Trinity Stories

Dear Friends,

Trinity will be holding a couple of very important meetings after the 10:00 am service during the next two Sundays.

The first – this coming Sunday, January 21 – is the annual presentation about church finances. Margaret Baehren, the parish’s Treasurer, will lead the presentation along with other members of the Finance Committee. Together, we’ll review the financial report for 2023 – our income and expenses, and whether we ended the year in the “red” or in the “black” – and then go over the vestry-approved 2024 Budget.

Numbers aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the finances of a parish aren’t just about numbers. They’re about ministry and mission and our priorities when it comes to the work we’ve been called to do – that is, God’s work. Trinity has certainly been blessed by the generosity of our forebears, who left substantial legacies that support our excellent programs in music and the arts, allow us to experiment with new ministry initiatives, and preserve our buildings. But Trinity also receives significant support from today’s members. The stewardship of our financial resources is ultimately the responsibility of the Wardens & Vestry, but it isn’t only their responsibility. So, plan to get a cup of coffee at the end of the service and take a seat in the front of the church. You’ll gain important insight into the dollars and cents (not to mention the sense) it takes to do ministry in and from Trinity.

The second important meeting – on Sunday, January 28 – is the Annual Meeting of Trinity Episcopal Church of Toledo, Ohio (the official name of our church.) Having covered the finances of the parish the week before, we’ll turn our attention to celebrating the year just completed and elect three people to serve terms on the Vestry. The Annual Meeting of an Episcopal parish is a business meeting to be sure, but it’s also a time to look back with gratitude for all the ways the Holy Spirit has moved in and through us as well as to look ahead to the coming year. Given that Trinity is in the midst of a rector transition, your leadership will review the steps the parish will be taking to identify and call a priest as your next rector.

Some find it difficult to think of a church as a “business.” For many of us, our parish is our spiritual home, where we are renewed each week by Word and Sacrament. And we ask, why should I come to meetings that are mostly about parish administration. The answer is that administration is holy work, too.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians Paul cites “administrators” as one of God’s gifts to the Christian community (1 Corinthians 12:28). The word translated administrating in 1 Corinthians is κυβέρνησις, which means “to steer a ship.” That seems like just the right image for a progressive, inclusive, creative community of faith located in downtown Toledo – one of the busiest ports on the Great Lakes! So, please steer your ship to church the next two Sundays and, then, to the meetings that will follow worship.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

This coming Monday, January 15, the nation will observe the birthday of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would have been 95 this year. He was only 39 when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. It’s difficult to think of how young he was when he died.

Many churches, including Trinity, will mark Dr. King’s birthday a day earlier – on Sunday – with prayers, readings, and music that reflect his values and ideals: among them, the principle of non-violent resistance to racist oppression and the dream of Beloved Community.

The Episcopal Church, inspired by our own Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is guided by the long-term commitment to Becoming Beloved Community in its work toward racial reconciliation, healing and justice. Our ministries are organized around four things:

• Truth-telling: Telling the Truth about Our Churches and Race
• Proclamation: Proclaiming the Dream of Beloved Community
• Formation: Practicing Jesus’ Way of Healing Love
• Justice: Repairing the Breach in Society and Institutions

None of these is easy. Just take the first – Truth-telling – and think about all the ways many people, including some political leaders, try to deny the truth about Black history in America and attempt to rewrite that history by requiring teachers to give – or stay away from – certain lessons, on penalty of possibly losing their jobs. In July, The Washington Post reported that “A 2022 law [in Florida] mandates students may not be made to ‘feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress’ because they were forced to reflect on bad acts committed in the past by members of their race. And now, according to curriculum standards released last week, Florida students must learn that enslaved people ‘developed skills’ that ‘could be applied for their personal benefit.. . . ‘”

Trinity’s own recent unwelcome visit from an avowed white supremacist, who took issue with our Black Lives Matter banner, was a stark reminder of the persistence of racism in our society.

A dozen years ago, a parishioner in the parish where I was rector wanted to find a way to observe the King holiday that would involve the community. He had been part of the King Center in Atlanta in its early days, and had worked with Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow. His goal was to make the holiday more than a day off. He decided to help the local food pantry network by organizing a food drive that would gather a ton of food on Dr. King’s birthday.

Since he was a marketing guy, he called it Feed the Dream. Feed the Dream’s slogan, “One Day, One Ton,” captured the simple idea – and the slogan became the URL for the drive’s website: onedayoneton.org. The idea caught on, and has subsequently received volunteer support from the local public schools, Denison University, service clubs, the local IGA grocery store, and others.

For whatever reason, the King holiday always seems to fall on the coldest day of the year. This year, January 15 is predicted to have temperatures down in the single digits. While we are all trying to stay warm, may I suggest we find a way to make this year’s King holiday more than a day off. I plan to attend the celebration at Glenwood Lutheran Church, 2545 Monroe St., this Sunday afternoon at 4:00 pm and then contribute to The Toledo NW Ohio Food Bank. I invite you to join me, or to find another way to help Dr. King’s dream of Beloved Community become a reality.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate

Dear Friends,

This Sunday after the 10am service we will be meeting on the second floor in the room known as My Brother’s Place about the launch of our new ministry “Breakfast at Trinity.” As quite a few of you remember, we had a weekly breakfast program before the pandemic that served members of Trinity as well as the unhoused living in and around downtown Toledo. Due to the pandemic, it went away, and we’ve spent the past year working on bringing it back. In September, Karen Keune submitted a grant to the Diocese of Ohio for $5,000 in funding, while including that we’d try and match the grant through our own funding. While we still have not heard about the grant, I can tell you we’ve received a $5,000 anonymous donation for funding Breakfast at Trinity.

To be sure, there is still a need for a Sunday morning meal downtown for those on the margins which is why we are relaunching this breakfast. But providing a meal is only meant to be a catalyst for relationship building.

Welcoming home new friends and family members who don’t know what they’ve missed is who Trinity is, and this breakfast will provide a great opportunity to expand on that. That said, there are a few logistics that we’ll be going over in more detail at this Sunday’s meeting that I will touch on here:

1. This will be a weekly ministry.
2. Breakfast will be served café style from 8:45-9:15am.
3. We will be asking for six (6) volunteers every week to help make this happen.

We’re not simply relaunching the breakfast program; we are creating a new ministry that honors the spirit of what was in order to make way for what can be. There will be some carryover from the previous iteration of our community breakfast, however. For example, it’ll still be an incredibly fun time where we meet new friends and forge deep bonds. Also, our Director of Music and the Arts, Chelsie Cree, has a few fun things up her sleeves that are going to make this unlike any other breakfast you may have been to. Here are some save the dates to put on your calendars now. We’ll go over them again Sunday:

1. Sign-up Genius going live on 2/1
2. Deep clean of the kitchen on 2/4 after service
3. Volunteer training on 2/18 after service
4. Soft launch on 2/25

I look forward to seeing you all this Sunday after church!

Grace and peace.
George M. Benson (he/him)
Director of Community Engagement

Dear Friends,

Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? You know the ones I’m talking about – the ones about getting more exercise, spending less time on social media, or finally getting organized. You haven’t? Me neither. It’s not because I have nothing to work on (the list is long!) It’s because I would be setting myself up to fail at keeping any of my resolutions past Groundhog Day.

The practice of making New Year’s resolutions is an ancient one. Archeologists believe that the first recorded people to make them were the Babylonians some 4,000 years ago. For them, the New Year began in March when crops were planted. Kings were crowned during the festival, or subjects renewed their loyalty to the reigning king. Commitments were made to pay any debts owed to the gods, and promises were made to returned anything that had been borrowed. Keeping promises meant that the gods would bestow favor on you. Failing to keep promises. . . well, that was no something one dared do in the ancient world where the gods could be capricious and the consequences dire.

The early Christians picked up on the religious aspect of making resolutions, and the first day of the year became a time when one thought about past mistakes and committed to doing better in the future. John Wesley, the Anglican priest (and co-founder of the Methodist Church) pioneered what we now know as “watch night” services. He intended the services to be an alternative to the boisterous celebrations. It was, he thought, much better to be singing hymns and reading scripture than to have people partake of the alcohol-soaked parties common at the time (and, of course, afterwards.)

Resolution-making these days is mostly a secular thing, with people making promises to themselves rather than to a deity. And what we typically resolve involves some kind of self-improvement. If we are honest, it’s hard for most of us to change patterns and habits even when we want to.

Here’s my alternative proposal – and quelle surprise, it is a throwback to the time when people’s resolutions were religious in nature:

Set a pattern of when you will attend church in person and follow it. (Note that I didn’t say, attend church more often – although I could get on board with that. No, what I am saying is set a pattern and stick with it.

When I was a first-year seminarian my advisor, Dick Norris, gathered his new advisees and told us to create a matrix of when we would attend services in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. If I remember correctly, there were 19 services each week while school was in session (it was seminary after all, where clergy are formed for their lives of prayer.) Dr. Norris said, pick the ones you will attend and then go to those services whether you feel like it or not. Don’t go to the services that aren’t on your matrix even if you feel like it. Sounds strange, I suspect.

His point was our prayer lives should not be dependent on our feelings – that we ought to pray because God wants to be in relationship with us no matter what’s going on with us or how we are feeling – good days and bad days, happy times and sad times, times when we weren’t “feeling it” and times when we were. The point wasn’t our feelings. The point was responding to God’s deep desire to connect with us.

You may not be preparing for ordination, but Dick Norris’ counsel still pertains. At Trinity, we don’t have 19 services a week, we have (mostly) 8 each month. Pick some and show up.

How many should I pick, you ask? To give you a baseline, the Pew Research Center reports that 62% of Christians attend church once or twice a month. You know your current pattern. Maybe you want to continue it in 2024. If you attend Trinity once a month – to put it in percentages – if you attend one service a month, you are here for 12.5% of the services offered. No matter how many services you commit to attending in a month, stick with it.

By the way, what I’ve been talking about is not some kind of self-improvement program. The resolution is about you, to be sure, but it’s about your relationship with God through Jesus Christ and your relationship with your fellow members here at Trinity.

A lot will happen at Trinity in the next twelve months, and you get to decide how much you want to be part of it – anywhere from 0% to 100%. Have fun thinking and praying about it. Whatever you decide, Happy New Year!

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate