living a Christian life style before he started a church plant. One of these challenges comes from the HR aspect of his career. He talked about how it can be difficult interacting with employees when they have to be let go or anything else that negatively effects them because Steve was unable to be completely up front with them.

When Steve felt the call to leave his Job and enter in to full time ministry things were going great for him at his job, which made it harder and harder to leave. Because he knew it was what God wanted him to do he took an opportunity to leave his company during a restructuring and began preparing to plant a church. Because of where Steve was coming from and his credibility he had a unique opportunity to plant a church in an upper income area where the people are often leery. Steve pointed out that everyone everywhere has problems whether it is in the inner city or nicer suburbs.

Steve’s church grew quickly. He said that it had a lot to do with hospitality.  When the church began they put a lot of their budget towards hospitality, which greatly helped to give a good impression. Twice a month they would have meals after church for members of the church to bring their friends to. Steve and his wife would also go out to dinner with visitor that came back to the church a second time. Now that the church is much bigger they are unable to do that as much but they still work hard to provide a pleasing experience to guests.