Trinity’s Vision: Joyful gatherings of a community that cares about members’ lives, finds ways for all to be involved, and expresses gratitude for that work.
Ideas that guide us:
- Faith is a journey, not a line to be crossed, and we welcome you at any point in your journey.
- The saving work of Christ is for all people – whether within our walls or without.
- Trinity is a place for people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, abilities, political beliefs, and marital/family status.
- We foster community by spending time, eating, worshiping, and working together.
- The gifts, insights, and interests of our individual members constitute our community’s authority, trusting that “Where two or three are gathered…”, the Spirit of Christ is present with us.
- The stability of our Anglican tradition informs and inspires us.
- Our thoughtful words and actions make God’s goodness more real in our families and communities.
- We choose gratitude as a way of life, recognizing that all good gifts come from God.
- We freely offer our effort and our work enthusiastically, unselfconsciously, and fearlessly for the sake of God and others. We welcome loud mistakes!
Trinity Episcopal Church of Escondido has space for everyone in all stages of life from infants and preschoolers to senior citizens. We are an inter-generational community and value learning from each other.
Who Needs the Church?
Church life–is it a good thing? Many of us can tell stories of unholy encounters: misunderstandings, even ridicule and abuse by supposedly devout church leaders. Simplistic answers and boring ritual, hypocritical decisions and vicious arguments, the list goes on and on. Add to our personal experience what we know from history and the question becomes very real:
Given the Church’s track record, do we really need this institution in our lives?
The Church, flawed as it has always been, is the Community of the Holy Spirit, the heir to Jesus’ command to his apostles: Go and tell all that you have seen. Thousands of years separate us from the stories of our faith. How else would we even know about Jesus? At its best, the Church throughout the ages has worked to bring the light of salvation: giving the Good News of freedom and hope to all people. Much of what we would call progress in thought and civilization we owe to that message.
Still, hasn’t humanity outgrown the need for Church?
Jesus observed that a branch cut off from the vine soon withers and dies. Christians cut off from one another do the same. Alone, it is easy to be discouraged, thinking that God has abandoned you, that you and you alone are suffering undeserved and unexplained hardships. Alone it is also easy to become complacent, looking for the easiest and most comfortable way to live. Forgetting that the spiritual journey is never just “God and me” alone, gradually we begin to mistake our desires and needs for God’s desires. Alone, we become our own God.
Membership in the church connects us with a bigger picture. Even great heroes are heroes not because of what they did alone, but for what they inspired and led others to do. Connected with the worldwide body of believers, we can make a difference in places we will never go, and for people we will never meet. United in worship with this whole body, we gain confidence in our faith and hope as we catch a glimpse the enormous span of God’s plan of salvation and the great depth of his love.
Love one another, Jesus said. No doubt he recognized how difficult that command could be. It is in learning to love those who are so different from ourselves, with different opinions and styles, and yet sharing the same common faith, that the rubber hits the road in
Christian living.
Membership in the church gets us ready for our future. In the Bible, Heaven is envisioned as a city, as a party and banquet, as a wedding feast. We are meant for eternal community. We might as well start meeting some of the folks we might spend eternity with!
Trinity will not be a perfect community, only a community of purpose, faith, and growth, made up of people becoming who they are meant to be. Welcome to the adventure!