Trinity Episcopal Church

Reminder - Trinity now offers a 9 AM Sunday Service, including receiving the elements, via FM broadcast every week. You can attend the weekly service while sitting in your car in the parking lot. Pastor Ann would like to start a new Prayer List that will be included in the service each week. Please submit names to Pastor Ann via text or phone message (716-777-9149), email ([email protected]) or submitting as a response here on Facebook. Please share the news with people you know.

. This is from our Canon to the Ordinary, Cathy Dempsey Sims. It so closely reflects my own thoughts and hopes for the Church's life of prayer, that I wanted you all to see it. ****************** Last Wednesday night I posted about praying. I am revisiting this topic because if we all pray for peace, justice and love we will manifest itnot just in our own livesbut in the world. ... Bringing peace, justice and love into this world is our job. It is our job. Deacon Pete Dempesy-Sims taught me a lot about prayer and strength and commitment to doing the work that we’ve been given to do. She taught me that some of the best prayer can be had while -literally- shoveling s***. She taught me that we can make a differencein the face of what seems insurmountable odds by taking it one shovelful at a time. One shovelful at a time, the barn gets clean. One prayer at a time, the world is changed. But... Barns don’t get cleaned by thinking about it, hoping for it or waiting for someone else to come along and do it. And the world doesn’t change by waiting for some Holy being intervening in one fell swoop. Change happens, peace grows, justice flows and Love prevails when we - collectively hold a vision of the world that is peaceful, justice-laden and loving in our prayers. Prayer is key. The collective prayers of people is powerful...it changes the energy of the world from a place of anger and fear and vengeance to a place of peace and justice and love. So... I not only invite, I implore you to pray our collective life into the peace of a gal and her dog, doing what needs to be done for the greater good. Even five minutes a day will make a huge difference. Just take some intentional time, each day, to pray/meditate/breathe peace, justice and love into being. Do it always and do it especially for these next days in our country where intolerance, hate and revenge seem to be taking up a lot of space. Our prayers can push all that aside. They really can. ****************** Let's continue to pray, my Family in Christ. Early and often. Intentionally and intensely. Let us pray.

Just a reminder that we'll be resuming Sunday 9:00 am "parking lot Communion" this week, January 3. You stay in your car and listen to the service on 97.1 fm on your car radio, and at the end of the service I will bring Communion to you in your car. It's not church as we know it or would ideally wish, but it's still church until we can be together again! Happy New Year, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday!

Just got home from our "parking lot Communion," using an FM radio transmitter and prepackaged Communion elements. Nobody could have told me I would ever, ever consider doing church this way. Even moreso, you could never have told me how it would fill my heart. I think the Holy Spirit is reminding me that church is more, and also less, than I customarily think it is. Jesus definitely showed up!

How Dori & I missed Breakfast with Santa this year! This is from 2018.

Yet MORE good news for Christmas! We now have a very limited-range FM radio transmitter that allows us to broadcast a very brief Christmas Eve service at the 2pm time when we planned to distribute a drive-through Communion. The location will be 97.1 on the FM radio setting, and the broadcast range covers the church parking lot, so you will listen from your parked car. Our short service will consist of a few prayers, the Christmas Gospel, the consecration of the elements, ... the Christmas blessing, and last, the distribution of the Communion brought to your car. You may consume it when you receive it, or take it home to consume in a prayerful manner. Many thanks to Craig Kornacki for taking the lead on getting this equipment for us. On January 3 we will use this equipment to broadcast a regular weekly parking lot service on Sunday morning at 9 am. Hope to see you tomorrow! See more

While our doors may be closed due to COVID-19, we’re still celebrating the birth of our Savior!!

Tomb of St. Nicholas, Bari, Italy, 2018. I didn't go to Bari looking for St. Nicholas, but there he was! Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas (more popularly known as Santa Claus). Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Pledge cards are still being requested in order to compile a 2021 budget and approval by Vestry before our Annual Meeting in January. As of December 18 of 52 pledge requests made only 24 have been returned. Trinity is currently $24,638 below the 2020 pledges. If you haven't returned your 2021 pledge card please do so as soon as possible. If you need a pledge card please call the office and one will be sent to you.

It's a strange time for the church, and for all of us. It may be terrible financial times for some of us, too. However the parish leadership is making the 2021 budget, and we don't have nearly all the pledge cards we were expecting! Just a reminder that in these difficult times, we still have to keep the doors open for the food pantry (families need us more than ever! ), and I hope it won't be too long before we're gathering together for worship again. So if your pledge card got overlooked in the midst of the anxiety of this pandemic, please complete and send it. If you don't have one, we'll send one to you. And stay safe!

Pastor Ann posted her sermon for today, the first Sunday of Advent. Click the link to read her sermon on Trinity's web page https://www.trinity-lancaster.org//Advent%201B%20November%

With in person services currently cancelled until the end of the year by the Diocese Pastor Ann has again started posting her sermons. Click the link below to read her new for November 22, 2020 https://www.trinity-lancaster.org/sunday-sermons/

It is with great sadness that I must announce the suspension of all in-person worship, at least until the end of the year. It has been such a joy to be gathering together again, but as Covid numbers increase once again, our Bishop has made the decision that we must not endanger one another by gathering. Our vestry will be deciding about virtual (Zoom) services. The food pantry will continue, but all other meetings in the church building will also be suspended. It won't seem like Advent and Christmas without our beautiful services, but we need to love one another by staying safe. Please continue to monitor Facebook and our website for updates and information about other ways we might be together, even virtually.