Commentary – Trinity Episcopal Cathedral

The Commentary

Dear Ones,

I pray you are well and staying cool as the temperatures start creeping up. I write today with an outline of our plan for the coming month as we get our air conditioning unit repaired for the property. This is a fair amount of data, so I thank you in advance for reading!

To start, the good news: we anticipate the replacement cooling tower unit install being completed by May 24, 2024. In bad news, it would cost over $25,000 to have temporary A/C brought into the property for the month of May. So instead of undertaking that expense on top of the half-million dollars we need for the actual project, we will muscle through this warmer season together. It’s only about 4 weeks and the best part is that the coolest part of the whole property is the Cathedral itself! Alleluia!

Knowing this and wanting to keep our staff and parishioners safe, here is how we will proceed:

SUNDAY WORSHIP

On Sunday, May 5, we will return to the old-school practice of moving to summer service times:
9 a.m. in English
11 a.m. in Spanish
Sunday School during both services will be held in the upstairs conference room where there is A/C.

We will not use the accessibility door at the front of the Nave. Please see an usher in the Olney Gallery who will guide you through the hall to the chancel door. This will keep the church much cooler. If you enter through the Great Doors, please be patient so we can keep the Narthex/foyer as an “in-between zone” that doesn’t allow all of the cool air out.

Vesting for lay servers will be moved downstairs to avoid having to robe in the upper rooms, which are the warmest on our campus.

We will continue summer service times through June and July as well, and will give you much more notice when the time comes to resume our 8 a.m./10 a.m./12 p.m. schedule in August or in early September.

WEDNESDAY WORSHIP

As of yesterday, our Wednesday 12:10 service has ended for the summer. We will resume this service in August or September. More details later.

ARTS & MUSIC at Trinity

ARTS: We will carry on with our next art display, and our First Friday reception on May 3rd as planned. We are exploring having an evaporative cooler or two in the Olney Gallery to make it more comfortable, and the downstairs is quite a few degrees cooler than upstairs. With the doors open and lots of folks stopping through, this should be just about normal! Come see this great new display!

MUSIC: As announced earlier today, we will not hold the Evensong on May 12. In a stroke of luck, we’ve been asked to hold a different Evensong in late July in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women and we have agreed. So hold July 28 and we will enjoy a traditional Evensong then.

WEEKDAYS/MINISTRIES

We are working with our various ministries that meet on campus during the week (and after hours on Sundays) to encourage other possible locations or times to make their ministries work out. I’ve been grateful for the graciousness and teamwork of all of our leaders as we muddle through!

Office hours will be slightly reduced and most of the staff will work from home. We will have 1-2 people in the office each day, working out of the upstairs Conference Room where we have A/C so that operations can continue as needed. However, it is of utmost importance that our staff have safe working conditions, so I am limiting who all will be here at any given time.

TIMELINE/FINANCIAL DATA

As I said two weeks ago in my message, the total cost for this project is about $550,000. We’ve put a down payment of about $50,000 on Phase 1, which begins May 6, and the remaining $150,000 for Phase 1 will be due upon completion in late May. (The other $350,000 of that total project cost will be necessary for Phases 2 & 3). We have funded Phase 1 via $100K from our investment funds and a $95K low-interest loan from the diocese. I will be working to find donors who would like to help Trinity get free of that loan sooner than later, so if you’re looking for a way to make a difference: this could be it! Call me.

Phase 2 and 3 (covering the air compressor and boiler) will be completed in the fall/winter and we’ve submitted an application to apply for a Sacred Spaces grant to help cover the costs. We will learn more about the status of our application over the next several months. If we get that grant, it is built on a ‘match’ system where we fundraise half and the grant covers the other half. So there will definitely be additional opportunities for all of us to extend our generosity later this year whether we get the grant or not!

The HVAC system we have has done it’s work for us for several decades – perhaps even longer than anyone expected it to! But now is the time for us to create the future for those who will come after us. If you’ve got gifts in fundraising, grant writing, encouragement, or other related fruits of the spirit, I hope you will reach out to me. This is a season for “all hands on deck” to assure our beautiful church home is protected and cared for long into the future.

As always, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with me as we walk this path we’re creating together. And please show your staff all the love and appreciation you’ve got – they are doing incredible work helping to adapt our ‘business as usual’ to the needs in front of us and they’re doing it with tenacity and grace. It’s a privilege to work with them. Stay well, dear ones. Thank you.

Peace,