A Parish Anchored at 91 Church Street

Trinity Episcopal Church sits at 91 Church Street in Seymour, Connecticut, a low colonial-style building that has looked out on the same town since it was enclosed in the late 1700s. Members greet visitors from the Welcome Center, neighbors stop by the parking lot pantry at any hour of the day or night, and on select Saturday evenings a small crowd gathers around a bonfire on the lawn. Trinity is a parish rooted in the Anglican tradition of the Book of Common Prayer that has also become one of the busiest food-relief sites in the lower Naugatuck Valley, a place where children's choirs, a healing service, and a free-standing 24-hour pantry share the same address.

From Union Church to Trinity, 1797 to Today

The first meeting of the Protestant Episcopal Society of Seymour was held on February 20, 1797, at the home of Dr. Samuel Sanford. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a new parish. On March 23, 1797, land for the church was purchased from Leverret Prichard for sixty dollars. By early spring the cornerstone had been laid by the Reverend Edward Blakeslee, assistant to Dr. Richard Mansfield, and before winter the building had been enclosed. Lack of funding delayed the interior for nearly two decades; the church was finally completed in 1816 and consecrated on September 2, 1817, under its original name, Union Church.

The first rector, Dr. Richard Mansfield, traveled on horseback between St. James Church in Derby and Union Church each Sunday. The original interior was fitted with slab benches and warmed by foot stoves; in 1859 Deacon Isaac Kinney gave a stove to the church, and at the same time the slabs were replaced by pews rented to individual families. A Jardine organ was installed in 1831, the Sunday school began in 1827 with classes held in the balcony, and a bell was placed in the steeple that same year. On Easter Sunday, 1853, the parish voted to change its name from Union Church to Trinity. A first altar was installed in 1867, and in 1891 the Honorable Carlos French gave a stained glass window in memory of his daughter Carlotta, a window that is still in place today. The parish continues to worship in the same building, with seating doubled and the interior refurbished over the generations.

Worship in Word, Song, and Firelight

Worship at Trinity follows the Book of Common Prayer, which guides the congregation through holy days, baptism, marriage, and funerals, as well as the regular Sunday rhythm. Scripture readings follow the three-year Lectionary, beginning each year with the first Sunday of Advent, and the parish is currently in Year A.

On Sundays the principal service is the Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:00 AM, a contemporary liturgy sung by the Altar Egos band and accompanied by children's programming. An earlier Holy Eucharist Rite I is offered at 8:00 AM in the traditional style of Anglican worship, with no music. The 10:00 AM service is livestreamed each week on YouTube, and Comcast Channel 10 rebroadcasts that same service the following week at 9:00 AM for those without home internet.

On the second and fourth Saturdays of each month at 7:00 PM, the parish gathers outside the front of Trinity for Bonfire Church. Lawn chairs and blankets appear, s'mores are passed around, and a Gospel story is told aloud the way the first followers of Jesus might have heard it - around a fire. The evening mixes story, prayer, and conversation. Healing Prayer is a quieter weekday gathering led by the rector on the second through fifth Fridays at noon, an intimate service of prayer and healing that includes the Eucharist.

The Altar Egos and an Austin Pipe Organ

Music at Trinity ranges from traditional hymnody on a two-manual 1955 Austin pipe organ to folk arrangements with acoustic instruments, modern praise music with electric guitars and percussion, and non-traditional ensembles drawn from many cultures and genres. The aim is to involve as many people of every age as possible, in whatever style speaks to them, and the Music Director invites new ideas from anyone who would like to help shape the worship experience.

The Altar Egos is the core band of instrumentalists and singers, a versatile group that gracefully moves between acoustic and electrified music with percussion during each service. They rehearse in the church on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM for the 10:00 service, sing during the service, and stay afterward to prepare for the following week. The Altar Egos sing from September through mid-June.

Jammin' for Jesus is the youth choir for children in first through eighth grade, a talented and energetic ensemble that sings regularly during the 10:00 AM service. Rehearsals, which include music games and activities, take place on Monday afternoons from 4:30 to 5:30 and follow the school year schedule. Jr. Jammers for Jesus is the choir for preschoolers and kindergartners, meeting on Tuesdays from 4:15 to 4:30 for singing, socializing, and experimenting with instruments, then joining the older group during the 10:00 service to share what they have learned. The director of music ministry is Sarah Hernandez, a Connecticut-certified music educator who joined the parish in January 2020 and who also leads the music at the Blessing Pantry Garden.

Kids of the Kingdom

Children's faith formation at Trinity does not look like a traditional classroom. The parish believes that Christian formation happens best when children are exposed to the life of the church through a variety of experiences and through active participation in the liturgy, so story, art, service, and play are mixed together, and when the weather permits God's creation outside becomes the classroom.

Each Sunday children ages three through eleven - pre-kindergarten through sixth grade - are invited to go on a biblical adventure with the Kids of the Kingdom leaders, learning Bible stories, doing crafts, playing games, helping the community, and learning how to pray. The programming is offered during the 10:00 AM service. On Parish Wide Youth Sundays, children and teens assume all of the traditional roles, including that of the presider, and the leadership ages have stretched from four to eighty-eight. The parish is direct about its conviction: children are not the future of the church, children are the church now.

The Blessing Pantry, Open Twenty-Four Hours

In 2020 the parishioners of Trinity Episcopal Church launched the Blessing Pantry, a free-standing shed in the parking lot that holds non-perishable food, baked goods, refrigerated items, and sometimes fresh vegetables. It is open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, with no sign-up, no appointment, and no qualification required to receive food. Because so many neighbors use the pantry, regular visitors are asked to take only what they need so there is enough to go around. Stocking happens twice a day at varying times, and the shed is painted dark brown to keep its contents out of the sun.

Twice each month, on Thursdays, the parish hall is opened for a Giveaway Day with a rotating theme - hygiene products, cleaning products, or frozen and fresh food. Patrons are invited to enjoy a light snack or lunch and to shop at the Second Stage, where Trinity Gives offers free clothing that has been collected by the parish. Pop-up giveaways happen whenever donations allow, with partners including the Seymour Oxford Food Bank, the Little Free Pantry on Skokorat, Team Inc./Bozzuto's, Gazy Brothers farm, and Massaro Community Farm. Updates appear on the Blessing Pantry Facebook and Instagram accounts at @theblessingpantry.

The pantry is supported by donations of non-perishable items placed in the bins along the driveway and ramp, by mailed checks to the church office, and by online giving, and by an army of volunteers who unload trucks, weigh donations, and stock the shed. Coordinators Debbie Engstrom and Cheryl Dainiak lead the effort.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Service to the wider community is described at Trinity as the very heart of who the parish is, and a long list of outreach ministries surrounds the Blessing Pantry.

Covenant to Care partners with a local Department of Children and Families social worker to support foster families, with an annual back-to-school backpack drive, ongoing diaper collection, a Christmas toy and mitten drive, and an Easter Egg Hunt and party for foster families that has become the highlight of the year. Laundry Love, sponsored with the Seymour/Oxford Clergy Association, sends volunteers to two local laundromats every other month or so to hand out quarters and start conversations. Callahan House Dinners brings a team of cooks, led by parish chef Jon Festa, to a low-income housing community about once a month for a gourmet meal and sometimes bingo, crafts, or an impromptu sing-along. Free Community Breakfasts, hosted twice a year, turn the parish hall into a dining room that is open to everyone. Free Frozen Meals was started during the pandemic and continues to distribute more than three hundred cooked meals to anyone who stops by on pickup days. Chapel on the Green is a partnership with Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, where several hundred homemade sandwiches are handed out after an informal outdoor service on Sunday afternoons. The Prayer Shawl Ministry knits shawls for those in need of comfort, and the Sunshine Ministry stays in touch with members who are homebound.

The Garden on the Hill

Directly across from the Seymour Town Library, on the open hilltop that is accessible from the church parking lot, twelve raised beds of organic soil grow green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, peppers, strawberries, herbs, and more. The Blessing Pantry Garden began in 2019 as a joint project with Valley United Way, and the garden is now coordinated through the Valley Community Gardens collective. Anyone is welcome to stop by and harvest whatever is ripe, and neighbors are invited to suggest what to plant next.

Garden Days run through the summer on Thursdays from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM, and the hill has become a small gathering place in its own right, with a view over downtown Seymour that draws walkers, readers, and a few quiet sitters between weeding sessions. Volunteers do not need experience or tools; they need only show up ready to dig in. Trinity notes that volunteering in the garden is also a good way for high-schoolers to earn community service hours.

Gathering Around the Bible

Two regular Bible study groups meet at Trinity. Getting to know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John gathers on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 6:30 PM in the Music Room for supper and conversation, with four sessions spent on each Gospel over a sixteen-week arc. The gatherings begin with a light meal and are open to everyone, regardless of Bible experience; if you have a Bible, bring it. Bible & Brew meets on the first and third Tuesdays at 6:45 PM in the Rector's Office, hosted by Seminarian Jude Morrissey. The format is relaxed - short readings, open discussion, practical takeaways - and welcomes anyone who has never opened a Bible or is just brushing off the dust.

Prayer Warriors is a confidential chain that responds to emergency prayer needs from the congregation and the wider community; one phone call or email activates the chain, and prayer requests are kept private.

Many Hands at the Altar

Most everyone at Trinity plays a role on Sunday. The liturgical ministers range in age from four to eighty-eight, and the parish offers training and on-the-job support for every role. Acolytes lead the procession and assist the clergy at the Table during the 10:00 AM Holy Eucharist, with new training each fall for both children and adults. Eucharistic Ministers administer the chalice and, when required, the bread, sharing in what the parish describes as the work of making one bread, one body. Lectors read the Old Testament and New Testament lessons and the Prayers of the People, carrying the ministry of proclaiming the story of salvation. The Altar Guild prepares the altar for Sunday and weekday services, caring for linens, hangings, and the colors of the liturgical season. Greeters and Ushers form a team of two for the 10:00 AM service, with an average commitment of slightly more than once per month; theirs is the first face to greet those who walk in and the last word of welcome before they leave.

Celebrating Who We Are

Each February during Black History Month, Trinity previews short video tributes during coffee hour to highlight the lives of significant Black Americans. Past series have honored the Reverend Absalom Jones, the first African American priest in the Episcopal Church; the freedom rider and first woman bishop Barbara Clementine Harris; Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician whose trajectory calculations helped put astronauts in space; Rosa Parks, the Tuskegee Airmen, B.B. King, Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, and Bill Russell; and Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. The parish has also observed Korean American Day with the story of Ahn Changho and his family, and Irish American Heritage Month with tributes to longtime Seymour residents Joyce and James Doyle.

The parish frames its purpose simply. As beloved children of God gathered in community, the people of Trinity are called to love God and their neighbor, to serve God and the greater world, and to give from the abundant resources with which they have been blessed. Called to love, they seek to be a beacon of God's love and to include all who come seeking God, no matter where they are on their life's journey. Called to serve, they aim to provide a foundation of faith for their children, a place of respite for their elders, and reach to the poor and needy in the world. Called to give, they remember that from those to whom much is given, much is required.

Planning a Visit

Sunday services are at 8:00 AM (Rite I, no music) and 10:00 AM (Rite II, with music and Kids of the Kingdom). The 10:00 AM service is livestreamed on YouTube and rebroadcast on Comcast Channel 10 the following week at 9:00 AM. Healing Prayer is offered on the second through fifth Fridays at noon in the Rector's Office, and Bonfire Church gathers on the second and fourth Saturdays at 7:00 PM on the front lawn. Office hours are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, and Wednesday and Friday by appointment. The building and the Blessing Pantry are at 91 Church Street, Seymour, Connecticut 06483, and the parish can be reached at 203-888-6596 or info@trinityseymourct.org. Parking is available in the church lot, and visitors are encouraged to come as they are.