State of the Parish Address
Trinity Parish of Seattle
February 5, 2023
Typically the State of the Parish Address happens on the same Sunday as the Annual Meeting. When we held our Annual Meeting last Sunday, I was in the middle of a pernicious and humbling non-COVID virus. With gratitude for healing rest and your patience, I have had another week to reflect on Trinity’s life and ministry in 2022 and look ahead into 2023.
Dear People of God, congregation of Trinity Parish, my siblings in Christ,
Greetings in the name of the one, holy, and indivisible God. I give thanks for you every day, and for the gift and privilege of proclaiming the Good News of God’s love with you.
This past Thursday, February 2, was a celebration that often passes unnoticed in the church year. Candlemas, the Festival of Light, marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. It celebrates that God continues to bless us with light with every sunrise, with the possibility of life and growth every morning. In the Northern Hemisphere church, the celebration of returning light takes the form of blessing all the candles that would be used in church that year. Individual congregation members made and brought their own candles from home to be blessed. During the service, the church was bright with lots of candles. At the end of the service, people would process home with lit candles, carrying the holy light of community and faith to their homes and daily lives.
It’s a powerful image. A brilliant mass of light exiting the church and slowly moving out into the world, shining beacons of hope and blessing.
Today’s gospel reading follows immediately after the Beatitudes. Jesus tells the gathered crowd, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others.” (Matthew 5:14-16a)
He has just taught about the blessings of a life that intentionally does justice, loves kindness, and walks humbly with God. A life, like his, that radiates God’s love and invites all people to hope, reconciliation, and fullness of life. Jesus, the light of the world, shares his light with us, blessing us and sending us to carry that holy light into the world today.
A single holy candle or flame is good by itself. It casts a warm glow and illumination to those nearby. It invites people to draw near.
Lots of holy lights, like when we light ALL the candles on the altar during Epiphany - Many holy lights together are brighter, more noticeable, exponentially more inviting, more powerful, harder to hide or ignore. By God’s grace, our light is growing and will continue getting brighter.
[Pause]
As we begin 2023, we are at a dramatically different place than we were a year ago. Last year’s State of the Parish was given during a service that had 5 people at it because we were worshiping remotely during the omicron surge in January. Today we gather in person, welcoming congregations at two services to worship, masked or not, sitting close or not, with a full choir and livestream option at 10:30AM.
A year ago we had an average of 30 people in church on a Sunday. In 2022, our average was 56 people on a Sunday. In the first month of this year our average Sunday attendance is closer to 67. We are slowly and steadily drawing more people to the light. I find it incredibly exciting and hopeful that we welcome visitors and seekers every single Sunday.
Last year’s Annual Address was still very much from the perspective of being IN the pandemic. Today it feels like we are figuring out ways to live and thrive AFTER the pandemic by integrating what we learned in the past three years.
What a difference a year makes!
Let’s take a moment to reflect on a few bright points from 2022.
First, worship. Worship is the heart of our community life. It affirms our vital relationships with God and with one another. It feeds and strengthens us, and reminds us that we have good news to share with the world.
Worship just got better and better in 2022. After beginning the year livestreaming for a few weeks post-Christmas, we returned to in-person worship and reinstated the 8:00AM service at the end of February, just in time for Lent. Over the course of the year, we heard the choir increase from a single cantor, to quartets, to the full ensemble. In Advent, the 8:00AM congregation began sitting in the quire and celebrating at the high altar - and now they don’t want to do anything else.
We continue to livestream the 10:30AM service every Sunday, making it possible for people to join us when they are sick or traveling or live far away. The brightness of our digital light owes great thanks to the keen attention of Cami who volunteered to run the livestream when Markdavin needed to be fully present with the choir during worship. Thank you, Cami!
Second, we combined and intensified our lights by articulating our shared values. At the Day of Discovery in June, we named Trinity’s deep values of Diversity and Inclusion, Community, Engaging our Neighbors, and Sacred Place, Holy Space. Rooted in our history as a congregation, these values affirm who we are today and the light we aspire to shine as God’s people.
The Vestry and I used these values plus information gathered at Cottage Meetings in the summer to inform our separate discernment processes about a Rector call. In September, I was honored to accept the Vestry’s invitation to be Trinity’s 12th Rector.
The Vestry’s strong and faithful leadership is the third bright point of the year. Tending the physical health of our community, discerning with a dispersed congregation, setting direction for renewing our life together, and the tension of stressed finances created many extra vestry meetings this year for a smaller than usual leadership group. With your prayerful support, the Vestry combined their lights, their passions and love for Trinity, to shine as leaders and stewards of our community this year.
And, fourth, Reinvigorating Fellowship. Recognizing that we have many needs and desires as we re-build ministries AND we have limited resources, the Vestry identified an overall priority for Reinvigorating Fellowship by developing a strong Christmas, Coffee Hour, Adult Formation, and ministries with Children. These focus areas will carry through June 2023.
Just naming these bright lights in our life this past year draws them together and we collectively shine brighter. Let’s take a moment to bask in the glow of God’s grace and goodness that brought us through 2022.
[Pause]
Speaking of shining brightly, do you know what an amazing staff we have? We gathered together last spring for our first in-person team-building, and we discovered that every one of us has creative passions. Among us we have four accomplished musicians, a photographer, multiple people who are creative with words and images, and a screenwriter and director. While our job titles may not reflect all of who we are or the fullness of our passions for light and life, I am blessed and grateful to work with this team who love Trinity, its people, its values, and its building. When you next see our administrator Kristy, music director Sister Jo, choral director Markdavin, sexton Eric or assistant sexton David, please thank them for their ministry.
[Pause]
As we shift gears and focus our light on the year ahead, it is clear that our collective light is still re-gaining strength after the pandemic.
The assumptions of our world, the economy, Seattle and First Hill, how people engage with church and the role of churches in the social fabric have all shifted in the past three years. Trinity has been part of Seattle for 158 years. So that our light continues to burn brightly for another 158 years (and hopefully more), this year will be a time to pause, listen and learn, with one another and our neighbors, about how and where the light of love and hope is needed, where and how we can be that light of mercy and justice in the world post-pandemic. Finding our place in the world post-pandemic, asking what it means to be church in this new world, will prepare us to shine even brighter as Trinity Parish, the beacon of God’s love on Seattle’s First Hill.
Shining a first light on our resources reveals that Trinity is not immune to the economic realities of the larger society in which we live. Our finances are still recovering from two plus years of expenses for buildings, utilities, and staff that stayed static, and even grew a little with inflation, while attendance and giving dipped. We finished 2022 with a $157K budget shortfall.
A shortfall that will require a significant withdrawal from the endowment. Trinity’s endowment is a beautiful gift of past generations - and every time the Vestry decides to withdraw principle from it, we shorten its future reliability for ensuring Trinity’s ministry. For now our endowment is healthy and well-managed as a long-term investment which we hope will continue to grow as the stock market regains strength.
Rebuilding post-pandemic will not happen overnight, as we are also adjusting to ministry and life in a new world. Trinity will draw our lights together, as we have for more than 150 years, to faithfully ask how God is inviting us to let our light shine now.
As we look into 2023, we have a bright future to celebrate. We ARE the light of the world, and our light is growing in strength. The more we let our light shine, the more people will see it and be attracted to the love and hope we carry to the world.
With 57 pledges for just under $200K as of this morning, we are about 80% of the way to our budgeted pledge goal.
More exciting to me than money, we have a full vestry this year for the first time since pre-pandemic. Thanks to Noel, Richard, Renwick, Betsy, Hillary, Lauren, and Sally for offering their passions and energy for this year. I am excited to get to know this group, and for the ministry of listening and learning we will share this year. We will bless and commission the Vestry in worship on Sunday, February 26.
Ministry groups are organizing and reviving after having their flames very diffused for nearly 3 years. We are looking forward to more Adult Forum programs, more ways to volunteer together and connect with our neighbors, more ways to support one another this year. If you have passions, light to share, please speak up. Give me a call or send me an email. You never know where your light could join with another to attract more love and joy.
Last month, I celebrated my 16th anniversary as a priest. When I was ordained on that cold January night, I never imagined it would take this long to become a rector. I am reminded that, when we think we know the way forward, the Holy Spirit always has other ideas for us. No matter how we plan, humbling ourselves before God means the path is never as brightly lit as we hope. And, yet, no part of our lives is wasted because God is always working in and through us. I believe this is true personally and institutionally.
All those other experiences in life and ministry were preparing me to come home to the right place to be a rector with you. Thank you, Trinity, for calling me to walk with you for this next part of the journey - mine, and yours, and ours together.
I am humbled by the call, by the holy possibilities of living our faith, by the strength of this community, and - always - by the grace of God.
We are starting this year with a party of gratitude for God’s faithfulness to us. On Tuesday, February 28 at 6:30PM, Bishop Melissa Skelton joins us for a Celebration of New and Mutual Ministry, blessing our relationship as Parish and Rector. Mark your calendars and plan to come for a joyful and festive service followed by a party. I hear there may even be dancing!
Beloveds, we ARE the light of the world.
I am so grateful to be here with you, all the lights of the world on the corner of 8th and James. This year, together, with faith and courage, we will learn about this new world we are living in and how OUR light can bring a flash of holy welcome and joy to our neighbors, drawing all into the reflection of God’s light and love.
This comes with my love and prayers, Sabeth+
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