About Our Worship

Visitors to Trinity are welcome at all of our services and will find several kinds in a typical week:

Eucharist

We share communion together every Sunday. “Eucharist,” which means “thanksgiving,” is our name for this service; other Christians may call it “Mass,” the “Lord’s Supper,” “Communion” or the “Divine Liturgy.” A eucharist includes readings from the Bible, a sermon, prayers, and communion. Children are welcome to receive. Year round, our first service on Sunday morning does not include music; the later eucharists on this day do.

September through May we also offer a eucharist during the week, on most Wednesday evenings. It does not include music and has a short sermon.

Healing Prayer

The Bible teaches us to pray for healing: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Our Wednesday evening eucharist and our Taizé prayer services include an opportunity to come forward to our communion rail for this kind of prayer, with the details of your prayer request shared confidentially between you and the priest. When offering this prayer, the priest will put their hands on top of your head and pray in a soft voice so that others may not overhear. Healing prayer also includes an opportunity to be anointed (marked on your forehead) with healing oil, blessed by our bishop for this special purpose.

Morning Prayer

We encourage all to make space for prayer in their daily lives. Prayer can take many, many forms; one of the prayer practices that our church offers is the “daily office,” short services of written prayers and scripture readings that are designed to be read, silently or aloud, by individuals or groups. We offer the communal “Morning Prayer” version of this on Tuesday mornings from September through May, including a hymn.

Taizé prayer

The community of Taizé in France (www.taize.fr) has created a distinctive form of group prayer, combining meditative chants, short Bible readings and prayers, candles, and a time of silence. Taizé receives thousands of visitors each week and so their chants are designed to be picked up quickly by newcomers to their services, and written in a variety of languages. Many experience this type of prayer as peaceful and calming.

We offer a version of the Taizé prayer service on occasional Wednesday evenings from September through May and more frequently during the season of Lent. Check our calendar to find out when the next one is scheduled.

Special Services

Our worship also includes a variety of special services during the year, tied to the church calendar (Holy Week, Ash Wednesday, Epiphany, and more), events in our common lives (for example a prayer service for national elections or in response to a community tragedy), a change of scene (an outdoor Sunday service in summer) or other occasions. These special times of worship often contain many elements of the services listed above, and some that may be unique to that event. Check our calendar to find out when the next one may be.

Our priests are always willing to discuss and answer questions about our worship.