Worship at Trinity

The Rev’d Julia E. Whitworth, Rector

The pandemic continued to challenge our worship team to imagine new ways to create liturgy together safely. I am proud of our hard work and creativity, even as we remain exhausted by the memory of it. Yet through it all, we were reminded that God is with us wherever we are. By the end of January, we succumbed to the cold and finally suspended all remaining outdoor services and resumed a completely pre-recorded video model for Sunday worship. After that COVID surge abated a bit, and adult parishioners gained access to vaccines, we began slowly to layer back some in-person, and temporally bound worship for our parish community. During Lent, we welcomed the 8am Sunday and 5:30 Wednesday Eucharists back into the Church. What a joy it was to see small groups of people back in our pews again. For our larger, 10:30 service we moved away from pre-recorded worship to Zoom, which allowed us to create a live experience and enhance parish connections. We also created Lenten bags for at-home devotions. Holy Week 2021 challenged us to create some interesting adaptations of our regular traditions, including a live-streamed Agape Supper from the Fortune Room, a virtual vigil with the Blessed Sacrament, an outdoor Good Friday walk for families, and an in-person Easter Vigil by the Holy Fire in the garden, before proceeding to the Church for an in-person Eucharist. Easter Sunday found our congregation gathered, at last, for two glorious services under an enormous tent, also livestreamed, in the parking lot. For Pentecost, we had a community Eucharist on the soccer field, and the choir offered a beautiful, if windy, Evensong on the playground. Our Bishop came in June to confirm 12 confirmands in a beautiful service in the Lemler Garden. Basically, there are very few spots on our campus that haven’t enjoyed some sort of liturgy at this point. We have an even deeper gratitude for the gardens and green spaces on Trinity’s urban campus that gave us flexibility and a fresh perspective for these various approaches to worship. By June, we had recommenced larger in-person services in the church building—still masked, with socially distant seating, albeit refraining from congregational singing or full choir. We were able to release our registration protocols. In our decision-making, Trinity’s Regathering Taskforce continued to maintain a careful balance between the pastoral needs for increased in-person options and the concerns of the most vulnerable among us—especially the immunosuppressed and unvaccinated children. It has remained important to us to have many options for many risk tolerances. From June through October, we convened three services each Sunday, at 8am and 10:30 in the Church, and 9am in the Garden. While we continue only to administer Communion in one kind (consecrated Bread, no shared chalice), it’s been a joy to enjoy the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, in person, together. A very exciting change to our on-line options for worship was the installation of our new live-stream cameras in the church in the spring. I designed our four-camera system with Albie Marco and the technicians at Force Technology Solutions in Greenfield. Our cameras are low-profile, but powerful enough to rotate over 180 degrees with a powerful zoom. Controlled remotely from a console in our coat closet, the cameras have allowed us to improve on the home experience during live services considerably! We are so grateful to Albie Marco, Tracey Lemon, Ray Neufeld and Ken Feeley for operating the live-stream cameras for the Sunday 10:30 am services, as well as many weddings and funerals in the last year. Since regathering in June, we managed to continue our 3-service schedule through October. After a Start Up Sunday

picnic on the soccer field, we brought back our full adult choir indoors and celebrated the dedication of our newly revoiced organ. In November, we bade farewell to the outdoor service at 9am, just in time for a glorious All Saints Sunday and Bishop’s visitation. Throughout the fall, we blessed our pets, our backpacks, our beloved dead, and one another with the joy of in-person services again. One of the most complex aspects of autumn was the appearance of new strains of the COVID-19 virus. Whether Delta or Omicron, each variant in the pandemic kept the entire worship team and Regathering Task Force continuing to assess data and make adjustments for safety. Just a few days before Christmas, we made the difficult decision to impose strict attendance limits on our Christmas services. Fortunately, because of the addition of a robust new Christmas Pageant at 3pm, over 450 worshippers were able to gather in person, accompanied by over 300 online worshippers. Amazing. Truly, God is with us wherever we are. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Messina and the Choir, the acolyte leaders and acolytes, lectors, and the MC/servers for their continued agility in the face of so many liturgical changes. The Altar Guild, led by the amazing Kim Purucker, and the ushers, led by Eric Baiz, have been steadfast and methodical in their approach to managing the details behind so many adaptations of our norms. My clergy colleagues—Father Ben Anthony and Mother Erin Hougland earlier in the year, and Father Ben, Mother Megan Miller and Father Adam Pierce since the summer—have been remarkable collaborators and teammates in the wild work of leading worship in this incredible year. Finally, I am VERY grateful to you for being willing to try so many new things this year (and last). While I’m not surprised by it, I’ve been delighted by your flexibility and faithfulness. My prayer for Trinity’s worship life in 2022 is that it can be more “normal,” yes—but no less creative. The Spirit is strong at Trinity, no matter where we gather. As a community of faith, not even the complexities of COVID, Year Two, has kept us from our call: To rejoice! To pray! To give thanks… together!