Sun., Oct 11 Open House: A Home for Faith Small Groups

Home for Faith small groups, to be unveiled this Sunday evening, offer nine new opportunities to meet this fall with other parishioners who share our faith and interests in a variety of topics (food, climate change and poetry to name but three). Join us on Sunday night (and watch your Trinity email!) to learn more about a new model for small group ministry and how to join in.
 

 

Greetings Trinity Friends!

In last month’s Real Simple the editor posed the question, “What does home mean to you?” The answers ranged from a kitchen counter with an apple pie cooling, to the exuberant sound of a spouse’s laughter, all the way to a singular moment of being treated with dignity and respect. “Home” rarely refers only to a roof over one’s head. Home evokes in us a sense of peace and security, the room and safety to let down our guard. Though more a state of being than a location, place remains an important aspect in the experience of home.

Trinity Church, physically and communally, is absolutely one of those places that evokes a sense of home for so many of us. When the pandemic began and we were forced to be away from our spiritual home, it was extremely disorienting to consider how worship and community would look and feel while we were basically exiled, from our sacred space and from one another. We felt a bit spiritually homeless.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians he writes, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling…. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.  So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord – for we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:1-2,5-7 NRSV). 

These words remind us Christians that our home is in God, and the earthly tent of this life to which we cling will always lead to the aching groan for holy connection. Saint Augustine in his Confessions sums it up with one sentence. “For you have made us that we long for you, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” (Confessions, Saint Augustine, Book I, Chapter I)

Over the past seven months - through steady prayer, creative imagination, and boundless hope - I believe our incredibly resilient community has been drawn deeper into relationship with God and with each other. Despite our absence from our common space, these vulnerable days of missing our Trinity parish have shown us how much our human relationships with one another expand and strengthen our connection to the divine.

The Zoom break-out groups at Community Hours have introduced us to people we had never met before. Camp Trinity brought parishioners from every generation in the community together to pray and to play. Our choir members have met weekly across Zoom for regular check-ins in support of their shared ministry. Bible Study groups have continued their weekly study and reflection on our Scriptures. All these smaller settings for conversations have given us space to explore our faith together. In his opening prayer of thanks to the Romans, Paul writes, “For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine (Romans 1:11-12). Our hearts find their rest in God … find their peace in God… find their home in God. And sharing our spiritual gifts with one another we find our mutual encouragement and strengthen our faith in God. We need each other!

In this spirit and for all these reasons, I am excited to announce that on Sunday, October 11, we will launch A Home for Faith Small Groups. These groups, hosted by parishioners, will abide a common plan to gather three times around a shared interest. Topics range from food and faith, to climate change on “this fragile earth our island home.” With this array of offerings, there is sure to be something for everyone!

This fantastic opportunity to meet with others in our community will continue our shared growth in faith. Every day, with each new encounter, we experience our faith home, far and wide, with one another, and hope these first small group offerings will mark only the beginning of new ideas bubbling up in our parish. These further small groups will emerge in the winter and spring months. To hear more, please join us this Sunday evening at 7 p.m. for our Formation Hour!

 

With a grateful heart,

 

Paige Fisher

Associate for Community Life