8:00 am Sunday Worship in Advent

During the season of Advent the 8:00 am service will be Morning Prayer with

Lectio Divina instead of a sermon. Lectio Divina is a guided meditation in Holy Scripture that seeks to help us connect prayerfully to where we are in this moment.

You are invited to journey through Advent with The Womb of Advent by The Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones. For each day of Advent, there is a mantra, Scripture reading, questions for reflection, and a spiritual exercise.

Beginning on Thursday December 1^st and each Thursday in Advent, you are invited to join a 7 am zoom call to share what has touched you and what has challenged you in your prayer and reflection over the past week. Additionally, you can join in discussion anytime you would like by going to trinityhartford.wordpress.com and adding a comment on the relevant post. In order to allow for relatively private and open sharing, the reflection posts will be password protected. To receive the password, please call Barbara at 860-527-8133 Ext. 204 or email her at office at trinityhartford dot org.

Copies of the book will be available after Church or may be picked up from the office by arrangement with Barbara.

Thursday Morning Zoom Information:

Meeting ID 88007395 3968 Passcode 996527

Call in phone number 929-436-2866

December 4^th ACF Forum:

Join us on December 4^th after the 10am service for an opportunity to learn more about how The Episcopal Church is organized and to discuss why that matters to our life together at Trinity. If you already have questions in mind that you would like addressed, please email them to Barbara (office at trinityhartford dot org) or call her at the office to submit them.

A tradition at Trinity Church is decorating the windowsills in our nave with manger scenes (also called creches or nativities). Before and during the season of Advent, we invite people to bring in manger scenes. You are welcome to loan or to donate creches. These may be old family pieces; they may be newly acquired. We are especially interested in a variety of ethnic heritages and/or national traditions and in various styles of art and design. Please consider adding your touch of color to our display as we celebrate the Incarnation of the Word in human flesh and family.

The Trinity Flower Guild has responsibility for seasonal decorations in the church. We are happy to receive gifts of nativity sets, which we will store and use again in following years. We also welcome the loan of manger scenes which you take back home after the Epiphany celebration. If you have questions please contact George Chien or Percy Williamson, Flower Guild Coordinators.

This Advent, we are continuing Trinity's tradition of a "Giving Tree" - a tree set up in the Sanctuary, loaded with tags that list wishes from students at Trinity Academy and children from the Adopt-A-Social Worker program of Covenant to Care.

Our tree is up, with tags for each of the children. Parishioners who wish to participate may chose a tag on this or a subsequent Sunday, purchase the item and place the gift under the tree by Sunday 12/11. We are committed to these children, and it is important that gifts be returned by this date so that they may be distributed.

We will be providing:

- $25 gift cards to either Target or Walmart for 18 students of Trinity Academy (Asylum Hill Congregational Church is providing gift cards for the other 18 students) and:

- Actual gifts as requested for 18 children through Covenant to Care.

With only 2 weeks to shop for and return the gifts, our elves will be busy! Please mark your calendars and plan to join in this festive event.

Questions? Please contact Ruth Rose or Penny Pearson.

The Holy Land Giving Tree will again be set up in Goodwin Hall (Coffee hour is back!).

The Outreach team will offer pictures of the needy children of the Diocese of Jerusalem, and festive olive wood ornaments for your own tree or as a gift. Your donations support the Ahli Hospital in Gaza where all people are in great need of medicine, electricity and everyday items. This is our international outreach to a place where our own religion began. Covid 19, as well as the usual unrest, has made this a very bad time for all who live in Gaza. Donations are sent to the hospital through the Diocese of Jerusalem. If you can’t make it to church, we ask that all checks be made out to AFEDJ (American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem) with Ahli Hospital in the memo and sent to the church office. All money is sent weekly, directly to the AFEDJ Center.

In addition there is an online Advent Calendar from AFEDJ with a dose of joy and hope in a daily email message available to anyone who signs up HERE (https://www.afedj.org/advent). “Each day offers a window into lives and ministries of today's Holy Land Christians ... through brief videos, interviews, photos, and prayers.” See what is happening in the Diocese of Jerusalem!

~~Eleanor Farjeon

Each year on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, after the 10 AM service, the Nave of Trinity Church is transformed from Advent Blue to a festal display of red, white, gold, and green. There are banners to be changed, wreathes and garlands to be hung, and much more. Many volunteer hands and hearts help this joyful work to go forward quickly.

Please plan on Sunday, the 18^th of December, to get your after-church coffee and refreshments and then join us in the Nave to prepare the space for the celebrations that will follow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

7:00 am                                (via Zoom)

5:00 pm                                 (Church)

5:00 pm                                 (Church)

7:00 pm                                (Church)

After the 10:00 am service   (Church)

5:00 pm                                Children and Family Service

9:30 pm                                 Choral Prelude

10:00 pm                               Christmas Eucharist (with use of incense)

10:00 am                               Christmas Morning Eucharist

The king who was coming is still coming.

This is full of mystery.

You know a mystery is hard to enter sometimes.

Sometimes people can walk right through a mystery and not even know it is there.

This time of year you will see people hurrying in the malls buying things and doing this and that.

They don’t know how to get ready or maybe they just forgot.

Beginning December 4 we will be taking a journey with the prophets, the Holy Family, the shepherds, the angels, the Magi and all the rest to make the journey that was not just back then. IT IS NOW.

Children of all ages are welcome into our Godly Play classroom each Sunday at 9:45 am and join the congregation about 10:40 am.

In order to facilitate taking advantage of the flexibility of our space, beginning Sunday, November 27^th, cushions will not be on the chairs. Instead, cushions will be available at each entrance of the Sanctuary.

Saheba Dadwall, the mom of Trinity’s Afghan refugee family, is an expert dressmaker and will soon open out of the family’s home a dressmaking shop!  This is a wonderful opportunity for Saheba to supplement the family’s income and to take pride in her excellent skills. The refugee resettlement team has collected for her a sewing machine and some basic sewing supplies, as well as a large table necessary for cutting fabric. At this time, the refugee resettlement committee is looking for the following items, either new or used, so long as, if used, they are in good condition:

ordinary ironing chores.

If you can help out with any of these items, please contact Anne Rapkin, anne dot rapkin at gmail dot com or 860-521-5992. Thank you so much in advance for your help.

Anne Rapkin,

for the Refugee Resettlement Team

Our work of following the way of Jesus by confronting white supremacy culture and anti-black bias in ourselves, our Church and broader community is a lifetime work. ECCT is delighted to share that Dr. Christena Cleveland will continue to support this Gospel work in 2023. Our theme will be Decolonizing the Body, a six-month journey, beginning and ending with retreats at Camp Washington in March and August, and interval evening meetings at Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford.

Please find more information here.

As we pray for Jacqui, we also ask that you prayerfully consider being screened as a potential kidney donor. For more information about living organ donation and to sign up to be screened, please visit nkr.org/SBB483. Please encourage your friends and family to consider donor screening.

To hear Jacqui talk about her illness and need for a transplant, watch this clip that has aired on local news.

7:00 A.M.

12:00 P.M.

6:00 P.M.

7:00 P.M.

9:00 A.M.

5:00 P.M.

Women Together (St. John's)

Choir School Rehearsal (Church)

Outside Work Day (Church / Grounds)

Voices of Concinnity Concert (Church)

All announcements should be submitted to Barbara Roos at office@trinityhartford.org by Wednesday 9am for publication that week. Announcements that are submitted late will be held until the following week’s edition.