2023-2024 Program Year: “Companions In The Household Of God”

 

Dear Trinity Church and friends,

Grace and Peace and Tuesday greetings! As you will see in the graphic above, we now turn the calendar toward our 2023-2024 Program Year that begins on Sunday, September 10.

Drawn from Ephesians 2:19, our Program Year’s theme – “Companions In The Household Of God” – will shape our 2023-2024 programming. As “companions,” we walk alongside each other within the life of our congregation and with our partners in the wider community. In these companionships, we devote ourselves to one another as members of a common household – a loving family of God – ministering with the gifts and graces unique to each of us, all in service of Christ’s hopes for Trinity Church and for the world.

Worship
On September 10, we return to our Program Year worship schedule of 8 am, 10 am, and 5 pm. In support of our theme, we will read a portion of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians during Sunday services through Thanksgiving. Other liturgical highlights this fall will include our September sermon series exploring Christians’ call to care for God’s creation; the Requiem mass and our commemoration of All Souls on Sunday, October 29; festival worship on All Saints Sunday, November 5; and Nigerian Thanksgiving on November 26.

Sunday, September 10
Join us at 11:15 am for a barbecue in “the backyard” – the lawn at the corner of Clarendon Street and Saint James Avenue. We will celebrate the new year with food and games, face painters and balloon artists – and our Annual Parish Photo, which you will not want to miss!

Small Groups
Our theme will also bring an emphasis on small-group opportunities. On Sundays September 17, September 24, and October 1, we will convene for small groups at 11:15 am and 6:15 pm in response to our Creation Care sermon series. Inviting deeper relationships among parishioners, these small groups will remain the same for each week of the series (with “open” groups available for those who cannot commit to all three Sundays). To participate in a small group, register here!

Our theme will also inform our Formation programs. From October 16 through November 19, we will focus our 11:15 am lecture series on the Ephesians epistle. Another set of small groups – these to convene on-campus and off-campus, on different days and at different times – will meet in response to our learnings during this time. Registration for these groups will open October 1. This Forum series will be livestreamed to trinitychurchboston.org/live-worship.

Launch of Weekly Men’s & Women’s Bible Studies
Starting September 20, we look forward to launching a pair of connected programs that will provide space for parishioners to share meaningful reflection with one another and with members of the clergy. Gathering weekly for 55 minutes via Zoom at 7:30 am on Wednesday mornings, these groups will engage the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel lesson in the context of our lives. Michael Battle and I will share leadership of the study for all who identify as men, and Abi Moon, Kit Lonergan, and Paige Fisher will share leadership of the study for all who identify as women. For all who do not identify with a single gender, we invite you to attend the study most comfortable for you.

Every 4-6 weeks, these two Studies will convene in person, in the Commons, and share a light breakfast together, according to a schedule we will draft collectively. While the Studies will remain open to everyone for the fall, we do invite you to sign up here, so that we know how many to expect. Given the workday timing, we will covenant to begin and end on time.

Looking Ahead
With a teeming season before us, be on the lookout for our Program Year mailer soon to land in your (snail)mailbox, and a parish census that will appear in your email inbox next week. Meanwhile, we look forward to these last days of summer and the beginning of the school year – including our Blessing of the Backpacks and Church School Open House on Sunday, September 3!

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

See you Sunday,

The Rev. Morgan S. Allen
Rector