Goings On. |
News and Events at
Trinity Anglican Church |
A traditional Anglican church with a heart for the world God lovesQ
Goings On. |
News and Events at
Trinity Anglican Church |
By Brian Early bearly@seacoastonline.com Posted Sep 3, 2017 at 3:01 AM ROCHESTER -- After a successful first course, the Trinity Anglican Church is hosting another 12-week course to help combat veterans and their families heal the “spiritual and moral injuries of war” later this month and is seeking participants. (You can read the rest of this article at Seacoast Online by clicking here.)
0 Comments
Church PicnicWe kicked off our summer with a church picnic here at Trinity in late June. It was a perfect day and we had all of our church family out for the event, bringing friends and other family members too. Butch Lewis did an excellent job at manning the grill. He singlehandedly and joyously served up burger after burger, chicken after chicken, hot dog after hot dog. Butch is a happy cook and also provides all the cooking for our Reboot Combat Recovery program. And there was lots of food available inside as well. Fr. Mirabilie's wife, Inger, and Leslie dueled for the best potato salad and many others contributed delectables as well. One thing is for sure, we know how to do food! There were lots of children running around and they had a ball (literally) in the field adjacent to the church, which had been turned into an activity center. Kids played catch with their dads, and some folks just sat out in the shade watching the kids play. More joyous than anything else were the connections and conversations enjoyed together. Trinity has changed and grown over the last year with many new members attending. It was a good opportunity for the newer members to rub shoulders with established members and build relationships. Fred Perry, Our senior warden, was keen to capitalize on this and wasted no time recruiting people to needed duties in the church. Meanwhile, Fr. Matt was deep in conversation about spiritual things with some of the newer members of the church. Trinity is growing, Not just in numbers, but in depth, in spirituality, and in service. We are amazed at what God has been doing over the last year and look forward with eagerness to what He will do in the future! Bob's BrunchBob Lovo is our treasurer and all around great guy. He lives in York and his wife's family, the Sewalls, have been there since the 1700's. Bob graciously offered to host a gathering of established and recent members of the church, an opportunity to eat and have fun together. It was hot out, so everyone was enjoying the air conditioned space inside. Steve M. played the piano and we enjoyed more good food. Latter on Fr. Matt, Inger and our junior warden, Mike McKinnon enjoyed time outside on the deck with Bob and Jan. Bob was a great host and we really enjoyed his guest house and hospitality. What else?Well, After the church picnic and Bob's Brunch Fr. Matt traveled to Greenwich, NY to meet Bp. Marsh and scope out a new possible location for St. Luke's camp. Then, on the 4th of July weekend, Bob invited Fr. Matt and his wife Inger to take a few days off and enjoy his guest house. They were joined by their good friends, the Rev. Jim King and Deborah, who pastors a church in Portland. It turned out they needed a break too. They relaxed by the jacuzzi and fancy gas fired fire pit, created some wonderful meals (Fr. Jim and Fr. Matt both like to cook) and went to the beach. Like most of our parishioners, the summer is time to enjoy some lakeside fun. Many of our families have a camp on a lake somewhere and, well, off they went. Mitchel invited Fr. Matt's family boating one Sunday. Others went on cross-country rv trips too. In mid July Fr. Matt left for his yearly motorcycle getaway for alone time riding and camping. He is an avid motorcyclist. Once back it was time to make the final preparations for St. Luke's camp, which was the second week of August. The camp was great, but that will be anther story. Now as we wind down the summer and get ready for fall we are preparing for our next New Members Class and we are getting ready to launch our next Reboot Combat Recovery course, beginning September 21st. We've had a number of visitors during the summer and many of them are returning over and over again. We hope to see you among our new visitors soon! We are so excited to announce our CHURCH PICNIC on Sunday, June 25th. Please make sure you RSVP for this event to Alice Snow at - alice(dot)riches(dot)snow(at)gmail- by Sunday, June 18th. Remember to include the number of people that will be attending! Sign-up sheets are located in the Narthex. Please plan to bring a side dish to share. The Church will be providing Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Buns, Tomato, Onion, Lettuce, Cheese, Condiments and Drinks. The St. Anne’s Guild will be providing a dessert as well. Help us share in fellowship with one another by providing a requested side as listed on the sign-up sheets in the Narthex. We will be having this year’s picnic on the field between the rectory and the church. We are hoping that some members of our Parish have some shade structures/canopy that we can borrow for this event. If you do, please sign-up or simply bring one to set-up on Saturday, June 24th at 9am. Thank you in advance! Please come and help us set-up for this event on Saturday, June 24th at 9am. We will need to move tables, chairs and put up shade structures prior to our event so we can spend the time we have with each other. Finally, we would love to meet your friends. please share this invitation with them and bring them along! We hope to see you all there. All the best, Trinity Anglican Church Vestry & St. Anne’s Guild Re4m Seminar: An empowered Life: Pentecost and the Church in the World Saturday, June 10th, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm Why did Jesus tell his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit even though they had already gone on a preaching expedition before Jesus' death and resurrection? What are the charisms deposited in the church and what are they for? What separates an authentic spiritual experience from a dangerous one? How can we share our faith in a sincere and natural way? This seminar will answer these questions. Fr. Mirabile has been an evangelist and missionary since 1982, when, in NYC Grand Central Station he started evangelizing. He carried an 8' cross weekly through his home town sharing his faith, and has been an evangelist in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Germany, and East and West Africa. He has engaged thousands of people in conversations about Christ and the Christian faith. Learn about what it means to have a life empowered by the Holy Spirit and know that God can use you too. Easter was an absolutely amazing event this year with a greater turn out at each service than anyone had seen in years. We had a packed house at the second service. One long-time parishioner was literally tearing after the soaring service, commenting that it was the best Easter service ever. What made it so special? The spirit of our people made it special. When people want to be in church and want to worship God that is always going to be felt. Occasional visitors. visiting family and new and old members turned out with enthusiasm, We began the celebration with the lighting of the Pascal Candle, the blessing of the Baptismal waters and the aspergesis - which is the sprinkling of the entire congregation, up and down each isle - with Holy Water. The choir performed at both services too. The second service also included the aspergesis, and incense. There was something truly Holy about the experience. Our Choir Master, Carlos Martinez invited visiting brass players and vocalists, including His daughter who did a soaring performance during Communion! It was a beautiful service followed by some snacks and deserts.. Our can see more photos on our photo page here. No sooner were we past Easter that we had an Episcopal visit from our Bishop Brian Marsh. He came at the end of April to perform confirmations and this was followed by a great luncheon with lots and lots of food. Confirmands this year were two adults and two boys. The Bishop attempted to catch them with his “trick question”, but (with some prompting) they all passed the test! As always, it is wonderful to have the Bishop visit our parish. He was pleased to see many new faces and a great sense of optimism in the air. Our parish is comprised of many veterans - Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. And if we have not personally served there are others whose family eboot embers have served our country. Our parish supports our service men and women and feel strongly about veterans affairs, as well as our first-responders. Last September, in order to express this commitment to our service members we decided that we would look to make a difference. At that time Fr. Mirabile learned about Reboot Combat Recovery. he then asked Kathy Lewis, whose father was a Navy veteran, to do some research into bringing the program here. Last March saw the start of Reboot Combat Recovery here at Trinity. Ours is the first group to offer Reboot in the North East, something for which we are very proud. Reboot is a 12 week combat trauma healing course intended to heal the spiritual and moral wounds of combat. Eight men attended the course and it will finish at the end of May with a graduation. Each week we served food to our program participants, provided child care when it was necessary, watched the video, and discussed the chapter in the provided workbook. Fr. Matt led the discussions, which, at times were deep and very meaningful. Men remembered experiences that they had trouble forgetting, worked through the roots of trauma, and dealt with false guilt. We also built friendships. And while the program is for veterans, one man who participated in the program because of his work with veterans was not himself a veteran but had experienced his own trauma with stage four cancer. He also found the program to be deeply meaningful. Our graduation is June 1st, at 7:00 pm and anticipate a good turn out of friends and family. Next Fall we will offer Reboot again, and we are already getting calls from people interested in attending. If you are interested in attending a Reboot Course please give us a call. Even though we've been busy since September, things got really exciting as winter started to descend on us. It began with our Christmas Fair and we are still going strong. Our Christmas Fair was November 17th - 19th and it was a huge success. there were plenty of baked good, excellent crafts of all sorts, and raffled baskets of awesomeness! Our volunteers worked hard setting up and manning the tables. We served great lunches too - homemade chili, soups and breads. We had a good turn out as well and the funds raised help us to provide for charities that we work with. After that we moved into Advent. Our church follows the cycles of the Church year and the season of Advent turn our attention towards the coming of Jesus - both in the Nativity and the Parousia (His return at the end of the age). This is also a time to gear up for Christmas. We held two services at Christmas which were well attended. Fr. Mirabile preached a wonderful and thought provoking sermon about how God has been "taken" with mankind and loved us at our creation such that He betrothed Himself to humanity in Christ through Mary (that sermon can be found here). Our own Alice Snow sang a solo and the Choir sang the great Christmas hymns. Both were candlelight services, so after Communion the lights were dimmed as each person had their candle lit from the Christmas Candle to the singing of Silent Night. It was the sort of experience that left you saying to yourself, "Yes! This is what Christmas is supposed to be like". Of course after that comes Epiphany and the celebration of Three Kings Day with our Epiphany pageant. The kid's (and adults) were adorable! Special thanks to Julie W. and Debbie for their work with the kids to make this happen. And what is Christmas without finishing it up with a tree-burning party afterwards? We gathered at the senior wardin's home and had a great time as a church family. We had a huge turn out from the church. It was really great to see all the kid's playing outside in the snow. And the adults got to enjoy more food than they could have ever eaten. There was lasagna, a turkey, chili, salad, wine, dips, everything! it's one thing to merely "go to church" at the same time as other people. It is another thing to share our lives together and be friends and support one another. This is what our life is like. Think we're done?! Nope. One January 14th several of us attended Concord for the March for Life. On January 25th our priest, Fr. Mirabile, led an all-day long seminar called "Renewing the Foundations". This excellent presentation, complete with a compelling PowerPoint presentation, explained how church unity and mission is built on a solid foundation of a common life. That common life is built upon a similar type of personal piety and prayer, a similar understanding of the Faith, adherence to a common tradition, and a mission driven by a common vision. Of course, winter is not over yet and there is still more to do. The next Re4m seminar is coming up an two weeks, "Take up and Read: Reading the Bible with Confidence". We are doing all of this and it fails to mention the ongoing mission of our Thrift Shop, which provides clothing and money to many good causes in the area and around the world. Why are we so active? Because we are here to make a difference. There are no sleeping saints here! For almost as many years as Trinity Anglican Church has been at their location at the top of the hill on Rochester Hill road they have been having their annual Christmas Fair. Many people are familiar with the church because of it's excellent and always well run Thrift Shop. This year the Fair will run from Thursday, November 17th through Saturday, November 19th. There will be trinkets and treasures, handmade crafts, Fall and Christmas Decorations. There will also be baked goods - delicious homemade pies, breads, scones, cookies and more. Yum! Raffle Baskets with different themes, like gourmet food, arts and coffee and teas will be offered as well. Lunch will also be served and the Thrift Shop will be opened during the fair, so people can get a bite to eat, browse the store and enjoy the Christmas Fair! The Fair is organized and run by the St. Anne's Women's guild of the church. Monies raised from past fairs have gone out onto our community with donations going to The Homemakers Health Services for the elderly, Visiting Nurses and other local programs. This year funds will also go to outside ministries as well. A visit to this years Christmas Fair will be fun, fruitful and faithful to the mission of Jesus. Don't miss it! Recently Fr. "Matt" Mirabile attended the "Understanding and Supporting Recovery: Strategies and Tools for Clergy" seminar in Manchester. This seminar was sponsored by HOPE for NH Recovery and the New Hampshire Council of Churches. This free seminar for clergy and other congregational leaders was offered to provide the latest strategies information and resources on how to help individuals and families suffering from substance use disorders. The event was held at at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester and the presenters were The Rev. Fred L. Smoot, M.Div., Ph.D., C.P.E. Supervisor, Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, CA and Sis Wenger, President/CEO - National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA). The focus of the seminar was intended to raise awareness of how addiction to alcohol and other drugs impacts individuals and their families and to discuss the role of clergy and congregations in offering information, hope and recovery support for individuals and family members (especially children and youth) affected by alcohol and drug abuse. They also reviewed core competencies for clergy and discussed practical strategies for implementation of community and faith prevention and recovery support programs. Clergy and other pastoral support teams were encouraged to connect with local prevention, treatment, and recovery support organizations to address substance use disorders and the faith community's role in prevention and education. Fr. Mirabile has also been networking with Goodwin Community Health and OneVoiceNH, attending several meetings on addiction and prevention for the Seacoast area. Fr. Mirabile has been working with people struggling with addictions and other life controlling problems like anxiety and depression for many years. Fr. Mirabile is looking forward to making an impact in Rochester, Somersworth and the surrounding areas. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction of any kind, he would be glad to help. Dear Trinity Family, I am deeply grateful to be serving as the new rector of Trinity Anglican Church. When my wife and I first learned of the opening and throughout the entire process we felt that God’s thumbprint was on it all. I was overjoyed at the turn out on my first Sunday here and every Sunday since. I have enjoyed getting to know many of you and look forward to serving God with you in serving our neighbors. I have been blessed by your enthusiasm, commitment and good nature. On behalf of my wife, my son Francis and I (and the rest of my family), thank you for such a warm welcome. As the first “official” letter from your new pastor to the parish I thought this would be a good opportunity to share some highlights of the past few months as well as share with you some thoughts about our walk together. First the highlights. This has been a most eventful last six months for us. Busy to say the least. Our family began packing and preparing to move last February. Once we determined that we would rent out our home in Fairfield, CT I began to do some needed repairs and sprucing up. I continued some of that work after I began my first week here in April, traveling back and forth to Connecticut while my son finished school there and my wife packed up the house. Inger did an amazing job getting our house ready and she deserves all the praise. Then there was the move itself in the end of June followed quickly by Inger’s trip to Norway. No sooner did she get back than I had to run St. Luke’s Camp. Some people worried that I got roped into it so early, but it was wonderful. Diane Jones was, as always, indispensable and great to work with, and my two sons, Mattias and Francis carried so much of the burden. Dn. David Koller was a great help too, inspiring what we called “the great watermelon challenge!”. Once we finished camp (and recuperating!) we then left for my daughter’s wedding in Atlanta. I walked her up the isle and then performed the ceremony. She looked amazing. Our whole family was together and it was a truly blessed event. After all of that it was time for a little R&R, so once I got back home I got on my motorcycle and went motorcycle camping throughout Vermont, exploring some of the best riding roads and most scenic views. It was great! The only problem is that it unleashed my inner vagabond and I was half ready to keep riding all the way to Patagonia (Argentina)! Thus concludes a season of major life changes for us – new job, moving to a new state, first married child, last child graduating from high school, etc. Wow! On top of all of these changes there were several things I have been able to accomplished at church. What is most apparent is that from my first Sunday we have begun using the Anglican Missal service and have used incense at the Sung Mass at 10am. Within the first few weeks of my getting here I also completely overhauled and redesigned the church website, adding more and more features as the weeks progressed. Recently I added the capacity to accept donations online and my recorded sermons can be found on our website, as well as on our facebook page. You can also subscribe to our channel at Podbean.com. I have cultivated new relationships which have resulted in new people attending church and others returning to church. In July I took a few of our kids to Soulfest in order to signal my commitment to our kids and build relationships so that we can work towards a starting a youth group. I have also attended a few meetings on drug prevention sponsored by Goodwin Health as I begin to network myself into the addiction community. I have performed two graveside services and 1 (and one half - Charlotte) baptisms! St. Luke’s camp was also a major responsibility (which was greatly eased by the efforts of Allan Wylie). All the reports back from the camp this year was that it was an overwhelming success! It seems I shall have no choice but to direct it again next year! J I have also been happy to meet with several people pastorally to provide comfort and guidance. Of course, it is not only my family that has been going through changes, Trinity has been going through a season of change as well. Just as I have spent the last few months closing one chapter and opening another, Trinity has been going through the last few years closing one chapter and opening another too. And while the beginning of my tenure here marks the close of one chapter, it also marks the beginning of another chapter and more change. As you have already come to see, I am very different from my predecessors here at Trinity. In that vein I would like to share some thoughts with you. One of the most important parts of keeping relationships healthy is the proper management of expectations. The pastoral/parishioner relationship is no different. We all have expectations of what each thinks the other should do. Some of these expectations are sort of obvious but others often go undisclosed, some are never even clearly thought out. Parishioners often expect that clergy should do visitations, preach a great sermon each week, maintain good relations in the community and be good administrators. Pastors often expect people to follow through with responsibilities and commitments, give faithfully, and behave in a way that represents the church well to the community. So that we can set some clear expectations, here are some guidelines to help:
Finally, I have lots of plans for the future. In October we will begin hosting a “Home Group”. A home group is an informal context for Bible study and personal growth. I have led groups like this for many years and am convinced that it is one of the most powerful means of discipleship and transformation. We will study the Bible together, share our lives together and learn to pray together. As the leaves fall from the trees, our focus will simply be on the holidays and continuing to find our stride. After that, for 2017, I am still prayerfully planning several initiatives including; a weekly program for those struggling with life-controlling problems, a Lenten Retreat, Re-4m Seminars on various topics, and more. There will be a lot of communication through facebook and our website. Check those often. I look forward to the coming year and this new beginning for all of us. As we move forward together let me encourage you to stay positive, to be prayerful, to be generous of spirit towards each other, and to be prepared to get involved. We are not here for us alone, but for others who need to encounter the love of God, to be reconciled to the Church, and to be strengthened by the depth of the entire catholic tradition. Spread the Word! Be evangelists! Be Christ-bearers! Your Pastor, Fr. Matt Mirabile+ |