Worship Committee Report

The Worship Committee regathered during 2022 and met on two occasions. The committee supports the Rector and staff team in planning and offering an increasingly diverse, high quality range of worship at Trinity.

We began the year on a high; on the very first Sunday of 2023 Bishop Ted Gulick presided, preached, confirmed and received more new members into the Trinity family. Bishop Gulick was back with us again for a powerful and well-attended Ash Wednesday service, which included imposition of ashes, followed by a soup lunch in Cox Hall. Lent also saw the start of a new 5:00pm “Sanctuary” service, which quickly gained momentum and has become a permanent, much-loved addition to our weekly worship menu of services. Our schedule for Holy Week and Easter also saw some new innovations. Strong attendance at daily worship throughout the week, culminated in an especially memorable Good Friday, beginning with Stations of the Cross for our young (and not so young!) members, undertaking the last journey of Christ, with a prayer walk from the church to the outdoor sanctuary. Delicious hot-cross buns were served in Cox Hall, before a new “Seven Last Words of Christ” service at noon. This moving liturgy incorporated both scripture and religious verse and prose, and an amazing breadth of choral music and solo pieces from the Trinity Choir.

High summer saw us celebrating Trinity Sunday with a special 5:00pm service at the Outdoor Sanctuary, when over 200 people came along, before adjourning for the first Trinity cook-out of the season! From Trinity Sunday through to early September we moved to one Sunday morning service at 9:00am which proved to be a successful model for future years. Baptisms, weddings, and funerals featured prominently in the life of Trinity during 2022 and it is a privilege to be alongside people during these significant events within life and death, and to mark these occasions here at Trinity. We even had a double baptism in the waters of Goose Creek during the fall, with a large congregation gathered above on the bridge. Advent and Christmas largely followed a traditional pattern of services, pageant, concerts, with a welcome addition of a new Advent Carol service.

Throughout the year worship has been enriched by our celebrants, preachers (our own, and many wonderful guest preachers, too), lay ministers, acolytes, lectors, ushers, Altar Guild, Flower Guild, Choir, young choristers, and hand bell ringers, and so many others, and we are exceptionally grateful and thankful for you all! “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! “ Psalm 150:6.

“We even had a double baptism in the waters of Goose Creek during the fall, with a large congregation gathered above on the bridge.”