Dear People of Trinity,

One year ago, when we were forced to cancel indoor worship together, I don’t think any of us would have guessed that we would still be waiting a year later to gather together in praise and prayer. We also did not anticipate how many of our brothers and sisters would become ill, and how many people would pass away during these many months without the opportunity to celebrate their lives in any satisfactory way or commend them in ways that we would have wanted. We take heart in the faith that each loved one who has died, dwells with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Looking ahead, the vaccination rollout is ramping up, and we are hearing from many of our senior members that they are finding ways to get their immunization shots. We hope and pray this continues, so that the time is not too far off when we can all gather safely for all of the activities we have come to love. 

In the meantime, I want to encourage you to avail yourselves of the opportunity to either participate in our worship on YouTube, or, if you are able, to join us for one of our three in person worship services on Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. or on Sunday mornings at 8:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. You do not need to reserve a place in advance, and our space is large enough that social distancing is easy.

Our Transition Team is also working to complete the Mission Site Profile and gather the information needed by the Metro New York Synod so that we can enter the call process for a new associate pastor at some point this spring. You will be receiving a survey in the near future and I encourage you to complete it and return it to the church. It is one of the most critical tools the team has for helping the Call Committee discern the skill set, demeanor, etc. of the pastor for Trinity.

These months have been difficult, we’re tired of face coverings, social distancing, and not seeing our church family. Yet we can see better days are coming. I also need to share that one area where Trinity has taken a big hit is in our financial picture. Many of our expenses continue even when we cannot gather. Heat, maintenance, insurance, etc., continue along with personnel expenses. However, most importantly, a return to a normal church routine, and everything we hope to accomplish in the coming months as we come out of the Covid lockdown is somewhat dependent upon our stewardship giving, and it is down substantially. With all of the hardship people are facing, we have been somewhat reluctant to reach out, but the church’s cash reserves are running very low, we have not yet received approval for another PPP loan, and offerings are down. I hope that each of you will do what you can to help. As we come out of lockdown, we want to have the resources we need to fully open up our ministries. The door is open to bring offerings to the church, or mail in, or EGive online. Your support is welcome.

As we are fully in the season of Lent, a season of repentance and preparation, I pray that you are able to have some respite from your daily cares and are able to focus on your physical and spiritual wellbeing. I can’t emphasize enough, the importance of prayer for maintaining a healthy spiritual life. Lent provides an opportunity to focus our energy and devote time to prayer.  As we look forward to Holy Week, the Triduum and Easter, plans are in the offing for a sunrise outdoor worship service. More will be shared as the Easter draws closer. In the meantime, pray for good weather.

Finally, please feel free to call me with any need you may have, or if you just want to have a chat. Some folks worry about disturbing me, or that I am too busy, but I want to assure you that I would much rather have conversation with you than be busy.

Many thanks to all of you who continue to support the ministries of this congregation, and to those who have gone above and beyond in being available for the sake of others. Our Nursery school, Friends Kitchen, Trinity Pantry, our Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, worship assistants, Mission Team and administrative staff have striven mightily to keep our ministries vital.

Lenten blessings as we journey to the Great and Holy Week of our salvation.

Yours in Christ,
​Pastor Peter

​ God delights in surprises. Mary was surprised, to say the least, when she was told she was carrying the Messiah. Moses was surprised when God spoke to him through a burning bush. Who knows what the disciples were thinking when Jesus appeared to them in the midst of a storm, walking on water? God must find some joy in surprising us.
  So as we celebrated the “Reign of Christ” last weekend, we were surprised to discover that his reign looks nothing like that of the monarchs with whom we are familiar. Instead — surprise! — God’s reign is found among the homeless and the hungry. God is revealed through vulnerability and mercy, not power or pomp and circumstance. The Reign of Christ invites us to experience the surprising presence of God, right here on earth.
  Yes, Jesus is a different kind of king. And those who follow him, well, our lives are to be different too . . .

  Easter is early this year, and in many places across this church trees will still be bare and fields barren. It might even snow. But on Easter morning we will gather to greet the risen Son and give thanks to God for the new life we have in Jesus Christ.
  Two things come to mind this Easter when there is still only the hint of spring: Jesus’ words to his disciples just before his crucifixion and a hymn. Jesus said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus was talking about his death, but he was also assuring his disciples and us that death is not the end, that, though it might seem impossible and even terrifying to step into the void, God brings life out of death.

  The hymn is ELW 379.
       Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
       wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
       love lives again, that with the dead has been;
       love is come again like wheat arising green.

   The tune is actually a French Christmas carol. How perfect that, in the bleak midwinter, the promise of spring was planted. St. Paul wrote, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” We have already fallen into the earth and died. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” We will not remain alone. We will bear fruit. The seed has been planted in all the barren places in the world and in our lives. That gives us the power and the hope – especially in the face of our brokenness – to see life where the world only sees death ... in refugee camps and hospice units, in parched earth and in floods, in oppression and denied justice we are bold to confess. Now the green blade rises. Now love lives again. Now love comes again like wheat arising green. Christ is risen.

Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

  Although scripture does not provide a description of what he looked like, Christians have long claimed that Jesus Christ is the face of God. From him, that is, by knowing about him and his ministry, we gain a glimpse of the character and personality of God.                
  For centuries artists have been fascinated by this notion. Painters of the late Renaissance, for instance, uniformly depicted the face of the infant Jesus aglow with brilliant light, a light which illumined the face of his mother as well.
More than that, the brightness which is the Christ Child brightened the faces of all who gazed upon him, angels, shepherds and magi alike. In these paintings, facial expressions of awe, wonder and joy reflect the radiant brilliance which is Christmas.   
  My prayer for you and for all who “see” the face of God in story and song this Christmas is that your face too will glow with the brightness of the Christ Child.

  Approximately 30,000 youth and adult leaders attended the ELCA National Youth Gathering this summer in Detroit.  More than a dozen members of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church participated. The program featured an assortment of excellent speakers, musicians and media productions. But the most inspiring aspect of the Gathering was the participants themselves. Organized into servant teams, the youth, dressed in brightly colored t-shirts, were sent by the hundreds into the streets and neighborhoods of the city as ambassadors of goodwill.
          1,847 mural boards were painted
          600 neighborhoods were affected
          319 vacant homes were boarded up
          3,200 vacant lots were cleared of debris
          1,425 backpacks were distributed
          36 urban gardens were installed
          99 picnic tables were built
          26 dumpsters were filled

  Other projects were conducted as well.
          650 individuals donated at least 8 inches 
             of hair – 433 feet in total
          A blood drive resulted in the collection of 
             78.8 gallons of blood (607 pints) 
          1 million diapers were collected for needy families
          $402,000 was collected for the ELCA World 
             Hunger’s Walk for Water

  The kindness and generosity extended by the young people of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American surprised and delighted the residents of Detroit. “We did not go to Detroit to save the city,” said one participant, “but to experience it . . . and what an experience it was!”

  It has been a long season of disquiet in our country. From Ferguson to Baltimore, simmering racial tensions have boiled over into violence. But this … the fatal shooting of nine African Americans in a church is a stark, raw manifestation of the sin that is racism. The church was desecrated. The people of that congregation were desecrated. The aspiration voiced in the Pledge of Allegiance that we are “one nation under God” was desecrated. 
  Mother Emanuel AME’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, as was the Rev. Daniel Simmons, associate pastor at Mother Emanuel. The suspected shooter is a member of an ELCA congregation. All of a sudden and for all of us, this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own.
 We might say that this was an isolated act by a deeply disturbed man. But we know that is not the whole truth. It is not an isolated event. And even if the shooter was unstable, the framework upon which he built his vision of race is not. Racism is a fact in American culture. Denial and avoidance of this fact are deadly. 
  The Rev. Mr. Pinckney leaves a wife and children. The other eight victims leave grieving families. The family of the suspected killer and two congregations are broken. When will this end? 
  The nine dead in Charleston are not the first innocent victims killed by violence. Our only hope rests in the innocent One, who was violently executed on Good Friday. Emmanuel, God with us, carried our grief and sorrow – the grief and sorrow of Mother Emanuel AME church – and he was wounded for our transgressions – the deadly sin of racism. 
  I urge all of us to spend a day in repentance and mourning. And then we need to get to work. Each of us and all of us need to examine ourselves, our church and our communities. We need to be honest about the reality of racism within us and around us. We need to talk and we need to listen, but we also need to act. No stereotype or racial slur is justified. Speak out against inequity. Look with newly opened eyes at the many subtle and overt ways that we and our communities see people of color as being of less worth. Above all pray – for insight, for forgiveness, for courage. 

Kyrie Eleison. 

The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton 
Presiding Bishop 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 

        May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God 
        and to the steadfastness of Christ.
                                                                                       Thessalonians 3:5

  The word steadfast perhaps best describes the ministry of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in the calendar year 2014. We remained an active, vibrant, steadfast congregation.
  Hundreds of individuals of all ages attended our worship services and participated in our ministries, programs, and special projects. 
  Financial support of our ministry remained strong and our capital stewardship appeal was successful. Significant additional funds were raised to support faith based ministries outside of our congregation. 
  Patiently and persistently we made progress towards our goal of expanding, renovating and renewing our parish hall.
  Dozens of weddings, funerals, baptisms and bible study sessions were planned and conducted.
  Our Sunday school curriculum was revised and a Saturday class added. 
  Our teenage members enjoyed an growing, spiritually centered, socially conscientious ministry. 
  Team Trinity conducted another successful mission trip. 
  Our Food Pantry and Hot Meal programs continued to provide a valuable and much appreciated community service.
   Our music, worship leadership and fellowship groups provided opportunities for service and enriching friendship.
  We can be proud of these accomplishments and the ministry we have conducted in 2014. We are, to be sure, a busy congregation with much to offer those who seek to be involved with a faith community. Busyness, in itself, however, is not our goal. Our goal is that through our ministries, programs and special projects the Lord will direct our hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.