Trinity Today

March 2016



Switching faith tradition -
part 1
By Adrian Peetoom

About 14 years ago Johanna and I joined Holy Saviour Anglican Church in Waterloo, ON. (The building had been donated by booze baron Seagram!) This after a lifetime of attending Reformed churches, first in the Netherlands, and then in Canada since the early 1950s. When we moved to Edmonton in 2005 we joined Holy Trinity, in many ways a parish like Holy Saviour. Beautiful building, classy choir, urban setting, a core group of dedicated people, a welcoming ambience. After 14 years of Anglican experience we have not regretted our decision, not one bit.

But, so I often ask myself these days, have I become a real Anglican? Is being an Anglican better than being Reformed? Should I write a lengthy letter to all my (still Reformed) relatives and friends, and explain to them why they, too, should make the switch? There are differences between the two.

For instance, The Anglican form of church organization is Episcopalian, top down. That is, the bishop rules a diocese, and appoints his/her delegates (priests) in individual parishes. When a bishop visits a parish, the bishop presides. By contrast, the Reformed form of government is Presbyterian, bottom up. That is, church is local. Adult members elect a council of elders (presbyters), and the elders secure a paid preacher. The wider church organization (denomination) is a voluntary banding together of local churches in regional and national bodies, for activities that go beyond local churches: missions, social action, disputes, doctrines, supervision of candidates for clergy positions. Question: is either form more right than the other?

Here is another clear difference between Anglicans and Reformed. The Reformed are big on conscience-binding creeds, grounded in the claim that Scripture clearly teaches their contents. The Reformed of our ilk had three Creeds, The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt. Open deviation from any letter or spirit of creedal statements was not tolerated, especially not for elders and ministers. It is true that the Anglicans have their (39) Articles of Religion (statements of faith contents), but the Anglican Communion prides itself for being an umbrella under which wide differences of faith views find shelter. It grounds ultimate faith authority not in creeds, but in Scripture as well as in the almost 2000 years of being church as represented in tradition and reason. Once again, is one way (creeds) better than the other (long historical experience)?

A third major difference is found in liturgy. For the Reformed, preaching towers over all other liturgical actions in worship services. When I was a kid Sunday services lasted about 75 minutes, and preaching would take at least 45 minutes of that time. Other liturgical elements (singing, prayer, confession and forgiveness, offering, even sacraments) were only present in sparse forms in my youth and beyond. For instance, Holy Communion was "celebrated" only once every three months, and the quotation marks around celebrated are my way of saying that it was a sombre and depressing event. Moreover, the minister was in sole charge, and actual pew participation was limited to singing. By contrast, Anglicans thrive on liturgy (ceremony, ritual), and give preaching a much less prominent place. In our current Anglican services of about 70 minutes, no more than 15 are devoted to sermons, usually, and we celebrate Eucharist almost every Sunday. Moreover, our bodies are very much involved. We sing, we say, we stand, we sit, we kneel, we walk, we give, we eat, we drink (and we regularly laugh!). Once more: is the one way (preaching primary) better than the other (liturgy akin to theatre)?

In April I want to consider answers to these questions. For now just this.

I live happily with an Anglican present and a Reformed past. Both are still alive in my faith experience. For instance, I don't mind sermons longer than 15 minutes, especially when they have been carefully prepared, with language that sings, human experience being illuminated by Scripture. And I still have positive childhood memories of quietly sitting in an evening service pew, letting pulpit doings wash over me, body and mind receptive to feeling part of God's people. Yet I highly value our HTAC worship services, most often full of life and energy, and oh so solemn when required (during Holy Week, for instance).

And I do hang on to some elements of my past. For instance, I cannot get myself to call Anglican male priests "father." (Our rector knows about this and smiled when I told him). A leftover of my childhood experience, when to be Reformed was also to be anti-Catholic, and Catholic called their clergy "father." Reformed folks would cite Matthew 23, 9: "And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven."

I also cannot get myself to contribute to the church's coffers by means of automatic bank deductions. I recognize the efficiency and efficacy of that procedure. Yet I keep using envelopes. While a child at least two little velvet bags would be passed along in each pew during offertory time,. The first gathered for parish budget needs. The second (usually) for the poor. I was taught that these were worship actions.  In one of the epistles alms giving is specifically mentioned as an essential part of worship. Automatic bank withdrawal doesn't seem to be the same to me. I stick to envelopes. 

These small matters aside, I still ask: are Anglican ways better than Reformed? More about that next month.
Songs Echoing at the Cross 
By David Arndt 


And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.

Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads...

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The events in the Gospel stories of Jesus' death on the cross are poignant, even visceral. Every year on Good Friday, the Church remembers, enacts, ponders and digests them, and we are called once again to allow God to shape and reshape us with the pattern of cross and resurrection at the core of our lives. It is also a time when we are reminded, through readings and reflection, of the connections between these stories and the story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. The stories of Jesus' suffering and crucifixion are peppered with references and allusions to the Hebrew Bible-all three of the passages quoted above, from the fifteenth chapter of Mark's Gospel, allude to Psalm 22 (verses 1, 7, and 18). What are we to make of this, and what are the Gospel writers trying to tell us by their use of Scripture in this way? The issue is important because, as we will see, it affects how we think about the connection between these central Christian stories and the larger biblical story of the Jewish people.

One very common understanding is that these Old Testament scriptures are prophetic predictions of the events of Jesus' crucifixion. On this view, the Roman soldiers' casting of lots for Jesus' garments, for instance, was foretold centuries beforehand by the author of the 22nd psalm-traditionally King David. The drink of vinegar offered to Jesus on the cross (as in Mark 15:36), which alludes to Psalm 69:21, could be understood in the same way. This view underlines that Jesus' death did not mean that he was a false Messiah-rather, it was part of God's plan of salvation that he had ordained long ago.

But there is another view worth considering, which I learned of while reading the works of Helmut Koester and John Dominic Crossan, two scholars of early Christianity. Their probing questions opened up for me a new way of seeing how the Gospel writers might be using the Hebrew Bible. These scholars asked how the stories of Jesus' death originated, and how they developed over time as they were retold. They asked: If the earliest creators of the crucifixion story meant to tell us that the events surrounding Jesus' death had been foretold centuries prior, why did they not try to make this clearer? When we look at what most scholars believe to be the earliest of the New Testament Gospels, the Gospel of Mark, we find allusions to the Old Testament, but no explicit citations, no attempt to point out, "Look at how this event was foretold in this psalm. Isn't that remarkable?"

True, we do find other Gospel writers doing this. Most notably, the Gospel of John goes out of its way to point out scriptural fulfillment, for example in John 19:24 where the casting of lots for Jesus' tunic is explicitly linked to Psalm 22:18. John is also unique in including an episode (19:31-37) in which the soldiers decide not to break Jesus' legs but pierce his side, which John explicitly says fulfilled two passages from the Hebrew Bible. But we need to be careful that we do not assume that one Gospel author's approach was necessarily the same as that of the other Gospel authors. The Church included four Gospels in the New Testament instead of one, after all, because it recognized that each Gospel gives us its own distinctive emphases and perspective. And when we consider that John was most likely the last of the New Testament Gospels to be written, perhaps two to three decades after Mark, we can see how the changed circumstances and additional time to reflect could have led to a different emphasis.

What then, of earlier, when we find Mark alluding to the scriptures but not making the same points about fulfillment as in John? If all we have are echoes of the Hebrew Bible, one might wonder whether there was any intent to make connections to it at all-wouldn't executioners normally gamble for the belongings of their victims, and we're simply told about it because it happened that way? This may initially seem plausible, but on the other hand, there are not just one but multiple links to Psalm 22 in Mark's account, and closer inspection reveals allusions to Old Testament scriptures all over the place in the stories of Jesus' crucifixion.

What Koester and Crossan contend, rather, is that the echoes are intentional, but they were originally meant to be a way of interpreting Jesus' death, of making a theological statement about it. The intent was not to show that Jesus' crucifixion was predicted beforehand, but to come to grips with what his death meant. And the intent was to assert that Jesus had not been rejected by God, despite events that seemed to show just that. Like any time when someone says a memorable line from a well-known song of hymn, the allusions to Psalms 22 and 69 would have evoked and brought to mind these psalms in their entirety. An ancient Jewish audience would recall how in each of them, the psalmist is someone who suffers unjustly, and is abandoned and mocked, and yet calls on God with all the strength he has left. The early Christians were affirming that, although Jesus had been abandoned and rejected by others, he had suffered innocently.

What is more, by evoking the psalms as they did, the early Christians were not limiting the psalms to Jesus alone. Countless Jews before had sung the same psalms as they hung on to faith in God in face of incredible hardship. They were recited as a way of affirming unity with past generations who had remained faithful through suffering, those who had endured exile, and those who two centuries prior had been persecuted and martyred when a foreign king had tried to wipe out Judaism in its homeland. By evoking these psalms in recounting Jesus' death, Jesus' early followers were in effect saying that Jesus had suffered in solidarity with Israel's righteous, faithful sufferers who had come before.

This is quite unlike the prediction-and-fulfillment model, in which the psalms are seen are referring to events in Jesus' life specifically. The danger in that approach is that we can lose sight of how Jesus' death is connected to the larger biblical story of God's redemption of Israel, and through this people, the whole world. Koester and Crossan underline their rejection of the prediction-and-fulfillment model by holding that the casting of lots, the vinegar drink, and so on, are not based on historical memory but are purely theological affirmation and interpretation, reasoning that the disciples had fled and could not have witnessed such details (though Jesus' crucifixion remains a historical certainty). This is a matter on which scholars disagree-to me, Koester's and Crossan's view seems plausible, though I can also imagine how there could be historical memory behind the details. But what is more important, I think, is how these scholars prompt us to think about what the Gospels are trying to convey about Jesus' suffering on the cross.

And this view need not mean that there is no hint of Jesus' uniqueness. Psalms 22 and 69 were traditionally ascribed to King David, the archetype of Israel's hoped-for Messiah, suggesting that Jesus' messianic status was also being affirmed. But then it is with the idea of Messiah reinterpreted-not the king who is militarily victorious, but the king who identifies with and endures suffering in solidarity with his downtrodden people. Here we have a connection to one of the central strands of the biblical story: God's creation of Israel to be a people with the distinct task-which often got off track-of being a people who would show other nations what a society looked like when it was devoted to God and committed to justice and the care of its vulnerable. But, for Jesus, establishing this people would not take the form of violent revolution against the Jewish people's Roman oppressors, but a non-violent resistance that, even when faced with suffering and death, discovered the power of God's life. The call to Israel to be a blessing to all nations was picked up by the early Church through being shaped by the pattern of death and resurrection, which their Messiah had shown them through his solidarity with the suffering of Israel's faithful.
When Scientists Reflect on their Walk With Jesus  

When members of the Society of Ordained Scientists gathered at CDSP earlier this month, it was to share how they traverse the worlds of faith and science, how those journeys shape their ministries, and how their ministries can influence their communities.
"Everyone in the Society, in some way, has had two careers, has held authority in science and the church," said the Rev. Lucas Mix, PhD, who is warden for the Society's North American Province. Mix, an adjunct faculty member at CDSP, received his MDiv from the seminary in 2007 and his PhD in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard in 2004. This year he is a research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is investigating astrobiology and society.
"All of us have this language that we have learned from being church geeks and science geeks," Mix said, "and there is something wonderful about being with people who speak your language. Being able to talk to each other allows us to put things in new ways."
In addition to Mix, attendees included CDSP President and Dean Mark Richardson and the Rev. Dr. Marilyn M. Cornwell (MDiv '06), rector of Church of the Ascension, Seattle. Both were presenters (download Dean Richardson's presentation), as was the Rev. Dr. Ted Peters, research professor emeritus in systematic theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Graduate Theological Union. Both Cornwell and Peters (from whom Mix took a seminary course in religion and science) were accepted as new members during the retreat.
Also attending was the Rev. Deacon Josephine "Phina" Borgeson (MDiv '74), the Rev. Robyn Arnold (MDiv '08), the Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran (DMin '09), and the Rev. Dr. Robert Russell, director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and professor of theology and Science at Graduate Theological Union.
Founded in 1987, the Society of Ordained Scientists has more than 100 members and holds a yearly retreat in the United Kingdom, where it was founded. Additionally, it meets every two years in the United States. This year's meeting was the first to be held at CDSP.
Most Society members serve in parishes, and according to its website, "[i]ntegrating science and theology, reason and faith is not just a work for scholars; it is something all of us have to do every day, as God calls us each in our own time and place."
Mix understands that call. "My work is largely labeled science and religion," he says. "There's also this question of synthesis; how do I bring my faith and my knowledge together? It's all about faith and understanding. I think it's a question of speaking about Jesus and speaking about science in the vernacular."
Presenter Marilyn Cornwell, a lifelong Episcopalian, said "The deep lessons of my scientific training prepared me well for the pilgrimage of faith as an ordained scientist."
Cornwell was a scientist with a PhD in biochemistry when she joined the faculty of a cancer research center and conducted research on how tumor cells become resistant to chemotherapy. She also had been asked by her church to be a link between spiritual care and health care for cancer patients she met through the church.
"I began to be a resource for Episcopalian and Anglican patients from all over the place coming to Seattle for bone marrow transplants," Cornwell said. "At the beginning I found it quite odd-I mean, although a person of faith, I was just a simple lab geek, a true science nerd; but I just kept getting these invitations to be a bridge for patients and families as they left their everyday lives and entered the bewildering world of high-tech health care."
Through those accumulating experiences, she felt her call. Cornwell went to seminary, completed her MDiv at CDSP in 2006 and was ordained in 2007. Now, as rector of Church of the Ascension in Seattle, she witnesses first-hand the value of the Society of Ordained Scientists.
"It provides support for its members who are in the forefront of providing resources and connections, and unfolding the link to science for people in the pews in the church, and people outside the church," Cornwell said. "At least the people in my parish, who are highly conversant and educated in the sciences, want to know how do we make sense of the stories of our faith, with galaxies being burst out like milkweed seeds (as seen on Hubble Space Telescope images)? How do we make sense of God and the fact that there is other life on other planets? How do we make sense of the Holy Spirit and a techno-cultural milieu dominated by data-driven science?
"People from the outside looking in need to know that the church isn't stuck in the 1400s in its ideas about the world. And people on the inside need to know how to live in relationship with what we call God in the context of their lives."
Deacon Phina Borgeson, who holds both an MDiv and a DD from CDSP, has attended all kinds of forums and conferences on science and faith. But the Society of Ordained Scientists offers something she hasn't found elsewhere.
"I really joined simply because I had been timed out of the (Episcopal) Church's Committee on Science, Technology and Faith," she said. "One of the things I really like about it is, it is not task-oriented like the committee was. I like that you see people that you might be going to a conference with, and you pray for one another daily. It's a different way of dealing with people."
She appreciates the camaraderie.
"There is a kind of loneliness, when you think about the number of people in science who are people of faith," she said. "This is a place where you can be out about your faith."
Borgeson, a Radcliffe graduate with a major in biology, teaches at the School for Deacons on the CDSP campus. She lives in Santa Rosa and recently retired from paid church work redeveloping small congregations.
She has a long history of ministry development and involvement in food system ethics. She was director of the Faith Network Project for the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, founder and lead organizer of the Sonoma Valley Gleaning Project, and for years served as Episcopal News Service's correspondent for science and the environment. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative in Sebastopol, California.
Borgeson said she hopes the Society of Ordained Scientists will become more influential in promoting the integration of science and theology.
"I think in seminaries today, there are opportunities," she said, "but sometimes what happens is the academic work is done by a small cadre of the faculty and it still hasn't touched the mainstream of the seminary or the church. How does it impact our preaching? How does it impact our hymnology?"
It can be difficult, she said, for scientists who enter seminary to focus on the convergence of science and faith because "if they moved from science to a career in a church, there's where their energy is going to go, to finding a church, finding a job."
CDSP makes the convergence much easier.
"With Mark (Richardson) being so squarely in the place of understanding that need and the movement, CDSP is in a better place to give any seminarian, whether they have an interest in science and faith, some exposure in the field."
During her years as a scientist and as a person of faith, Borgeson has seen a positive shift in the conversation.
"There are some issues today, particularly environmental issues," she said, "which are a lead-in to look at the dialog of the convergence of science and faith. The early years of church-based environmental activism tended to be romantic and elitist. It was a movement primarily among the privileged with an emphasis on preserving wilderness. Now food security and food sovereignty have made a sound connection between the plight of the world's poor struggle for survival and the environmental movement."
Why be concerned by the connection between faith and science? In her recent presentation to the Society, Cornwell summed it up this way.
A recently retired professor of New Testament who is a member of the parish asked me on Sunday, "How much science does the person in the pew need to know to live meaningful life? How much theology?" I don't have the answer to his questions.
I do believe that the answers to the questions at the intersection of science and faith matter. Why? Because people care.
You and I both know that most of the people in my parish could care less about the fact that the paired spins of electrons in orbit around the nucleus of an atom are energetically entangled, but they do care about how the very energy in and of the space between us connects us to one another and to what we call God.
Some of the people I encounter in parish life do care about the ethics of human cloning and they care more about hope of gene editing to cure diseases like muscular dystrophy and HIV.
Many care deeply about the connection between the science of climate change because they care about deep ecology of humankind and creation with the Divine. The answers to their questions about science and faith do matter to those who seek a deeper relationship with the Holy One.
 
Archives: 
Gift of Nave Windows (South)

Christ and the Children (right)
In memory of Isobel Wainwright Lister

Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock (right centre)

In memory of Edward and Charlotte Hinds and William James Melrose

The Epiphany (left centre)
In memory of W. Bailey C. and Violet A. G. Chamberlain

St. George and The Dragon (left)
In memory of those who gave their lives in the 2nd World War 1939 - 1945

Further information is available in "Holy Trinity Anglican Church 75 Years 1893 - 1968" and "The Stained Glass Windows of Holy Trinity Anglican Church 1983".

These books were used as references.

Ron Fishburne
Archives Committee






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Old Age Options
by Paul Crump, as performed at HTAC Open Stage 

It was the first Friday of February and just as he had for the last seven years, Lee Cheng decided to get a free flu shot at the local Shoppers Drug Mart on the following Monday.
 
Today however, as habit required, it was time to attend the Friday morning 'Breakfast Club'. At 59 Lee was the youngest member of the mostly 'over the hill gang'.  He settled into his seat, near the end of three tables that the waitresses had pushed together, probably no more than 10 minutes before the group arrived.

Lee recognized he was late, given that the conversation had moved beyond the usual, "What are your plans for today?" to "what do you think of the Netherlands' move to eliminate us old people?"
 
Realization of his possible end rose like a dank fog over a lonely marsh. He didn't expect to die surrounded by friends and family but he was planning on a peaceful passing, much like the way he lived, quietly and unobtrusively. Though he had little income he had been careful with it and had saved a sufficient amount that would allow him to live in comfort, to that end.
 
Ralph said that he'd heard on the 'news' that Quebec has passed a law that will allow it's Government to  remove the aged and all those whose "quality of life" is not on  par with what the 'law' would determine is the quality you should have! "Freedom 55" will end if you don't have sufficient savings to keep the Welfare of the State agents from your door.                                                                         

Lee began to calculate whether he would have enough put aside by the time he reached 70.  Could he live without OAS and the Government Income Subsidy? Would the receiving of those be considered a 'marker' against a 'quality of life'?  He was beginning to wonder if he should move back to China; although born in Hong Kong he hadn't been there for almost 43 years but he still had family connections and family looked after family, it was the Chinese way.
 
He spoke, he seldom does but today he did "that couldn't happen, it's against the law, its wrong!" The usual pessimists and coffee hour philosophers weighed in at this point stating that while it was wrong now and yes it was against the law, the laws can be changed, what was against the law will become the new directive; the marketing people will ramp up an advertising campaign to show the value to society of eliminating overriding 'costs' that are preventing our great province from truly competing in the economic re-birth of our nation! Believe me Lee, you won't be able to stand against it.
 
Lee rose from the table, zipped his coat and headed over to Safeway's, today he'd buy a couple of bags of groceries, the balance of his AISH cheque was in his pocket, his rent was paid. The day cool and sunny, not at all like his mood. He changed his mind about getting the 'flu shot'; what was the point; things could end up the way the guys had said, they really could.

Tuesday Taize & Potluck 

Tuesday evenings during the season of Lent

Beginning February 16th and concluding on March 22nd


6:00pm: Service
6:30pm: Potluck and presentation on pilgrimage

If you would like to help as a volunteer musician, please talk to Rev. Heather
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HTAC Open Stage Night 

Friday, March 4th, 7:30 to 10:30pm. We welcome all to join us for a night of music and spoken word! 

Questions? Talk to Phil Bisaillon or check out our Facebook page


Da Camera Singers Concert  

Brahams - Ein Deutches Requiem
 
Sunday, March 6, 2016 - 3:00 pm

Tickets $18/$13 in advance or $20/$15 at the door

Available at Eventbrite.ca or at the door
 
A concert featuring Brahms' own piano duet accompaniment, featuring Kim Cousineau and Leanne Regher, pianists.

Part of the Holy Trinity Concert Series. 

Script Salon: A Monthly Play Reading Series By Members of the Playwrights Guild of Canada

SCRIPT SALON showcases some of the most talented theatre writers in the region with new plays ripe for production read by professional actors in the elegant setting of Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Presented the first Sunday of every month with a different play by a different playwright featured every time, SCRIPT SALON is a bounteous buffet of sizzling comedy, drama, romance and adventure forged by the power of imagination.

The First Sunday of Every Month at 7:30PM
Holy Trinity Anglican Church 10037 84 Avenue, Edmonton
Free Admission (Donations Accepted) - Refreshments - Playwright Talk Back

March 6: THE MOMMY MONOLOGUES, Beth Graham, Andrea House, Katherine Koller, Annette Loiselle, Conni Massing, Nicole Moeller, Meiko Ouchi, Dana Rayment, Glenda Sterling, Michele Vance Hehlr, Cat Walsh 
11 women playwrights bring their own unique views of the world's oldest vocation.
April 3: ALL THE LITTLE ANIMALS I HAVE EATEN, Karen Hines 
(part of the Equity in Theatre reading series)
Scenes for women inspired by cults of art, personality, real estate and small vertebrates. 
May 1: ORAL FIXATIONS, Blaine Newton and Leslie Greenwood 
A vivid exploration of people's capacity to express their feelings through food. 
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Mucking About 

Playful Art or Artful Play, this expressive arts workshop is an exploration of the interconnectedness of creativity. A free, three-hour facilitated workshop emphasizes a low skills/high sensitivity approach: in other words, the less you know about art, the better! Give yourself permission to muck about in text, in paint, in sound and in clay.

Saturday, March 12th1 pm until 4pm

Holy Trinity Upper Arts Space. Register at the church office: [email protected] or call 780-433-5530. Workshop is capped at 14. Mucking About is a no cell phone zone. All materials provided. Funded by REACH.
Thursday Morning Formation Group

Beginning on March 10th at 10:30am, the Thursday morning formation group will be reading and discussing the book 
"Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life" by Fr. Richard Rohr. In this book, Fr. Rohr helps us to understand the tasks of the two halves of life and teaches us that those who have failed, or gone down, are the only ones who can really understand "up." Those who have somehow fallen, and fallen well, are the only ones who can grow spiritually and not misuse "up." What looks like falling down can largely be experienced as "falling upward!" Books are available at the office for $17, or feel free to purchase or borrow your own copy. Any questions? Please talk to Fr. Chris for more info.
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Pub Theology: Figuring it out. 

Join us for Pub Theology! All sessions are from 7:00 to 9:00pm at The Pourhouse Bier Bistro (10354 Whyte Ave.). Please note the location change. 

Upcoming sessions:

March 17: Extremism and Religious Plurality 
April 21: Authenticity in a made to order world
May 19: Hipsters and God  

More info? Please contact Rev. Heather
 
We'll be there every other Thursday too. Bring your questions and look for someone in a collar.

Holy Week Services

An Invitation To Walk With Christ
 

Please join with us as we seek to celebrate God's love, to enjoy fellowship together, and to be reminded that God's love in Christ makes all the difference.
                                                                  
Wednesday, March 23
, Tenebrae
6:00 p.m. - Tenebrae (Latin for "shadows" or "darkness") is a meditative liturgy of preparation and reflection in the midst of Holy Week. 
 
Thursday, March 24, Maundy Thursday
6:00 p.m. - Join us for an agape meal in the Lower Hall, followed by a Maundy Thursday Eucharist service with foot washing.
 
Friday, March 25, Good Friday
10:00 a.m. - Good Friday Children's Walk
Kid's of all ages are welcome to gather for our annual stations of the cross walk at Holy Trinity. 
12:00 noon - Good Friday solemn liturgy service.
 
Saturday, March 26, Easter Vigil
8:00 p.m. - Come and celebrate the night when Jesus broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave! This service begins outside with the Service of Light, and ends inside with the Holy Eucharist and administration of Easter Communion. 
 
Sunday, March 27, Easter Sunday
8:30 a.m. - An Easter Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer, celebrated with the Holy Trinity choir and instrumental ensemble.
10:30 a.m. - An Easter Eucharist from the Book of Alternative Services, celebrated with the Holy Trinity choir and instrumental ensemble.
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Messy Easter

Join us for a Messy Easter!  
 
Saturday, April 2nd from 
10am to 1pm in the Lower Hall

Come for fun, crafts, songs, games, 
and food!

Please RSVP to Rev. Heather: [email protected] or 780-433-5530. 


Messy Fiesta


Want to learn more about Messy Church? Come to the Messy Fiesta! 

Saturday, April 9th, 10am to 3pm in the Holy Trinity Lower Hall
Messy Church aims to create the opportunity for adults and children to enjoy expressing their creativity, to gather together for a meal, to experience worship and to have fun within a church context.
You will have an opportunity to experience what Messy Church can offer your church. The session will allow you to experience a Messy Church, to brainstorm around your own Messy Church, to gather resources, and to explore the history of this innovative way of being church in a changing world. You will take away knowledge, skills and materials to help you get started. For participants who have already started a Messy Church, we will share ideas and network, facilitated by seasoned Messy Church practitioners. 
Presenters: Sue and Andy Kalbfleisch (Messy Church Canada Team Leaders and Practitioners) 
To find out more about Messy Church, visit the website where it all started. Look for the video!
The cost (includes lunch, crafts, handouts and a fun day) is $25/person. Please contact Rev. Heather or the church office for a registration form. Please register no later than April 1st as we want to have enough food for everyone. See you there! 
Upcoming Events & Services: 

It's never too early to plan ahead, so get out your calendars and mark in these services and events: 
  • March 4th - HTAC Open Stage, 7:30pm
  • March 6th - Concert Series, Da Camera Singers, 3pm
  • March 6th - Script Salon, 7:30pm
  • March 8th - Taize and Potluck, 6pm
  • March 12th - Mucking About, 1pm
  • March 15th - Taize and Potluck, 6pm
  • March 17th - Pub Theology, 7pm
  • March 22nd - Taize and Potluck, 6pm
  • March 23rd - Tenebrae, 6pm
  • March 24th - Maundy Thursday, 6pm
  • March 25th - Good Friday Children's Walk, 10am
  • March 25th - Solemn Liturgy, 12pm
  • March 26th - Easter Vigil, 8pm
  • March 27th - Easter Sunday, 8:30am and 10:30am
  • April 1st - HTAC Open Stage, 7:30pm
  • April 2nd - Messy Easter, 10am
  • April 3rd - Script Salon, 7:30pm
  • April 9th - Messy Fiesta, 10am
 
Contact Information:

Holy Trinity Anglican Church

10037 84 Avenue Edmonton, AB T6E 2G6

phone:780-433-5530

Email: [email protected]

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