From the Vicar...

We're growing - thanks to the Holy Spirit and you!

We have "closed the books" on our first six months of 2014 - and it is turning out to be a positive year for both of our congregations. At Trinity Church, our growth since a year ago has been nothing less than astounding: a 24% increase in average weekend attendance. But Christ Church is growing too, albeit more slowly (3%). And both churches are doing considerably better financially than they had been. Christ Church pledge receipts are within one percent of being "on target" after running well behind as of this time last year. At Trinity, pledges are actually ahead of schedule, with plate receipts over 10% ahead of projections.

Growing the church again after years of slow steady decline in membership, attendance and pledge support is a challenge facing not just our two churches but every mainline church.  For the Episcopal Church in the United States the decline has been a steady -3.3% per year in the key metrics.  For a small diocese like the Diocese of New Hampshire, dominated as it is by small congregations, the implications of this are profound.

Were this diocese to decline at the national average level, this diocese would have one-half the pledge units in 2020 that it had at the beginning of this new millennium in 2000.  Similar reductions in membership and average Sunday attendance would result in an existential threat to not only our vitality but our relevance in the larger community of faith.

But I believe the Holy Spirit is calling us to look at things differently. We seem to have "caught" the importance of following the Great Commission to go out there and make disciples - starting with our neighbors. This is not a message we customarily have heard very much in the Episcopal Church because we have not had a theological tradition of being evangelists.  But here at Trinity Church and Christ Church, we have worked hard at tackling church decline and listening for God to show us what we can do to change the typical narrative of decline.

Please allow me to express my thanks to each and every one of you who has taken a role in helping make this happen. We have a wonderful combined Bishop's Committee that has been doing incredibly energetic work - and our people have responded joyously to the call to be inviting and welcoming, not just when we were doing Come and See earlier this year, but in the months since.

With the Holy Spirit's aid, and your continued faithfulness, we can continue "bucking the trend" of the larger church - and opening the way for further vitality and growth.

Fr. Chip 

Our guest celebrant while Fr. Chip is away...

We welcome Fr. Bill Gannon July 26/27 and Aug. 2/3

We are delighted to welcome the Rev. Bill Gannon as our guest celebrant at both churches the last weekend in July and the first weekend in August. Fr. Bill was Trinity's interim prior to the establishment of our Shared Ministry, and is a familiar face to many at Christ Church as well. A retired priest from the Diocese of Newark (N.J.), Fr. Bill makes his home in Bedford and has been active in both supply and interim ministry since returning to his native New Hampshire several years ago.

Our Shared Ministry Cycle of Prayer

Each week, in both of our churches, we pray for one ministry we share and one or two households in each church. About once every six weeks, we will instead using the Shared Ministry Collect we prayed throughout the opening months of our Shared Ministry.

In our prayers the next two weeks, we give God thanks for...