Parish Care Announces GriefEncounters

Grief is one of life’s most profound experiences. Many of us are simply not prepared for the level of sadness, isolation and vulnerability that often result after losing someone whom we love deeply. This October, Trinity Episcopal Church will partner with Nassau Presbyterian Church at its Fall Session of GriefEncounters.

This support group is open to all Trinity parishioners and friends who have sustained the recent or not so recent loss of a loved one. The meetings will be held Tuesday, 7-8:30pm, in the conference room at Nassau Presbyterian Church on October 17 & 24; November 7, 14 & 28; and December 5. There will be no meeting on Tuesday, October 31 (Halloween) or on Tuesday, November 21 (Thanksgiving week).

Each meeting will incorporate confidential sharing and guided conversation, with supportive scripture and prayer. If you are interested in finding out more information about the group, please email Deacon Hank Bristol at hbristoldcn@gmail.com.

Trinity Needs New Usher Volunteers

The usher guild urgently needs new members for both services, to maintain our normal 5 week rotation (and hopefully to expand to 6 weeks). Primary usher duties are to provide a friendly greeting, to pass the collection plate, and to help guide parishioners to the communion rail. Ushers can request to serve at either the 8am or the 10:30am service, and training is included. To join this rewarding ministry, contact Spencer Reynolds, Head Usher, at sreynolds92@gmail.com.

Lambeth ’First Peter’ Bible Study — Week 5

“This chapter, the culmination of Peter’s writing, unpacks for us what the call of the shepherd and the whole community under their care really entails.”
“If being a good shepherd is about protecting the flock, resisting the lions roaring around seeking to devour the sheep is the top point of the job description.”

The command is to keep alert. There is no option for laziness or complacency. A key core part of being a good shepherd is resisting the adversary, the lion. “Peter tells us to be hospitable to suffering. to import suffering. That means sacrifice, whether it’s money or power. It means the powerful willingly becoming less comfortable in order to lift the weight of suffering for others.”

So the question has to be, ‘How do we maintain love and offer hospitality’, ‘How do we campaign for the displaced and the stranger’, ‘How do we share with each other when we see suffering’, ‘How do we offer Christ hospitality and imitate Christ in our hospitality;. There is no option for being distracted by other matters. Keep alert! Don’t be reading a book, looking at someone else arguing at another shepherd.

Who or what is the adversary? For contemporary Christians in the global church, those forces which stand for all that is evil are numerous and should be named as they have been in those beautiful testimonies [contextual videos].

1 Peter was written before the ministry of the church solidified into the threefold order of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. … Peter does not use the word episkopos for bishop … he uses the word elder, presbuteros. And in a moment of great beauty he describes himself not as the primus inter pares presbuteros, he describes himself as the sumpresbuteros, … a fellow elder, a fellow with you. Peter looks at us and in his humility says, ‘I am with you’.

“Elder is a neutral term, it can be translated as both male and female elders, it designates older people within the congregation. Possibly people who are older in the faith. Peter calls himself a fellow elder rather than an apostle, teacher, or spiritual father. In choosing the same title as those to whom he is writing he signals that he has common cause with them. He writes to them as one of them.”
“The verb to shepherd echoes the command to Peter at the end of John’s Gospel to shepherd and nurture the flock of Jesus. … “Peter do you love me, Lord you know I love you. Feed my sheep.””

It calls to mind Jesus’s own teaching about the nature of the good shepherd in John 10 verses 1 through 18. The shepherd who lays down his life for the flock. … the shepherd is the one who searches for the lost sheep. The image of shepherd goes back a 1000 years to the image in the 23rd psalm and is picked up again and again in the Scriptures. … The shepherd is both pastor and evangelist. A call to shepherd was a demotion not a promotion. Shepherding is a call to relationship and that is what allows the flock to flourish.

Shepherding is not to be done by compulsion nor for gain, nor with a sense of “Oh, I am so important because I’m a shepherd. I am over everyone.” Shepherding is to be undertaken willingly, eagerly, and setting an example.

And peter takes the imitation of Christ one step further, through the image of the shepherd, calling the elders to example. …. And where we are commanded to be examples it is better put across by the sense of be those who are becoming examples. All of us look in on ourselves and think ‘oh, I got that wrong, I messed up that, I failed. Be becoming is so much more encouraging. It tells us we are on a journey of growth into being shepherds.

 
“ltimately elders remain members of the flock.”
 

We are shepherds and we are shepherded by the Chief shepherd by Jesus himself. We stand on a frontier, on the edge, what is called a liminal space. Sheep and shepherd, we are both sheep and shepherd and we need guidance and we need to be called to guide.

Only Christ is the chief shepherd. Only God in Christ can help people know, name, and resist the lions. The lion in our world is all that seeks to kill and to take authority over all that God has the right authority. The lion is a liar and a displacer. Elders therefore must practice humility because we are also sheep. Anyone who watches sheep knows that sheep are not the cleverest animals on the planet.

Before God, everyone is humbled, no one is exalted except by God’s actions. And Peter’s exhortation to humility echoes the teaching in all the gospels. All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

“In this chapter Peter goes straight from being humble to being anxious because putting our anxieties in the hand of God is an act of humility.”
“It’s God’s church. If I can put it crudely, it’s God’s problem, the church. And that’s very reassuring because we are not so good at handling it ourselves. We acknowledge that God has the strength, and capacity, and wisdom that we do not and we entrust ourselves to him.”

“This beautiful letter balances the call to resilience in situations of vulnerability and the call to resistance from positions of power when we have authority. And here at the end we are invited to join God in his activity of putting all things in right order, the kingdom of God. The devils work from Genesis 2 and 3 through to the end of Revelation is disintegration to make disorder, to scatter the flock, so they run in every direction.”


God’s work from Genesis 1.1 to the end of Revelation is integration to make things right in the right order.


Let us remember that we cannot tell people only that there is one right way to observe, to respond to suffering. The testimony of those who are in the midst of suffering is almost always different from those who observe it from outside and almost always better.

Conversation with Archbishop Olisapi, the Primate of Kenya

[Timestamp: 41.01-50:03] ‘Fighting the lion’ — in reality and by extended application.

“Unity is chaotic and confusing because unity doesn’t mean agreement. But we are united in Christ against the lion we are united in care for God’s flock. Unity is needed even in the midst of chaos of our own making very often to defeat the roaring lion.”
“And Peter ends by returning once again to the themes of hope, suffering, and glory in Christ. His final call is one of reconciliation, to stay in relationship, and stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters who are suffering. And it makes me ask, how will we shepherd differently? How will we ensure, that we will ensure that we are in relationship and constantly being transformed, being transformed into the likeness of Christ. How will we hold on to the encounter with one another and with God in this place? Because without relationship and without encounter there is trouble ahead.”

There is trouble ahead without relationship, because when we don’t have a relationship that person is not my friend who I know and pray for, he is a thing [e.g. the AB of South Africa]. And it is much easier not to love a thing than not to love a person, a person with whom we have a relationship. We must remain in community, it’s not a one-off thing.

Like so much of Peter’s ethics it is living and continuous dynamic extending, growing, deepening, and Peter returns to the promise of the glory of Christ, who already has victory over the demonic, a cosmic victory over the lion. The shepherds are part of that resurrection victory. The call of the Christian and the promise to the Christian is to share both the suffering and the resurrection and the glory of Christ. That is our good news. It’s temporary, the suffering. At the end of the letter the promise of what salvation entails is specific. We are called to eternal glory in Christ. Just in your minds say to yourself ‘I am called to eternal glory in Christ’. After you have suffered for a little while the God of all grace, all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. This is the God who takes on our anxieties, the God who does not delegate restoration, but does it God’s self. This is the God in whom Peter’s followers must trust. This is the God who in verse 11 of chapter 5 we say ‘to him be power forever and ever. Whatever suffering is endured for Christ, God’s promises revealed in Christ, are God’s promises, God’s business, God’s work, God’s action, God’s decision. And they are enteral, assured, and wonderful beyond all human imagination. And the power and promise of God will always have the final word. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

These are a few of the quotes about shepherding, leadership, humility, anxieties, and authority from 1 Peter 5: Authority in Christ.

Listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading last week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.

Week 5: Authority in Christ. August 9. 1 Peter 5:1-14.

Watch the video here:

 
 

View the previous week’s video and find a friend, family member, or Trinity Church member to pair with, and discuss the study material.

If you want a digital copy to access the links and Bible study materials, send me an email to me (blbivins@verizon.net) and I will happily send you a digital copy of this document! 😊

Save the date!
The Lambeth Calls Phase 3:
Environment & Sustainable Development

 

The Lambeth Call on the Environment and Sustainable Development provides a theological rationale for why creation care is a global mission imperative. It also outlines some bold commitments in tackling environmental crisis, including just financing, community resilience building, advocacy, biodiversity restoration and promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. You may register as an individual or we may register as a church or diocese.

The link is below:

The Lambeth Conference – God’s Church for God’s World

 

Announcing Trinity’s New Associate Director of Music

Connor Fluharty

 
“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!”
— Psalm 95:1-2

Dear Good People of Trinity Church,

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Connor Fluharty has accepted the position as our Associate Director of Music.  Since 2017, Connor has served at Trinity Church as Organ Scholar and most faithfully as our Interim Director of Music during a difficult time of transition.  We are incredibly blessed to have Connor continue his ministry with us as we now live into a new season of life and possibilities.

Please join me in welcoming and congratulating Connor in his new role.

Peace to all,

 

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

 
 
 

Dear Friends,

I am so pleased that Connor Fluharty will remain with us at Trinity as our new full-time Associate Director of Music.  Connor has demonstrated his musical skill, his capacity for ministry, and his enthusiasm for this work throughout his time here.  He is beloved of the choirs, and I know that we are all rejoicing that we get to benefit from his gifts in this new role.  Trinity has a long and illustrious history of excellence in music.  I am grateful to the parish, the vestry, and our rector for supporting the future of this ministry by providing for excellent staffing.  This enables us to dream big and to build the music ministry into a robust offering that benefits all in the parish and the broader community.  Please join me in celebrating Connor in his new role at Trinity!

Gratefully,

Meg

 
 

I’m very excited to begin this year as Associate Director of Music at Trinity Princeton. It will be my seventh choir season with the Music Ministry at Trinity, and I look forward to continuing my musical endeavors with all of the great people in the parish, the choirs, as well as Dr. Margaret Harper, our new Director of Music. We are already hard at work preparing for a great year in the life of the church, and I’m grateful to be part of it!

Connor

Lambeth ’First Peter’ Bible Study — Week 4

“Suffering is mentioned more times in 1 Peter than in any other book. He [Peter] is writing about the suffering of Jesus Christ, and suffering in Christ’s name.”
“We have a temptation to think that all suffering is redemptive, or to put it in simple language to think that it’s good for you. It makes you a better person. But all of us know from pastoral work that that is not the case.”

Peter challenges that statement and says that when we equate all suffering with Christ’s suffering we blur the issue of what Christian suffering is and we can even find that we advocate staying in abusive situations.

Suffering if we allow it only to be redemptive can become an excuse not to do anything about injustice or wrong. But people told to bear abuse to be saved, brings us right back to Tuesday’s conversation [Week 3 – Resistance and Resilience] about power and the misuse of power… how easy it is to be complicit in the misuse the abuse of power.

Peter was writing to a small group of Christians, a minority in their own culture who lived in a hostile empire which was increasingly nervous about their beliefs and viewed them with deep suspicion. In this context Peter was writing about the suffering we endure in the name of Christ something immensely familiar to many here. He’s pointing to persecution.

“In some parts of the world persecution takes the form of being mocked, or ridiculed would be true in schools and universities, very often in this country. In other places it involves the daily threat of physical violence, suppression, oppression, and death. ”
“We should not claim the language of persecution before we listen to and acknowledge the depth and reality of suffering for the Name of Christ in our world. And we must be aware of how suffering is understood in different ways across our communities and context.”

The Greek word of hospitality is φιλοξενία philoxenia which is literally love for the stranger, love for alien and exile. A call to love the stranger, the alien and exile, is being made by alien and exile, Peter, to aliens and exiles, those to whom he is writing. Because they share the same alienation from the world they must offer a welcoming home to one another. Those who are aliens and exiles have been given and identity as God’s chosen people. So, hospitality changes the identity of those who offer it and those who receive it. They are no longer strangers.

 
“Hospitality involves risk. It makes us vulnerable. ”
 

Peter makes clear that we cannot do this by our own strength. Christ and the grace of God remain absolutely central, remember that the theme in much of this letter is that without Christ we can do nothing, we are lost in our sins, we are simply aliens and strangers. Aliens and strangers from God not just from the world.

“Peter calls all to hospitality and support for fellow Christians who face suffering and persecution for their faith, to be drawn together not pulled apart in our diverse and shared sufferings. ”
“Peter tells us to be hospitable to suffering. to import suffering. That means sacrifice, whether it’s money or power. It means the powerful willingly becoming less comfortable in order to lift the weight of suffering for others. ”

So the question has to be, how do we maintain love and offer hospitality. How do we campaign for the displaced and the stranger. How do we share with each other when we see suffering. How do we offer Christ hospitality and imitate Christ in our hospitality.

These are only a few of the quotes about suffering and hospitality from 1 Peter 4: Suffering in Christ.

The 1 Peter Bible Study is now ‘soul-ly’ on Zoom Wednesdays! 😊 The next and last session is August 9 from 6–8pm.

To access this worldwide Bible study, email Bonnie Bivins at blbivins@verizon.net to get the Zoom link and study materials!

Watch the 1 Peter 4 Video Here:

 
 

Ways to participate:

  • Come Wednesdays from 6–8pm and participate LIVE.

  • View the current week’s video and come Wednesday at 7pm to reflect on the questions LIVE.

  • View the previous week’s video and find a friend, family member, or Trinity Church member to pair with, and discuss the study material.

Come and listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading next week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.

Week 5: Authority in Christ, August 9, 1 Peter 5:1-14.

If you want a digital copy to access the links and Bible study materials, send me an email to my address above and I will happily send you a digital copy! 😊

Homefront School Supply Drive

Trinity Church is once again soliciting donations to our school supply drive for Homefront. This year we've set a stretch goa—100 backpacks full of supplies!

We have the backpacks, but it’s up to you to fill them. See the Amazon wish list and have your donation delivered to 'Kara's List Address' on the menu, or you can enter the church address manually: 33 Mercer St, Princeton NJ 08540.

P.S., I know you’re reading this announcement right now thinking, “This sounds great, I need to remember to do it later.” You don’t need to remember if you click the link right now!

Let’s shoot for 100! We can do it!

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