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Welcome to Holy Trinity’s Website!
 A Message from our Minister:
I’ve spoken often with people who are quite keen to talk about Jesus and the spiritual life yet when I ask them why they don’t go to church they’ll often respond with something like, “Because I don’t want to get hit by lightning!” For some reason they feel that if they were to walk through the church doors God would strike them down.
I think it’s a shame that so many people look at God as a Zeus-like figure in the sky who rains down thunderbolts at all who fail to measure up to his standards. Sometime in their lives these folks were presented with a God who is quick to dole out death and judgment. Now while it’s true that our Scriptures contain some very violent stories (check out the book of Judges if you don’t believe me!), the Bible also tells us that God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.” (Psalm 103:8)
Jesus reminded his listeners of this as well when he declares that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” (John 3:16) This is the gospel message, the ‘good news’ that the followers of Jesus are to proclaim: God loves people before they get their act together. The truth is that we’re all messed up in some ways, we all sin and ‘fall short’ (Romans 3:23). But God loved us enough to send us Jesus to show us a better way - a way of love and forgiveness of sins. And Jesus proved that we don’t need to be perfect to follow him because among his closest followers were questionable characters: a traitor, a crooked tax-man, and a violent hot head!
Now I do think that when we experience God’s love are lives are changed. A son who commits an act of violence may be motivated to change after being forgiven by his victim; a woman who sleeps around suddenly finds faithfulness when she experiences true love. Love changes us. It changed the disciples and motivated them to spread Jesus’ message to the ends of their world.
Jesus invites us to come to him, just as we are, sins and all, and so we invite you to join us imperfect people at church. Sunday, September 27th is our ‘Back to Church Sunday’ – a day where we specially invite folks to join us ‘regulars’ in worship and friendship. It’s a great opportunity for you to come and check us out. We worship at 9 & 11 am – with Sunday school and special kids’ activities planned for after the 11am service. We hope to see you there, and don’t worry about the lightning, God’s love is the best kind of grounding we can have:
“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” (Ephesians 3:16-17)
~The Rev’d Stephen Blackmore
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