Pastor Brian's Blog

Planted Series Overview During this peak time for agricultural growth, our series for July called “Planted” will help us to cultivate the seeds of faith.   For three weeks, we will explore the parables of Jesus in Matthew 13.   Each lesson explores a different facet of our Christian life, including the potential, the challenges, and the rewards.   The sage of Proverbs 20:4 tells us: “The lazy person does not plow in season.   Harvest comes, and there is nothing to be found” (NRSV).  As we grow in faith, God provides a bounty. July 12 PARABLE OF THE SOWER: People face different circumstances in their lives, which may make them more or less receptive to God’s grace.   In Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 , Jesus tells a parable about a farmer broadcasting the seeds for his crop.     July 19 PARABLE OF THE WEEDS:   The need for order and unity is strong within us.   When disunity and disorder creep in, we may overreact - lashing out destr...

@Home Series Overview We have all been spending more time at home and finding in it a mixture of refuge and confinement.   Home is where the heart is, as well as the place where we experience the limits of our humanness.   With Thomas Dumm’s Home in America (2019), we will tour five legendary American homes from Thomas Jefferson’s plantation house and Henry David Thoreau’s rustic cabin to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s little house, Emily Dickinson’s brick homestead, and Herman Wallace’s dream house.   Our exploration of these residential archetypes will help us consider how we imagine and inhabit life at home, especially in light of our faith.   June 7 MONTICELLO: Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home is an early American architectural masterpiece whose master was both a prophet of freedom and a practitioner of slavery.   In Psalm 84 , the poet declares the Jerusalem Temple’s beauty, a house of worship that Solomon built with slave labor.   Eve...

New guidelines from the governor and our bishop allow for our worship team to record videos in the Sanctuary with proper precautions. Religious services are now included as "an essential activity," according to Section 2.5.vi of the governor's COVID-19 Executive Order #30 (April 30, 2020): " To engage in the free exercise of religion .  To engage in the free exercise of religion, provided that such exercise must comply with Social Distancing Requirements and the limit on gatherings of more than ten people in keeping with CDC guidelines for the protection of public health.  Religious organizations and houses of worship are encouraged to use online or drive-in services to protect the health and safety of their congregants." In her recent response to the governor's revised order, the bishop has stated that "small groups, Bible study, council and committee meetings, and any other gatherings should still take place online."  However, p...

  Dear Trinity Friends, Over the past few weeks, we all have adopted extraordinary measures to prevent spreading the coronavirus.  In many ways, our lives have been changed as we follow the order to stay at home and close all “non-essential” businesses.  For most of us, our faith in God is essential for helping us through this public health situation, and yet we have not gathered as a congregation for public worship since March 8 for the sake of the greater good.  God is our saving help in both this life and the next.  Due to the satewide stay at home order, we will not worship in person this Easter.  It may be hard to imagine Easter without gathering in a Sanctuary decorated with fragrant flowers and resounding with the triumphant tones of trumpet and trombone.  We will miss singing Charles Wesley’s Christ the Lord Is Risen Today , sharing the bread and cup at Christ’s table, and standing for Handel’s Hallelujah chorus.  The ...