Wednesday 11am: Bible Study

Wednesday 4:30pm: Children’s Choir Rehearsal

Wednesday 7pm: Bible Study

Wednesday 7pm: 11:15am Choir Rehearsal

Thursday 5:30pm: Contemplative Prayer 

Thursday 7:30pm: 9am Choir Rehearsal

Thrift Shop: Monday 10am-Noon, Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-1pm

Our word of the week from The Episcopal Church glossary is Great Fifty Days. Easter is a day, and a season, also called Eastertide or the Great Fifty Days. During this season, we follow a traditional Anglican practice of omitting the confession from many of our liturgies, and we also add “alleluia” to the opening acclamation and the dismissal. 

Due to this Sunday’s Children’s Choir rehearsal and the Arts & Crafts Fair (see below), Sunday School classes for children and adults are going to be on break for an extra week. We’ll be back on May 5th! Sorry for the late notice of the change in schedule.

We had just under 600 (579, to be precise) folks celebrate Easter with us this year here at Trinity Folsom, and I give my most sincere thanks to everyone who made it possible: the incomparable church staff, the magnificent choirs who surpassed themselves, acolytes, lectors, chalices, ushers, the folks who volunteered to be extra ushers when we needed them, folks who ran to the Parish Hall to get more chairs, everyone who hid helped hide Easter eggs, the nursery staff who had 9 babies in there at one point, everyone who scooted over and made room, and on and on. If you had your picture taken, it should be in your inbox; if not, check your junk mail/spam folder, and then e-mail me and I’ll look for it. Alleluia! Christ is risen! ~ Todd+

This Sunday is sometimes called “Low Sunday” because attendance tends to be down after the great festival the previous week. It’s a shame that folks skip out on this Sunday, because the lessons are excellent. And this Sunday at Trinity Folsom, Libby Vincent is preaching, and the Children’s Choir is singing at the 11:15am service, so it would be super sad to miss this Sunday. Of course, this Sunday is also the Historic Folsom Spring Arts & Crafts Fair; Sutter Street will be closed to vehicles, but Riley will be open. It doesn’t start until 9am, so 7:30am folks and 9am folks shouldn’t have any problems getting here and parking. Parking at 11:15am might be a little tight, but we’re going to cancel Sunday School so the 9am service parking should have totally cleared out. If you plan on arriving a bit earlier than usual, you might beat the Sutter Street event traffic, which doesn’t really pick up until around 11am; or come really early and walk down to Sutter Street to check out the vendors, and then come back to church at 11:15am!

On Friday, May 3rd, the Trinity Trekkers will be hitting familiar stomping grounds and exploring parts of the Willow Creek trail system near Folsom Lake College. Since it’s getting hot out, we’ll be meeting a little earlier than usual! If you would like to carpool, please meet at the church at 8:45am, or else meet us at the park’s entrance (202 Wellfleet Circle) at 9:00. Please bring water, sunscreen, and a hat. If you have any questions, contact Fr. Charlie.

Mark your calendars, the annual Parish Picnic is Sunday, May 5th, at 1pm. In the past, we’ve combined the picnic with church services, but this year, we’ll have services in the church that morning as usual and then head to the park for a barbecue, potluck, and games. We’ll be in the same park, Lake Park, as we were last year: 8693 Country Creek Dr, Orangevale. We’ll provide burgers, hot dogs, vegetarian options, and the fixings, and we’re asking you to bring side dishes and desserts. We’ll have a sign-up sheet in the Parish Hall this Sunday, or e-mail Barbara to let her know you’re coming and what you might bring. It’s super helpful if you sign-up on the sheet to let us know how many are coming and what you might bring, but even if you forget to sign-up, come anyway, we’ll have enough and we’ll be all the merrier for having you with us!

The theme for Trinity Folsom’s 2019 VBS is “Who Is My Neighbor?” and will be held July 22-26, from 9am until noon.

Online registration for children entering grades K-5 is available  here .

For the second year in a row, Trinity will be offering a full week of Vacation Bible School free-of-charge. The theme will be “Who is my neighbor?” and the program will help kids understand how to better love God and neighbor by learning about neighbors from all over the globe. Our time together will be filled with interactive storytelling, music, games, and creative art experiences. VBS is geared toward children in grades K-5, and there are lots of volunteer opportunities for adults, teens and older children. We will also have nursery care available for the parents of young children who would like to volunteer to help with VBS.

Sign-ups for adults, teens and older children interested in volunteering for VBS is available  here . The volunteer form lists many of the different ways you can support VBS: being a small group leader to shepherd groups of children as they rotate through daily activities, leading or assisting at a station such as crafts or games, bringing snacks, donating supplies, etc. Or let us know you are flexible and we will DEFINITELY find a role for you!



For more information or questions about VBS, contact  Karen Van Winkle  or  Fr. Charlie . 

Trinity Folsom’s very own postulant for Holy Orders, Libby Vincent, will be leading a retreat for women called “Fill Your Cup: Self Care as a Means of Loving God and Loving Your Neighbor” on Friday, May 3rd (6:30pm-9pm) and Saturday, May 4th (9am-4:30pm). The retreat is being offered at  Trinity Cathedral) in midtown Sacramento, but is open to all women. The event fee, $50, includes workshops, art supplies, and lunch on Saturday. If you would like to go, but the fee is an obstacle, talk to Fr. Todd, he has scholarships available. Register on Eventbrite or contact the Cathedral for more information. 

Good news! Last year’s Rise Against Hunger food-packaging event was so successful that we’ve scheduled another one for Friday, May 10th from 6-8pm! Rise Against Hunger collaborates with church communities to purchase, package, and ship nutrient-dense meals to people in need, with each meal costing only 29 cents. Trinity has purchased supplies for about 12,000 meals; so we'll need about 60 volunteers to measure out, assemble, and seal the meals in the Parish Hall. From there, the meals will be shipped to communities in need around the world, like school feeding programs, vocational training programs, orphanages, and medical clinics. 

To get an idea of what this event looks and feels like, check out this video.

If you have any questions, please talk to Fr. Charlie or check out Rise Against Hunger's website.

This is a cross-generational event and all ages are welcome to participate. If you'd like to sign up, please visit the following link. No need to donate, the money for this event is coming out of our outreach budget.

Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12th, and we’ll have our annual diaper and feminine hygiene product drive on that Sunday. Bring in diapers (any size!), tampons, and pads to help mothers in need. In the past, we have divided the donations between Twin Lakes Food Bank and the Folsom Cordova Community Partnership, which includes a registered diaper bank serving many mothers in the Sacramento area. Drop them off at Trinity House any day, or bring them to church with you on May 12th, and we’ll stack them in front of the altar as part of our offering that day.

A few of you have asked recently why the clergy bow their heads at the name of Jesus during certain parts of the liturgy. It’s a very old practice that has mostly fallen out of use except for among very traditional worshippers. The practice comes from an interpretation of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (chapter 2, verse 10), “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend;” in the Middle Ages, the Church taught that a bow of the head was an appropriate substitute for the bending of the knee, and so for centuries, when the name Jesus (not, however, at Christ, which is a title, not a name) was mentioned during the liturgy, the entire Church bowed their heads. It’s another way of honoring Jesus and making our bodies reflect the posture of our hearts. We usually do not bow at the name of Jesus during lessons or hymns, but some people do. We’ve put the Holy Name in italics in the bulletin if you would like to give it a try. Likewise, during the Nicene Creed, we bow more deeply during for the Incarnatus, the words italicized in the bulletin, to honor the Incarnation. You’re welcome to take up these practices, or not – as I said, it isn’t very common these days, and it is certainly not compulsory! But if you’re interested, try it out, and see if it helps to deepen your devotion. ~ Todd+

We were honored recently to receive a legacy gift from the estate of our dear Fran Russo, who died in February. Fran - who had not been a churchgoer for many decades - attended a funeral here, I think it was in 2012, and liked it so much that she decided to come back on a Sunday to see what else these peculiar Episcopalians were getting up to. She quickly became a fixture at the 11:15am service, joined the Altar Guild, and was confirmed by the bishop in 2014. When Fran became too ill to come to church, Fr. Charlie and I visited her and took her Communion, and when she was in the hospital and then moved to a nursing home, many of the folks she had met at the 11:15am service and through her work on the Altar Guild and in the Thrift Shop went to visit her, bringing her flowers and good cheer. Her beloved cat even found a new home with Louise, the director of the Altar Guild! A few weeks after her funeral, Fran’s sister came by Trinity House to tell us how much this community had meant to Fran, and she surprised us by giving us a check from Fran’s estate. Fran designated a portion of her estate as a bequest to the parish, as a thanksgiving for our companionship and as a legacy so that we could continue to grow and serve and welcome people just as she had been welcomed by us. It was such an honor to receive Fran’s gift, and what really pleased me about it is thinking about how Fran wanted the best for this parish even though she wouldn’t be around to enjoy it; that’s incredible love.

I hope that you will consider joining Fran and myself in remembering Trinity Folsom in your estate plans in some way. We have a policy of not using estate bequests for operating funds, and instead we add them to our endowment/trust fund (which is currently very small but which we hope to grow) or use them for a large capital project, like the proposed church expansion. We believe this way of using estate bequests honors the spirit at the core of this type of giving by creating a legacy for future generations here at Trinity Folsom. If you have any questions about remembering Trinity Folsom in your estate plans, please don’t hesitate to contact me to talk about it. ~ Todd+  

If you have a request to add to the parish prayer list, e-mail prayers@trinityfolsom.org. Prayer request will be kept confidential within the intercessory prayer group. If you’re interested in joining this prayer group, e-mail Fr. Charlie. 

Each Sunday, the flowers behind the altar are given to the glory of God, and in memory of the dead, or in thanksgiving for living loved ones, for answered prayers, or for life events like births, graduations, weddings, and anniversaries. The suggested donation is $50. If you’re wondering what happens to the flowers, they don’t go to waste! After the Sunday evening service, they are divided into smaller bouquets and taken to parishioners, and to non-parishioners in local nursing homes. You can donate altar flowers on the website.

Trinity Episcopal Church

 801 Figueroa Street

Folsom, CA 95630

(916) 985-2495 ~ www.trinityfolsom.org