Homefront School Supply Drive

Trinity Church is once again soliciting donations to our school supply drive for Homefront. This year we've set a stretch goa—100 backpacks full of supplies!

We have the backpacks, but it’s up to you to fill them. See the Amazon wish list and have your donation delivered to 'Kara's List Address' on the menu, or you can enter the church address manually: 33 Mercer St, Princeton NJ 08540.

P.S., I know you’re reading this announcement right now thinking, “This sounds great, I need to remember to do it later.” You don’t need to remember if you click the link right now!

Let’s shoot for 100! We can do it!

Register for Church School and Youth Group

Linked below is the Registration Form for Trinity's Church School, and for Youth Group, restarting in September 2023!

Church School meets on Sundays at 9:30–10:20am and is geared toward children ages 3-10, from PreK–5th grade. Emily Pruszinski teaches Church School with help from our clergy, interns, parents, and teen volunteers. 

Youth Group meets on Sundays from 6-7:15pm and is geared toward pre-teens and teens ages 11-18, from 6th–12th grade. Our wonderful Lay Pastoral Associate, Wesley Rowell, will co-lead Youth Group this year with Emily Pruszinski. 

Parents and Caregivers — If you are interested in volunteering to help run classes, bring snacks, wrangle sheep at the Christmas Pageant, we welcome your help! There are options listed below for both weekly and seasonal events. If you have any questions, please email Emily Pruszinski (pruszinskie@trinityprinceton.org). 

Complete the questions in the attached form to register your child for Church School on Sundays for the 2023-2024 school year. Please fill out a separate form for each child you are registering. 

Lambeth ’First Peter’ Bible Study — Week 3

“1 Peter makes visible powers of authority and the invisible power structures of the world.”
“1 Peter holds the tension between faithfulness and survival.”

This letter aligns the unjust suffering of the persecuted with the unjust suffering of Christ.

These readings have been used to justify great evil; to support slavery, to uphold colonialism, and empire, tyranny, despotism, mass killings, even genocide, and they have been used to defend those who carry out domestic violence, and they've been used to defend those who engage in sexual violence and conflict, gender based violence.

We know these are all wrong, yet we are part of a global church, empire, and Anglican Communion where history is wrapped up in empire, power seeking, and subjugation. But we also have a history of resilience and resistance think of Desmond Tutu.”

 
“Power is according to context and contacts.””
 

Wives and slaves are explicitly compared in 1 Peter. We are very comfortable in condemning slavery, but we are less confident in condemning systems that keep women, girls, wives in situations of domestic violence, abuse, and exploitation.

 
“We are challenged by one Peter. Are we to accept the power of all human institutions?”
 

So Peter asked the question, how do we reconcile the world systems in which we live, the different ones, with the single system of freedom and grace we all receive in Jesus Christ. And the answer is “Sanctify Christ as Lord”.

“Those that live under conditions they cannot control whether it’s injustice or others; disability, exile, displacement, refugees, all live as children of God.”
“The central affirmation of this chapter indeed the central affirmation of the whole book is that we are not left comfortless!”

How do we challenge systems of power but also dismantle fear especially when power does threaten death and when that fear is very real indeed? We recognize our own power.

Power is not a zero-sum game: the more you share it, when it comes from God, the more there is; the more you hold on to it, the more it slips through our fingers.”

These are only a few of the quotes from 1 Peter 2:13-3:22: Resistance and Resilience.

The 1 Peter Bible Study is now ‘soul-ly’ on Zoom Wednesdays! 😊 The next sessions are August 2 and 9 from 6–8pm.

To access this worldwide Bible study, email Bonnie Bivins at blbivins@verizon.net to get the Zoom link and study materials!

To Watch the 1 Peter 3 Video Click Here:

 
 

Ways to participate:

  • Come Wednesdays from 6–8pm and participate LIVE.

  • View the current week’s video and come Wednesday at 7pm to reflect on the questions LIVE.

  • View the previous week’s video and find a friend, family member, or Trinity Church member to pair with, and discuss the study material.

Come and listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading next week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.

Week 4: Suffering in Christ, August 2, 1 Peter 4:1-19.

If you want a digital copy to access the links and Bible study materials, send me an email to my address above and I will happily send you a digital copy! 😊

Rummage Sale Coming in October, Donations Needed!

Coming October 19-21

The Rummage Committee is now collecting donations. Please email us to make a reservation to drop them off at rummage@trinityprinceton.org.

When you arrive to drop off your donations, please park in the church parking lot next to Ivy Hall and we will come and retrieve them directly from your vehicle.

During these dog days of summer, start cleaning out your closets and attics. We need as many of your donations as possible to make this a great sale!

Many thanks to all!

 

Please donate:

  • Gently-worn & Clean Men’s, Women’s, and Children’s Clothing for All Seasons

  • Better Ladies’ Dresses & Men’s Clothing

  • Housewares (Please, No Glass Vases)

  • Electronics

  • Books

  • Linens

  • Shoes

  • Jewelry (Fine & Costume)

  • Vintage & Antique Items (Remember that Edison Diamond Disc Gramophone from last year?)

  • Boutique Items (Crystal, China, & Art)

Please Leave at Home:

  • Sporting Goods (Uniforms, sporting equipment, gym equipment, bicycles, skateboards, ice skates, kayaks, skis, etc.)

  • Furniture of Any Kind

  • Rugs or Other Large Floor Coverings

 

Lambeth ’First Peter’ Bible Study — Week 2

“We have gone from death to life, but we are stones. Living stones are those who are not yet quarried... still being shaped by the elements, still acquiring sediment.”
“We are Living stones, the people of god, called to love one another. Worship, forgiveness, witness!”

Holiness is a wooing of a sort of Christ-like integrity that draws us into the presence and the being of God and encourages us to take others on that journey too.

Holiness is a feeling that drives us to become; this understanding that there's more to you in life; this feeling that pushes you to want to do more, to be better, to become a better version of yourself, continually.

Holiness is connected to God and to action, takes us out into the world, it does not hide us away in a holy huddle. It is relational (in scripture).

It is not about transformative piety; it is not about something we can manufacture for ourselves and make for ourselves; it is the gift of the grace of God given by God and God alone.

 
“Holiness is supremely shown in God coming close to the unholy.”
 

Holiness is not tolerance, holiness is not being driven by what I think is right and wrong, that is not holiness. Holiness is a sacred space that is embodied in us, the life of the Holy Trinity.

“Holiness is making other people uncomfortable. Holiness is relationship building and hospitality.”
“What makes one person holy and thus included is not human action it is divine grace and human response.”

Holiness is not something over which we have power and control. It is the movement of God. Jesus makes the unholy holy in every way.

The call of the Christian is to live on the very front line of holiness, so we can reach over the frontier and draw people into the love of Christ.

“‘Sinners’ became holy only because Christ is in the middle of it. Christ is the one who makes us holy.”
“How do we walk together? What do we do when we separate ourselves from the other? What are we doing to ourselves and them?”

How do we listen to each other? How do we understand ourselves and our communion as living stones God, God's holy people?

 
“Learn, listen, and evangelize!”
 

These are only a few of the quotes from 1 Peter Week 2: A Holy People following Christ.

The First Peter Bible Study is now ‘soul-ly’ on Zoom Wednesdays! 😊The next sessions are July 26 and August 2, 9 from 6–8pm.

To access this worldwide Bible study, email Bonnie Bivins at blbivins@verizon.net to get the Zoom link and study materials!

To Watch the 1 Peter 2 Video Click Here:

 
 

Ways to participate:

Come and listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading next week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.

Week 3: Resistance and Resilience in Christ, July 26, 1 Peter 3:1-22.

UrbanPromise Summer Camp Volunteers Needed!

I am looking for a few volunteers to help set up the snacks for summer camp at Trinity Cathedral in Trenton the week of Monday, July 31 – Thursday, August 3. The children receive meals provided by Mercer Street Friends but we are asked to provide a snack before the end of the day.

It will involve maybe 2-3 people from about 1:30–3pm every afternoon. I will organize and purchase the snacks. If you are only able to help a few times that will be alright.

Please consider this outreach opportunity and contact me, Martha Lashbrook, at lashbrookmartha@gmail.com or (609) 477-6285.

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