trinity schools
The first Trinity School began in classrooms crammed so full of tables, chairs and students that everybody had to get up and push the tables to one side before they could shut the door. Twenty-seven years later, in January of 2008, local Twin Cities dignitaries welcomed Trinity School at River Ridge (Eagan, MN) into their new school building, complete with state-of-the-art science classrooms, an auditorium and large gymnasium. Trinity School, which began with 47 students in a rented church fellowship hall and a unique educational vision, now has three campuses (Eagan, MN; Falls Church, VA; South Bend, IN), more than 700 students and a national reputation for academic excellence. Featuring small class sizes, a classical curriculum based on Great Books normally read in college classrooms, and SAT scores that consistently beat the national average by a generous margin, Trinity Schools have won five Blue Ribbon Awards from the U.S. Department of Education. Through nearly three decades of growth and change, Trinity School’s educational mission has endured: offering ordinary students an education in truth, beauty and goodness as members of a community of learners.
allendale
Allendale is a poor place in Shreveport, Louisiana, where roofs sometimes fall on residents, where neighbors regularly wrestle with their water bills, and many hundreds of dwellings would fail a building inspection. It’s a place of suffering and a place of shining beauty. The aging live oak trees, the narrow roads, the red clay, the hills and bayous, the way the sun filters through the trees and mist at 5:30 in the morning, the children playing hopscotch and tossing footballs in vacant lots, the smell of dew on the boxwoods, magnolias blooming in February—Allendale inspires loyalty and fierce love.
People of Praise members began working in Allendale in 2002, repairing old roofs, old toilets, old staircases, doing the small, simple things that make a big quality-of-life difference for neighbors. Perhaps the biggest thing we’ve done is move into Allendale ourselves, becoming neighbors—being there when the heat gets cut off, there when a grandchild gets rushed to the ER, there when a grandmother has a fall, there with a prayer, a visit, a phone call, a friendly smile, there building Christian community the old-fashioned way, person to person and one person at a time.
Every summer we send more than 100 volunteers to fix houses in Allendale, joining in the life of a growing year-round community of original residents and transplants striving to shine like a city on a hill.
indianapolis
In May of 2007, two young People of Praise members drove to the South Side of Indianapolis hoping to talk to some strangers about the Lord, but they got lost. The neighborhood they found was a jumble of peeling houses with icicle-lights dangling and Indianapolis Colts flags flapping from steep-pitched roofs. Red-brick front porches held white plastic Wal-Mart deck chairs and plenty of people. They spoke to some Southsiders that night, and ever since then a group of young People of Praise missionaries has been visiting the neighborhood. They’ve led ex-alcoholics, strippers and other tough customers back to the Lord, and they’ve held regular prayer meetings, men’s and women’s meetings and children’s meetings. One neighbor remarked, “After the missionaries came, my life took a 100% turn. Baptism in the Holy Spirit took me closer to Christ. I understand a lot more of the Bible.”
christians in commerce
Christians in Commerce (CIC) is a movement of business owners and employees, of blue- and white-collar professionals, of managers and front-line laborers who all share a challenging goal—bringing Christ into their workplaces. CIC members meet, talk and pray together about how to make their goal a reality. They promote ethical business practices, introduce forgiveness, honesty and encouragement into their everyday dealings, and offer their personal testimonies about the Lord to interested co-workers and clients alike. Christians in Commerce members have hosted retreats and seminars for over 10,000 business people since its 1982 founding. CIC is organized into 25 local chapters and 72 Challenge Groups in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Virginia and Uganda. For information on starting a Challenge Group in your area contact Terry Cassell at cassell@cicintl.org.