Trinity 2030 Draft Vision

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Part of our welcoming spirit is our deliberate attention to accessibility, from thoughtful signage to help visitors navigate our historic building which is now completely accessible with the new elevator, to sign-language interpreters for worship and live performances. Accessibility is also vital for our online events through our expansive digital presence, Trinity@Home, with all online events closed captioned. The vitality of the community is reflected in growth in numbers and in spirit. Our worshipping community has doubled, with an ever-growing soft-borders community of people who join us for nonworship activities. Relationships are enriched through movie nights, public forums, and pop-up dinners. Members naturally reach out to support one another, with prayers, meals, and rides, showing up for each other in times of tragedy and joy. In response to the experience of the extravagance of our Loving God, we give out of a sense of abundance. Acknowledging the financial gifts of our spiritual ancestors, we share our own financial gifts with the church. Our planned giving program provides opportunities to serve the Trinity community well into the future. We measure our community’s vitality in many ways - qualitative and quantitative. In 2030, we are finding ourselves overflowing with joy, compassion, generosity, and radical love - evidence that God’s Spirit is at work among us and within us. Weekly and special worship services continue to be the primary reflection and experience of Trinity’s radical welcome. Through our liturgy, we combine our reverence for our rich Episcopal tradition with an expansive, modern expression of God’s love. We offer an open-armed hospitality, accessible theology, creative expression, and deep connection to God and to one another. Community participation is a hallmark of our worship. Members of all ages participate in worship: lighting candles, proclaiming scripture, and offering personal reflections. Our teens and young adults have adopted our intercessory prayer ministry, praying with those who request it. We responded to 2020’s pandemic with a new digital expression of sharing God’s love through online worship, and that ministry continues, providing yet another loving and joyful vision of Jesus’ Way of Love. We honor the liturgical seasons, exploring new ways to deliver the message of God’s love through prayer, ritual, and music. We create our own additional texts and music as another way to welcome many. The sum of all our worship aims to offer an experience of God's unconditional love, resonating throughout heart, soul, mind, and body. Our willingness to push the boundaries of Episcopal liturgy and our success in making it accessible has caused others to pay attention. The book we wrote about our practices -- a best seller for the publisher for three years -- details how we combine emergent spiritual expression with ancient liturgy, creating worship that leaves us filled with the joy of being fully alive. We are invited to present at least four times a year to dioceses across the Episcopal Church and other denominations. Music is an integral part of our worship, welcoming participation by members of all ages and levels of musical experience. Opportunities include Trinity choir, Trinity’s singers, our children’s choir, our house band, Trinity bell ringers, and our ever-popular ukulele choir, with other musical groups organically forming and dissolving. Our wide musical palette creates a unique soundtrack, pushing the boundaries of traditional church music. We move seamlessly from full-bodied congregational singing to an a cappella high school choir; from chamber music to opera, from traditional hymns to gospel, from contemporary praise to jazz (including popular weekly jazz vespers). The arts are also an important part of our liturgies within our sanctuary and online. The visual arts, dance, drama, poetry, puppetry, and more invite participants to engage with worship more fully.


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