New Associate Director of Music at Trinity!

Dear Friends,

We are excited to announce Trinity’s next Associate Director of Music, Joseph Ferguson.  Joseph will begin his work at Trinity at the beginning of July.  He will be joined in Princeton by his wife Stephanie and their cat Mark.

I am grateful to our dedicated search committee, made up of Michael Edwards, Krista Galyon, Emma Levitt, and Tara Sikma who dedicated time and expertise in this search.  In addition, many members of the parish helped with hospitality for various candidates, taking them for meals and showing them around town.  

This search was intensive and garnered applicants from across the country and also from several other countries.  In each stage of the process, Joseph rose to the top of the pack with his consistent thoughtfulness, level of preparation, and evident deep care for the complex nature of music ministry.  We are looking forward to all that he will bring to our community, both musically and personally.  You can find more background on Joseph, as well as a message from him, below.  Please join us in giving him a warm Trinity welcome!

As we welcome Joseph, we also bid a fond and grateful farewell to Connor Fluharty.  Connor has faithfully served Trinity Church for the last eight years.  Connor has been a gift to this church through challenging times, and we are grateful to him for all that he has shared with us.  Connor’s last Sunday will be Choir Sunday, which is on June 2nd this year.  Please join us for the 10:00 service on June 2nd to celebrate Connor and to send him off with our love.

Faithfully,

Meg and Paul

Joseph Ferguson is an organist and pianist from Little Silver, New Jersey. Currently a graduate student of organ at Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music, he maintains keen interests in improvisation and liturgical music. Joseph is currently Organ Scholar at Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan, New York, where he accompanies the adult choir and choristers on the church’s 138-rank Austin organ, performs service music and voluntaries, and conducts regularly. He previously served a sacred music internship at Our Lady of the Lake Roman Catholic Church in Verona, New Jersey.

Beyond university, Joseph has pursued study of sacred music at St. Joseph’s Seminary & College in Yonkers, New York and St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, California. Previously, Joseph earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in piano performance from Rutgers University and McGill University respectively, cultivating a passion for the imaginative, idiosyncratic performance practices documented on recordings of the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

Notable performances include Dohnányi’s comic piano concerto “Variations on a Nursery Theme,” Op. 25 with Rutgers Sinfonia as winner of the ensemble’s annual concerto competition; a solo organ recital at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey as part of the Wednesdays at Noon recital series; and Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48 alongside chamber orchestra at Church of the Heavenly Rest.

From Joseph:

I am incredibly excited to be joining you at Trinity Church. I've had a wonderful experience getting to know some members of the parish already, and I'm so grateful to everyone on the staff and the search committee who has made this possible. I'm looking forward to meeting more of you soon, making music together in service of the community and for the glory of God.

Volunteers Requested

The Flower Ministry is looking for a few more volunteers to deliver flowers.

Each week, when the flowers are taken down from the altar, they are used to make small arrangements for delivery to parishioners selected by the Clergy/Pastoral Care.  Currently, there are only four of us, and we would like to have a few more people to participate.  

The requirements are pretty minimal-you just need to be able to drive and to exercise confidentiality about who is getting flowers and why.

If anyone is interested, or would just like to learn more about it, contact Terri Brown at 609-915-3800 or terribrown4@gmail.com.

Sabbatical: Comprehensive Campaign

In Gratitude: Remember, Reflect, and Renew

Journeying Through the Seasons of Life with Christ and One Another

Dear Good People of Trinity, 

This Sunday will be my last Sunday before I embark on my sabbatical.  As I shared in our two recent forums, during my time away I will be inviting you to join me for a period of remembering, reflection, and renewal. Together, we will spend time in sacred remembering, as we recall seasons past and how God has been present in the realities of our lives. We will then spend time reflecting on how God is at work in our hearts and souls in this present season. Finally, we will open ourselves to the renewing of our hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits to prepare us for the path and purpose that God will set before us.

In the months ahead, let us embrace the interconnectedness of our lives and faith as fellow pilgrims on the way.  To guide us during this time, I offer a prayer adapted from our baptismal liturgy.

“Sustain us, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.  Give us inquiring and discerning hearts, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.”

I extend my sincere thanks for your loving and faithful support these past 16 years and for the gift of this Sabbath time with my family. It is with great anticipation and promise that we enter this time to see how God will work in all of us to prepare us for what is yet to come. Indeed, what a blessing it is journeying through the seasons of life with Christ and one another!

Peace and Blessings to all,

Paul

P.S. Please review the attached materials, which will explain in more detail what will be happening over the summer during the sabbatical. There is also a video/audio of our Sunday morning forum which will offer much greater detail about my plans during the sabbatical and my invitation to the parish to join me in a season of prayerful discernment. This video/audio will also speak to the role of the Munshine Group which is helping us understand and access our current reality, as we chart our course for the future.

Icon Workshop!

July 13 - 19, 2024

Deadline to register: June 13, 2024

The Prosopon School of Iconology returns to Trinity Church for the (24th!) icon workshop. Beginning students will complete an icon of Christ Emmanuel during the workshop. Never held a paint brush? No worries! You will be given a drawing to trace onto the board, step-by-step instructions, daily demonstrations, and all materials. See the announcement for more information. Still have questions? Contact workshop coordinator and Trinity’s iconographer in residence, Maureen McCormick, at maureen@iconodulestudio.com.

The Art of Pilgrimage

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church, 

As the days to my sabbatical draw ever closer, I ready myself for this sacred season that awaits. Much preparation and planning has been done for sure, but I know that it’s the unexpected things along the way that will be the most nourishing, challenging, and life-giving.

Phil Cousineau, in his book, The Art of Pilgrimage writes, “For millennia, [the] cry in the heart for embarking upon a meaningful journey, has been answered by pilgrimage, a transformative journey to a sacred center.”  Our lives are most definitely “a transformative journey to a sacred center.” Holy travel across the seasons of our lives. And we take this sacred journey together.

Cousineau continues on to say, “With the roads to the exalted places we all want to visit more crowded than ever, we look more and more but see less and less. But we don’t need more gimmicks and gadgets; all we need to do is reimagine the way we travel. If we truly want to know the secret of soulful travel, we need to believe that there is something secret waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey.”

As we enter the months ahead, I invite us to reimagine the way we travel. I invite us to reimagine the way we live, the way we pray, the way we serve, and the way we love. I invite us to give ourselves the freedom to discover something secret, something sacred, something holy. And to remind ourselves to not simply look at the world around us, but to open our hearts and souls, so that we may truly see the wonderful gifts that God has in store for us. May we see with the eyes of the heart.

I invite you to join me this Sunday, and again on Tuesday evening for a more in-depth conversation (more information in the article below), as we prepare to embark on this pilgrimage that together we may indeed discover the sacred art of soulful living.

Peace and Blessings on the way,

Paul

Invitation to Parish Conversation

Dear Good People of Trinity,  

As mentioned at the Annual Meeting, Trinity Church is the recipient of a grant from the  2023 National Clergy Renewal Program. Trinity was selected as part of a competitive grant  submission process, which is funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and administered by Christian  Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. Established by the Endowment in 2000, the program’s  grants allow Christian congregations to support their pastors with the gift of extended time  away from their ministerial duties and responsibilities.  

The last Sunday before the sabbatical begins will be April 28th. David Schneider, our Senior  Warden, and I would like to invite you to a conversation to discuss what will happen over  the course of the next few months as we move into the fall and then begin to form and  implement a comprehensive plan for the future of Trinity Church. There will be two  gatherings to discuss the exciting possibilities before us. 

• Sunday, April 21st at 9:30 am in Pierce-Bishop Hall 

• Tuesday, April 23rd at 6:30 pm in Pierce-Bishop Hall 

This is a most exciting time in the life of our Church. Your prayers, presence, and  participation are of utmost importance as we embark on this journey together. Forward in  faith! We are Trinity Church! 

Peace and Blessings to all, 

Paul

The Faith of Thomas

Last Sunday we heard the story of Thomas’ encounter with the risen Jesus. Recall that back in John 11, Thomas was ready to follow Jesus back to Judea and into danger. “Let us also go, that we may die with him,” he says. Thomas is ready to run towards death, but in his meeting with Jesus in that fateful room after the resurrection, he needs to hear an invitation to new life. He needs to hear the word of peace for himself, and not second hand. 

We know all too much about death. We know all too much about preparing for the worst. But it can be a terrifying thing to trust that things might just work out better than we expected. It can be a terrifying thing to believe that in Jesus, it actually can’t work out any better than we trust it will. 

Thomas responds to that invitation to life with worship: “My Lord and my God!” Thomas ascribes to Jesus the name that is also the name of the God of Israel, making a bold confession of Jesus’ divinity. Only God can bring that kind of life, hope, and peace, and Thomas would be so compelled by it that he would become the messenger of the Gospel far outside the Roman Empire - as tradition has it, as the apostle to the people of India and south Asia. 

In each of our lives, we find there are times when we struggle to trust that Jesus is there, alive and active. Yet we still believe for each other until we can see and trust again. That’s one reason that we say the creed on Sunday: we believe – and we believe together. 

In the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter, Jesus says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is how we come to faith, 2000 years after the risen Jesus met his disciples. At the same time, we do have the chance to see, to touch, to taste Jesus. We have that chance to encounter him face to face at the altar, every time we come to Trinity Church where Jesus shows up in word and in sacrament. He shows up because he promised to do so, and because he is faithful to the promise. Every time we come to church, Jesus invites us once again to hear the word of life and peace, to feel the breath of the Holy Spirit, and in response to exclaim in worship – “my Lord and my God.”

Anna Lapwood Recital

Attention all music lovers!  Acclaimed English organist Anna Lapwood will play a recital at Princeton University Chapel this coming Monday, April 8 at 8:00 p.m.  A group from Trinity will attend the concert together.  We will meet outside the church office at 7:00 p.m.  Please join us!  For more information on the concert, check out: https://chapel.princeton.edu/events/organist-anna-lapwood-concert.