Project Team Introduced

The work of the Project Team has begun. The members at the invitation of the Church Board are:

Jim Best (Chair)
Peter Hogenbirk (Board Member)
Liz Leduke
Esther Araujo
Dennis Gunter
Pastor Brian

These good folk will serve the congregation by doing behind the scenes work which is so necessary in preparing for final decisions regarding the building project. Design, budget and administrative items are all a part of the mandate - and should we go forward - this team would help follow the construction effort carefully on our behalf.

To a large extent we now need some professional assistance to prepare and gain the approval of the Town of Clarington. The process to start with is called the Site Plan Agreement. An architect is going to meet with us shortly to help begin this Site Pite Agreement process. Lots of questions and ideas to digest in these early days.

More reports to follow - til then we appreciate your prayer support and continued feedback.

Summer Focus Groups Complete

Hello again as we reach the end of August.

This past summer we have held 10 Focus Group meetings - times to get together and provide some input to the on going discussion regarding a new multi-purpose room.

Thanks so much for participating. Over 80 people attended the meetings and we have a great list of thoughts and ideas as a result. Now we are in the process of sorting through the information.

Look for further updates along the way. If you missed the meetings this summer feel free to be in touch - either send us a note or give us a call.

August 9 & August 15-17 Groups

Hello Again!

This week we had two Focus Groups with some good ideas coming out of the discussions. Thanks to those attending.

Next groups are as follows.

August 9 at the Heffords, 217 Grandview St. S. Oshawa, ON L1H 7C6 at 7 PM

August 15 at Bert & Ria Martin, 11 Westmore Street, Courtice, ON L1E 2H7 at 2 PM.

August 16 at Linda Caskey, 56 Keewatin Street South, Oshawa, ON L1H 6Z1 at 2 PM

August 17 at Brian and Lori Bells 1067 Interlake Dr., Oshawa, L1K 2M5 at 7 PM.

Please take advantage of these times to interact and dialogue together. More groups happen the week of August 20th as well.

Have a Glorious Week!

July 27 & 28 Focus Group Locations

Heh Everyone,

This week's Focus Groups are as follows:

Thursday July 27 at Heather & Andy Kelly's, 2 Highgrove Court, Whitby, ON L1P 0B3 905-493-0582. 7:00 PM

Friday July 28 at Brian & Lori Bell's, 1067 Interlake Dr., Oshawa, ON L1K 2M5 289-274-5546. 7:00 PM


The agenda is simple. To gather around a sketch of the potential building and to comment, offer ideas, suggestions and generally discuss the reason for such an expansion.

Hope you can make it and if not this week then consider another date coming up in August. A previous blog gives the dates and each week we will provide the address of the group meeting.

Have a great week.

Upcoming Focus Groups

The Church Board would like to invite you to attend any one of the following Focus Groups.
These are gatherings for us to continue to interact about the potential building expansion. The agenda will include a time for comments, questions and reflections on the information given out on June 24; another look at the design idea and considerations regarding timing.

We have been pleased to receive your Feedback Surveys and you are welcome to drop yours off if you haven’t already.
There are many good comments and helpful suggestions. We look forward to a good continuing process over these next months.

No need to sign up for a Focus Group – just show up and bring along your thoughts and ideas. A couple members of the Staff and/or Board will be there facilitate discussion and take notes. The hope is to continue to discern the Lord’s leading for Trulls. Looking forward to some great discussions.

Call the church office (905-436-2300) to get the address of the Focus Group you would like to attend or find the information printed at the Welcome Center at the Church.

Day, Date, Location and Time

Thursday, July 26, Whitby 7:00 PM

Friday, July 27, Oshawa 7:00 PM

Thursday, August 9, Oshawa 7:00 PM

Wednesday, August 15, Courtice 2:00 PM - Note Time!

Thursday, August 16, Oshawa 2:00 - Note Time!

Friday, August 17, Oshawa 7:00 PM

Tuesday, August 21, Oshawa 7:00 PM

Wednesday, August 22, Bowmanville 7:00 PM

Wednesday, August 22, Newcastle 7:00 PM

Thursday, August 23, (TBD)

Church Board Follow Up - Post June 24!

On June 25th, the Church Board met to review the responses from the Town Hall Meeting and would like to offer this update. First, thank you very much for the responses we have received to date. Please feel free to send in your feedback surveys over the next week or so – if you don’t have one, more are available at the Welcome Centre. As you may have seen over 80 ‘initial responses’ were placed on the poster in the lobby - 78 were green and 4 were red. There were over 40 surveys handed in last Sunday and more have come in during the week. Already we are receiving some very helpful feedback and ideas. These dots were meant to say YES continue with the exploration of the idea – “Green” or NO we do not sense this is a good time to proceed or a good project to consider – “Red”. The dots were not meant to indicate, go ahead with the proposed design from last Sunday. If you haven’t already done so, please feel free to add your sticker to the poster as well. We are looking for more input from you over these summer months. We hope to gather together some ‘Focus Groups’, smaller gatherings, to discuss the concept and provide further interaction and ideas. Watch for details of these times to come. We also want to remind you of the upcoming prayer gatherings, specifically about the proposed idea to expand. Please plan to come to one or more of these summer evening prayer times at 7 PM – July 10 & 24 and August 14 & 28, all Tuesday evenings. More times to pray and discern the Lord’s direction will be held as we move into the fall. The Church Board is in the process of forming a Project Team, a group of gifted individuals who will handle the major dimensions of such a project should it go forward. We will be introducing this team in the near future. In the meantime a special thank you to Dennis Gunter, Jim Best and Peter Hogenbirk who have been very helpful in doing research to this point. Let us all continue to pray about this potential expansion – for clarity, discernment, guidance and unity going forward. Please be in touch with the Church Board at any time. Posted by Pastor Brian.

The Town Hall - June 24, 2012

Today we had approximately 140 attend our first Town Hall Meeting regarding the possibility of a new MPR (multi-purpose room). Pastor Brian gave a 25 minute presentation and then there was about 25 minutes of questions and comments. After the meeting we had 41 people leave their completed surveys, 78 green dots and 4 red dots showed up on the floor plan poster and a great BBQ lunch outside with only a few drops of rain. Thanks to all for the comments and questions and for your willingness to express yourselves in a genuinely sincere manner. As mentioned at the meeting we are at the preliminary stages of this discussion in many ways. It might be good to mention that lots of work by the Board and in particular two men on behalf of the Board, Dennis Gunter and Jim Best, has been done so far in making contact with a variety of businesses and sources so that we could even get to today and be able to present something with a level of awareness of basic issues. We will attempt to fill you in along the way with more detail and try to offer some kind of Question and Answer format here with the blog at times. We realize that some are processors and others are more willing to offer an early response. Please know that we are wanting to take time to hear from you all - the response today is only meant to give the Church Board some kind of indication as to the benefit of doing more research and study. A very strong "Red Dot No" this-not-a-good-idea would have told us to be careful about how much time we set aside in our upcoming effort. The Church Board meets June 25 so we will be in touch again after that with our sense of direction regarding next steps. Til later, have a great evening. We must say how many comments there were at lunch too about the wonderful service today with the baptisms... looking forward to many more of those times in the life of our church. Thanks to John and Jim for setting up the baptismal this week. Pastor Brian