• Editorial by Stephen Tomor Kenyi
• A word from Bishop Anthony Poggo
• Updates from the New Hope Campaign Projects
• Micro Economic Scheme in Kajo Keji
• Fourteen clergy ordained

and more!

At the ceremony, the parish will also formally announce the naming of the Trinity Primary School, which is being built in Sodogo, Sudan in the Diocese of Kajo-Keji, Episcopal Church of Southern Sudan, which is being built with funds raised by members of Trinity Church. Trinity, Easton, tithed the proceeds of the campaign to build the school, according to the Rev. Canon Andrew T. Gerns, Rector of the Parish.

Trinity Church serves the community not only as a house of worship and community of faith, but also as a place of help and refuge for those in need. The parish’s Ark Soup Kitchen serves 65-80 people every Saturday a nutritious, tasty meal. The parish has housed twelve-step groups, community organizations, programs from youth and the aged, and many others, and has a long history of outreach to the community.

The new space contains a new commercial grade kitchen, new restrooms and a new classroom, and makes the facility barrier-free.  A stained glass window over the high altar of the church was threatened if the wall collapsed was also restored. In addition, improvements to the organ were made. The church repaved the parking lot, and made other modifications to make the space handicapped accessible.

The generosity of the congregation’s members made this building and the school in Southern Sudan possible. They raised nearly $450,000 towards the project during a capital campaign in 2009. The parish tithed their gift so that across the globe, in Kajo-Keji County, Southern Sudan, a new primary school is being built in a little Sudanese village called Sodogo. The Diocese of Bethlehem, which includes Trinity, Easton, has a partner relationship with the Diocese of Kajo-Keji, which contains the village of Sodogo. The new school will be named for Trinity Church, Easton.

The new kitchen was equipped through a $25,000 grant from the Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering.  The grant was one of three, the largest, awarded for projects in Pennsylvania. The UTO awarded 69 grants for 2010 for a total of $2,163,740.93 for the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The grants were awarded to projects in 43 Episcopal Church dioceses, 11 companion diocese relationships and 15 international provinces.

The Open House will start at 5 p.m. on September 14, with presentations by community and civic leaders at 6:30 p.m.  Bishop Marshall will then lead the congregation and community members through the building as the new and renovated spaces are blessed, followed by a Holy Eucharist in the Church. A  reception follows in Conine Hall.

The building was financed through Merchants Bank of Bangor, PA.  The general contractor was the Alfero Company of Easton, PA. The architect was Jeff Martinson, AIA also of Easton.

Contents include:

• 3n1-1n3: Prepare to be misunderstood
• Heritage Day news and pictures
• ProJeCt Food Pantry update
• 2010 Mission of the Month updates
• Holy Eggerz fun in the sun!
• Royal School of Church Music
• August requiem
• Daughters of the King Kitchen Shower news
• Episcopal presence at Pride in the Park
• Mission of the Month: ProJeCt of Easton
• August ministry schedule (new!)
• and much more!

Monthly Calendar can be found here.

Saturday evening Holy Eucharist with prayers for healing, 5 p.m. in the Church.

Sunday morning Holy Eucharist, Rite I, 8 a.m. in the Church

Heritage Day Worship by the Downtown Covenant Council of Churches will start at 9:30 a.m. at St.John’s Lutheran Church, 4th and Ferry Street, followed by a festive brunch in the fellowship hall.

Trinity Church open for Tours: 12 – 5 p.m.

Trinity’s Hot-Dog & Concession Stand will be in the vicinity of the Circle from 12- 5 p.m.

Patriotic Hymn Sing and Organ Recital at 3 p.m. in the Church

Sitgreaves Coffee House (5th Anniversary) in Conine Hall starting at 6:30 p.m. (Enter from the entrance on Spring Garden Street, next to the church.) This is both the fifth anniversary of the Coffee House and the first of the Parish Hall and new addition since construction began last summer! Learn more here.

St. John’s Lutheran Church,

4th and Ferry Streets, Easton, PA

Participating churches: Trinity, St. John’s Lutheran, First United Church of Christ, and First Presbyterian Church.  These are the churches of the Downtown Covenant Council of Churches.

Call St. John’s for more information. 610-258-6119.

Trinity’s regular Saturday 5 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. service will happen at Trinity as usual.

3n1-1n3 …from the Rector

Glee

I live under a rock. Or else in a coal mine. Maybe I’ve checked into a cloistered monastery and did not realize it. I’ve come to this conclusion because until I heard a CD in my wife’s car the other day, I had never heard of “Glee.” After a few inquiries, and suffering a few strange looks, I think I may be the only person on the entire planet who has not heard of Glee.

In case I’m not the only one exiled to a tropical island, Glee focuses on a high school show choir, or Glee Club, called “New Directions”, at a fictional High School in Lima, Ohio. The casting directors have filled the show with young, bright, energetic and talented performers who reflect the diversity of America. There are black, white, Asian and Hispanic kids. And among the boys and girls there is a gay character and a person is physically challenged. The mission of the show’s creators is to show that everyone, no matter their background and circumstances can be accepted and valued.

Now I’ve read that Glee will be adding a new character…perhaps the strangest, the most difficult fit of all in to such a diverse group…a Christian.

“I’m adding a Christian character,” says the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy. “We’ve taken a couple jabs at the right wing this year, so what I want to do with this character is have someone who Christian kids and parents can recognize and say, ‘Oh, look—I’m represented there, too!’ If we’re trying to form a world of inclusiveness, we’ve got to include that point of view as well.”

TV Guide writes that Murphy wants this character (who is yet to be cast) to “speak her mind and be listened to and respected — though likely not by Kurt, whose homosexuality she won’t accept. This perky New Directions addition, coming next season, will also object to some of the club’s sexually suggestive music selections.”

Whoa there, cowboy. Let’s look at some of these assumptions.

You are adding a Christian character. I think that maybe you’re too late. Isn’t it possible that at least some of the kids already represented in the cast are already Christian? Cathy Lynn Grossman at USA Today wonders if, among the current characters, a single young person who is not already a Catholic or a Methodist or a Baptist? (Not to mention Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Mormon kids!)

I am certain there is an Episcopalian in there.

This is a glee club for crying out loud!

There must be at least one creative, singing, dancing, instrument-playing Episcopalian in there somewhere! Look around our own congregation. We have scads of young talent in this parish! Some of them belong to choruses, bands, and, yes, even glee clubs. But I guess that in order to be a “Christian” character, a person has to (a) wear their faith like a badge and (b) be against something.

Isn’t is possible that teens can be like their parents in that “just” live out their Christian faith by doing what they do every day?

When Murphy equates a “Christian character” with being “right wing,” I suspect that what he is really saying is that he wants to add his vision of a protestant evangelical Christian into the mix, maybe to create a little low-level, dramatic friction. As TV Guide said, it will be the “Christian” who won’t accept the gay character and will object to the costumes or something.

Glee fan Laura Leonard keeps the blog Her.Meneutics at the Christianity Today web-site and thinks having an evangelical Christian in the group is a good thing. She writes

“If she (the new character) can demonstrate Christ’s love in her relationships with others without giving up the values and beliefs that form her identity, it will be a great success indeed — even if she hangs a Kirk Cameron poster in her locker or greets her fellow Glee Clubbers with a side hug.

“… In this sense, a stereotypical Christian character is a good thing — it demonstrates that there are real teens who desire first and foremost to pursue God with their whole lives. That’s a pretty radical idea for a teen show.”

But I think that the character can be much more than a card-board cut-out of a Christian stereo-type. I vote for the Christian to not be a judgmental evangelical who can sing. Instead, I hope the new character will be like most of the Christian young people that I’ve met. Instead of pushing back against the diversity of the culture, I hope that they embrace it—with a twist.

Statistics show young adults hold more accepting attitudes on race and on homosexuality than their parents. It is we boomers, believe it or not, we of the get-out-on-highway, all-you-need-is-love generation who seem to have the most difficulty accepting the culture we have created. Over and over again, pollsters and those who study cultural trends see that young people are much more open about the diversity of their peers and much more accepting of difference than their parents.

My hope is that this new character will reflect her Christian values—in a way that was as surprising as Jesus was when he was meeting friends, preaching, teaching and healing. I hope that this person who will show off her faith by demonstrating, in her own small ways, the radical welcome of Jesus.

If she has to struggle a bit to balance what she has been taught to expect with what she experiences and finds that God is in the tension, then so much the better!

Here is my advice to the show’s writers, and to every Christian who finds her and himself in a strange, diverse, creative setting: Stand up for values, yes. But mainly stand up for the dignity and worth of every human being.

In between the music and dancing, the overarching theme of the show is everyone’s in the same club — jocks and divas, gays and straights. A new character labeled “Christian” opens the possibility that by joining in the show choir and by creating normal, friendly, respectful relationships with her fellow singers, she will be shown accepting what her elders might reject.

In the process she might demonstrate on the show what I know many real-life young people in fact do all the time: that to be a follower of Jesus means learning to love all God’s people in practical, compassionate ways. We are all, after all, all in this together.

–Fr. Andrew

At the liturgy, he will confirm and receive with the laying on of hands people from Trinity, Easton, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jim Thorpe and St. Joseph’s Church in Bangor.

Confirmation is the mature, adult public confession of the Christian faith before the whole church in the form of the local congregation and the person of the Bishop. The Bishop prays over each candidate with the laying on of hands and annointing with oil.

Reception is also a mature, adult and public confession of the faith for those who have been previously confirmed in another church. These folks are “recieved” into the Episcopal Church from another Communion.

After the celebration following the liturgy, Bishop Jack will meet with members of the Vestry to talk about the mission and ministry of the parish, our future vision for mission and the work of the Diocese.

This week we learned that Trinity Episcopal Church was awarded a grant by the United Thank Offering to be used to purchase kitchen equipment to support our parish’s weekly Ark Soup Kitchen and other ministries that we house. The equipment will be installed in the new kitchen area that was built as part our 190th anniversary year capital campaign, “Fed by our Past, Nourishing our Future”.

The $25,000 award was announced in a letter to Bishop Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem, on May 19, 2010 is to be used between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011.

“I am happy to see Trinity’s ministry recognized at the national level.” Bishop Paul said. “The grant is both a material support to the parish, and also an enormous encouragement to all who labor to make our churches effective witnesses of God’s love.”

The United Thank Offering is known to many Episcopalians through the famous “blue-boxes” into which people put in loose change as offering for anything about which we are thankful. Trinity, Easton, has supported the work of the United Thank Offering since its inception and the UTO is now one of Trinity’s “Mission of the Month” offerings.

The mission of the UTO is “To expand the circle of thankful people and To achieve this mission, we encourage daily prayers, offerings, and awareness of the abundance of God’s blessings.” They give grants to projects that “significantly impact the lives of women and children because of Christ’s love” and on “projects that implement significant change toward alleviating profound human suffering that the Millennium Development Goals address.”

The Ark Soup Kitchen at Trinity Church has been in existence since 1995, when a group called the Servant Circle began a Saturday lunch program for the poor, homeless and those in special need in our city. The first lunch served some 30 guests, and over the years, the Ark Soup Kitchen has grown to average 60-80 meals each week.

The weekly meal serves a cross-section of people who live in and around downtown “single room occupancy hotel” residents, those with chronic addiction and/or mental health issues, and a considerable number of the working poor and their family members, who just do not have enough money to get by each month.

The Ark Soup Kitchen is held in the parish hall of Trinity, Easton. Over the years the Ark has become a community. It is a social outlet as much as a place to eat and many of our guests look out for each other here. Our newly enlarged space and kitchen facility will provide more room both for preparing food, and for relieving the very cramped seating by adding 18-24 additional seats to our hall. It will also allow us to offer improved space to the 12-Step groups that rely on our space on a regular basis – and will allow us to offer ministry in new and creative ways.

The kitchen equipment that the grant will make possible include a new exhaust hood and fire suppression system, a new stove and double oven, a convection oven & warmer, a commercial dishwasher, freezer and refrigerator, and a double sink for pot-washing. The commercial grade kitchen will both be easier to clean and care for. It will also allow groups that volunteer to staff the Ark Soup Kitchen, as well as other ministries and parish functions, to serve meals cooked on the premises instead of simply warming food prepared elsewhere.

The kitchen area is expected to open sometime between mid-June and early July with a grand opening celebration and dedication planned for early September.