Welcome to Trinity Church!

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

Monday morning, I went into the church and sat for a little while. I wanted some quiet time to reflect upon what we had experienced the day before. I sat there thinking about the wonderful feeling of life and vitality that we experienced during our Kick-off Celebration. The church was filled as it had not been for several years due to Covid. The glorious anthem, I was glad, that the choir sang so beautifully, echoed lovingly in my mind. The children and young people with joy and excitement beautifully shining on their faces as they gathered for the Blessing of the Backpacks. The image of everyone flexing their muscles and saying, “We are brave enough to show compassion. We are brave enough to love.” The creation of our welcome video, “Come pray with us! Come serve with us! Come sing with us, Come grow with us!”

The line of people coming with outstretched hands and open hearts to receive communion. The children sending us forth into the world proclaiming, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia!” The Parish Hall filled to capacity for our Kick-off picnic, brought inside due to rain, but the inclement weather did not dampen our spirit and enthusiasm. Longtime members and new members and first-time visitors eating, talking, laughing, and sharing together. I could go on and on with the sights, sounds, and emotions that marked this vibrant and spirit-filled morning. What a day! What a glorious day of celebration, life, and new beginnings. This fall is indeed a time of new beginnings, and it is filled with opportunities for you to live more fully into the community that is Trinity Church. I invite and encourage you to explore how the Holy Spirit may be presenting an opportunity for you to pray, serve, sing, learn, or grow in a new way. God is indeed alive and at work at Trinity and in each one of us. Forward in faith we go!

Peace and blessings to all,

 

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

 

A New Beginning

Dear Friends,

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new program year, the beginning of my fifteenth year as your rector, and the beginning of Trinity’s 190th year of mission and ministry. Beginnings are sacred gifts. Gifts filled with possibilities and dreams, with opportunities and hope. We stand at the threshold of a new beginning and the abundance that it offers us. All that can be and will be done in and through the love of Christ.

There is indeed an energy and excitement with the staff and vestry. We feel the Spirit working in our midst, and we can’t wait to see where the Spirit will lead us in the coming year.

Henri Nouwen writes,

We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to the voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!” Imagine.

I invite you to join us this Sunday, as together, we cross the threshold to a new beginning that we may receive the gift that God has prepared for us, as the people of Trinity Church, and that we may go forth boldly with the promises of God and the transformative message of Good News.

Peace and blessings to all,

 

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

 

Beyond These Walls

On a very warm afternoon recently, I had the joy of making my way to Hightstown, turning in the entrance to Meadow Lakes, opening the front door and making my way to the meeting room where we once upon a pre-Covid time celebrated the Holy Eucharist with our parishioners and friends who reside there. I looked in the storage closet and there is our portable altar. I checked on the linens, vessels, and supplies. All in order.

And I checked on the current protocols for gathering and worship.

I have good news! Meadow Lakes is welcoming Trinity clergy back to begin holding Communion services for the Meadow Lakes community again. And Meadow Lakes is also pleased to welcome not just the clergy but also Trinity parishioners who are not residents to come along and join in!

On the second and fourth Thursday of each month we will host a discussion group and Holy Eucharist. At 3pm, we will gather In the meeting room for a discussion entitled “The Gospel and You: Conversation with the Clergy“ and at 4pm we will celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

It will be so good to be together at last as the greater body of Trinity Church!

On a second warm afternoon recently, I had the joy of making my way to Stonebridge in Montgomery, heading up the front stairs to the assembly room to celebrate Holy Eucharist with our fellow parishioners and friends who reside at Stonebridge. This is always such a lovely and meaningful time.

I have good news, Stonebridge is also now welcoming Trinity parishioners who are not residents to come along and join in!

On the third Thursday of the month we will celebrate the Holy Eucharist at 4pm in the meeting room followed by a brief social time.

Again, It will be so good to be together at last as the greater body of Trinity Church!

In October at Stonebridge, we will begin another opportunity for worship and community. On the first Wednesday of the month at 10am in the meeting room, there will be an Episcopal Morning Prayer service followed by a discussion group by the same name as that at Meadow Lakes, “The Gospel and You: Conversations with the Clergy”.

On an upcoming afternoon in the coming week, I will begin the conversation with Pennswood Village in Newtown about holding Communions service and conversations there as well.

The Clergy and the Parish Care Team are pleased to share all this good news with you. We bid your prayers, presence, and assistance in making these ministries successful. Please contact me if you would like to know more. Thanks be to God for this new season of new opportunities in which to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness together.

 

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt,
Associate Rector

 

Back to School and Bartholomew

One of the side effects of the terrible life decision I made to do a PhD not once, but twice, is that I am deeply formed by the academic calendar. This time of year fills me with energy, with hope, with a sense of putting away the old and embracing the new. But I'm also reminded of something that my former colleague Lauren Winner once said: “What if our lives really were formed by the liturgical calendar as much as they are formed by the rhythms of the school calendar?”

In an academic community — in a church within an academic community — it is a truly tenuous balance. We acknowledge the changes in work, in classes, and even in the energy level in town. We see friends return from vacations and return to church. It is a liturgical time, but that of a secular liturgy.

But if we look at the liturgical days that surround this back to school time, we might just find a little inspiration from our own tradition. August 24 is the feast of Saint Bartholomew, an apostle that we don't know too much about — but we do know that he was one of the twelve, that he spread the word everywhere he went, and that he was martyred for his faith. St. Bartholomew's Day is also a day of mourning and remembrance in the Reformed tradition. It’s the day on which the French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) were massacred in 1572 for their convictions. More than 10,000 Huguenots would be murdered over the course of the next two months throughout France. On St. Bartholomew’s Day on 1662, several thousand Puritan clergy including theologian Richard Baxter were ejected from the Church of England because of their refusal to conform to the Book of Common Prayer. As I think of the apostle Bartholomew, and also of the later events that took place on his feast day, I’m moved to ask myself, “What am I willing to do in order to stand up for what (and who) I believe in?” I’m moved to pray that God will give me the courage to always do what’s right — to do his will, not mine.The second feast day that comes around at this time of year is Holy Cross Day, on September 14. One of the Scripture lessons for this day is from Galatians 6: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!

As for those who will follow this rule--peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” This, too, is a reminder to keep the first thing the first thing: what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and who we are — a new creation in Christ!So while you might be packing a bag or briefcase full of new pencils, new notebooks, and new aspirations, I hope you will remember this: You are a new creation in Christ, and no achievement in this world can ever match it.

 

Yours in Christ & in Christ alone,

 

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara N. Slade, Associate Rector

 

When You Remember Me

In Memoriam
Frederick Buechner
1926-2022

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

Earlier this week, the world lost an icon of the faith — Frederick Buechner. Over the years, Buechner has been for me a faithful and wise companion and guide.  Buechner touched the lives of countless believers and non-believers, seekers and sojourners.  Buechner was gifted, by the Holy Spirit, to speak to our human condition in a way that very few can. He could read your mind and know your heart as if he actually resided within the innermost parts of your truth. 

Buechner attended the Lawrenceville School, Princeton University, and Union Theological Seminary.  He was a “Presbyterian minister who never held a church pastorate but found his calling writing a prodigious quantity of novels, memoirs and essays that explored the human condition from inspirational and often humorous religious perspectives … Likened by some critics to the works of Mark Twain, Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen and Truman Capote, Mr. Buechner’s novels were admired by loyal readers for their elegance, wit, depth and force. His more homiletic memoirs and essays reached much larger audiences of Christians and consumers of religious books, even though he did not hold orthodox religious views” (The New York Times).

            On this day, I invite you to join me for a time of prayer in thanksgiving for the life of a faithful follower of Christ and a steadfast herald of God’s love and Good News.

When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

Rest in eternal grant to Frederick, O Lord;
And let light perpetual shine upon him.
May his soul, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace

In Christ,

 

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

 
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
“Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and they are doing God’s will.”
“The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.”
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.”
“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
“Go where your best prayers take you.”
“If you want to be holy, be kind.””
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

The Challenge of Baptism

Grace and Peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ!

I am writing to you from Bethany Beach, Delaware.  Being able to come out here and decompress, if only for a few days, is such a gift.  Sitting at the water this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about baptism – and not just because we have a baptism this Sunday (everyone get excited!  It is always a great gift to welcome a new member of the family).  Our Gospel reading this Sunday mentions baptism as well: Jesus foreshadows his Passion, saying, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”  More on that in the homily on Sunday. 

One other thought on baptism: in his final sermon before his assassination, titled, “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. details the struggles of the Civil Rights movement and the Poor People’s Campaign.  About halfway through the sermon, King speaks specifically about the encounter with the notorious Bull Connor in Birmingham.  In what amounts to some of his most apocalyptic rhetoric (ask me more about that in person), King writes:

I remember in Birmingham, Alabama … by the hundreds we would move out.  And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.”

Bull Connor next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.”  And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history.  He knew a kind of physics that didn’t relate to the transphysics we knew about.  And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.  And we went before the hoses; we had known water.

What King is talking about here is exactly the power of Baptism, or rather, the challenge of it.  In baptism, we, as St. Paul puts it, die to ourselves and are born in Christ.  We are baptized into his death and his resurrection, which means that the whole world is transformed.  King knew the stakes of his baptism.  He had lived it for years.  But he also knew its promise: that he would not be overcome, for Christ had been raised from the dead.  No water could harm him – he’d already known it.  Death was no threat.  In baptism, Christ’s resurrection had annulled all fear of it.  And as King’s life is an ever-present witness to, when the fear of death is taken away, so too is the fear of the Enemy.  And there, exactly there, is where baptism works: it frees us to love our neighbour. 

I can’t wait to see you on Sunday.  Enjoy your forgiveness – and your freedom!

Peace in Christ,
David King, PTS Summer Intern

Fellowship Is (Also) Formation

 

They love their friends truly who love God in them, either because God is already in them, or in order that God might be in them.

— St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 361.1em>

At the heart of [abundant life] is friendship. For it is through friendship that our willful loneliness...is overwhelmed. Friendship is not the desperate attempt, based on our presumption we must manipulate another to recognize us, but rather friendship in the Christian tradition names such an engagement that we call worship. For it is in worship that we discover that we are related to one another in ways that we could not imagine, by being made friends with God through the sharing of the body and blood of Christ. That is why the world should stand and wonder of these people called Christian, because they would say see how they love one another. How wonderful it is to simply be given in this life something to do. We can pray. We can worship. We can be friends, because those are not activities that can be used up.

— Stanley Hauerwas, “Abundant Life,” Lecture at the Trinity Institute
 

In the past, we've shared with you before the four pillars of spiritual growth: weekly participation in the Eucharist, engagement with Scripture, regular prayer outside of church, and fellowship. Much of our adult formation programming has focused on the first three of those pillars: the sacraments, the teachings of the church, Scripture, and prayer. But now we are coming back together after a time of being apart, of having opportunities for fellowship tragically limited. What’s more, we have heard from many of you about how much you wish we had more opportunities to be together as a community. This year, we’re going to do something about that.

Christian friendship is one of the greatest gifts we can share with each other — an opportunity to know each other and to be known, a place to grow towards God together. This, too, is formation. It’s a way of learning by doing, by loving one another in a Christ-shaped love.

Both in our Adult Forum time between services, and in other gatherings throughout the program year, we will have the opportunity to be with each other. For some, this may mean renewing old friendships. For others, it may mean getting to know the Trinity community for the first time. Here are a few fellowship ‘teasers’ for the coming year:

  • First Sunday breakfasts will return with no agenda, just good conversation.

  • Common Grounds Café will return to the other half of Pierce Hall between the services.

  • Book groups will return for learning and small group discussion.

  • Fellowship and social opportunities will be expanded for members at various stages of life — from children, youth, and families, to 20s and 30s, to older parishioners.

  • And, of course, we will celebrate throughout the year with the special events you know and love around the holidays and at other times.

It is our hope and my prayer that in the year ahead, each member of Trinity will find one place where they can grow in Christian friendship with others. And if you have ideas, please give Paul, Joanne, or me a shout. We want to hear from you - and we're excited about everything coming up in the fall.

 
 

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara N. Slade, Associate Rector

 
 

P.S., What’s the deal with the postcards? If your last name starts with "A," you might have already received a postcard from us. Or, you might receive one soon! We have begun the process of slowly praying through the entire parish roster at Morning Prayer. We'll send you a postcard to let you know that your name was lifted up in prayer that day at Trinity Church. Hopefully it will come as a reminder of God's love for you - and of our love for you here at Trinity.

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