Trinity Lutheran Church

09/04/2026

For weeks this ceiling had holes in it where the shoring came down, and then it turned pink — a bonding agent, dyed pink on purpose so the crew could see every inch they had covered. This week it reached primer and paint, along with the crown molding that was patched in place rather than replaced. Downstairs, two of the plaster crew were cutting an old crack out of the wall, filling the slot and sanding it smooth until nobody will ever find it again. At one point there were three rollers going on the ceiling at once. Here it is now.

09/02/2026

Golf, anyone? 🏌️⛳

We’re hosting our Second Annual Covenant Cup, presented by Tompkins Bank & Trust — an afternoon of fellowship, faith, and fundraising, and we’d love to have you with us.

📅 Sunday, September 27
📍 Heidelberg Country Club

A scramble on the course, followed by a hearty banquet of brisket, salmon, and all the sides. Not a golfer? Come for the meal alone — no clubs required.

Each year the Covenant Cup benefits a different nonprofit chosen by Trinity and our covenant partner, Christ Episcopal Church. This year, every dollar raised goes to Habitat for Humanity of Berks County.

Registration closes September 15. Grab one of the last foursomes at the link below, or just join us for dinner — either way, you’re helping build homes right here in Berks County. 💙

2nd Annual Covenant Cup presented by Join us for the second annual Covenant Cup, a friendly golf outing between Trinity Lutheran Church and Christ Episcopal Church, held at Heidelberg Country Club on Sunday, September 27th, with a 1:00 PM shotgun start.This year, we are partnering with Habitat for H...

09/01/2026

Ben Small performs the opening movement from J.S. Bach's second partita, originally written for solo violin. The work opens with an upbeat sixteenth note, followed by a dotted eighth and sixteenth. This rhythm not only drives the movement but is a characteristic that carries across multiple movements of the partita. Another feature of this allemande is the diminution of rhythm, from sixteenth notes to triplet sixteenths, thirty-second notes, and sixty-fourth notes.

08/31/2026

The deepest fear in suffering is not the pain of the suffering itself. It is the fear that no one saw it, and that it meant nothing. This Sunday Pastor Hans preached on the promise buried inside a verse most of us hear as a threat — that Christ will repay everyone for what has been done. Nothing has been lost. No one has gotten away with anything. And God is not a spectator to what you have suffered.

08/31/2026

Almost everyone has said the sentence Peter says in this passage. Sitting in a doctor's office, hearing a word you refuse to accept: God forbid it. This cannot go that way. Peter says it to Jesus quietly, with an arm around his shoulder, out of love — and Jesus answers him harder than he answers anyone. In this sermon, Pastor Hans follows what happens next: a man who has just been handed the keys and immediately tries to lock the door, who fails in a courtyard, who fails again years later in front of everyone, and who is never once replaced with somebody steadier. Along the way there is a word for anyone carrying a hurt no one ever answered for — that the deepest fear in suffering is not the pain, but that nobody saw it, and that God is neither neutral nor a spectator. Wherever you are coming from, and whether any of this is familiar to you or not, you are welcome here.

08/30/2026

The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the incurable wound of his suffering yet finds in God’s words the delight of his heart. When Peter doesn’t grasp Jesus’ words about suffering, Jesus tells the disciples they will find their lives in losing them. Such sacrificial love is described by Paul when he urges us to associate with the lowly and not repay evil with evil. In worship we gather as a community that we might offer ourselves for the sake of our suffering world.
Follow along with our worship bulletin: https://trinityreading.hflip.co/2026-Lectionary-22

08/28/2026

Most of this week's work was outside. On the Washington Street side, masons are repointing the wall — cutting out the failed mortar and packing the joints back by hand, one at a time. Watch for the headers, the bricks turned crosswise so they bond the face of the wall into the layer behind it, and note that some of the brick going back in is reclaimed rather than new. Inside, the ceiling plaster is finished and ready for primer and paint, the badly damaged crown molding has been patched in place, and plaster work has started on the Sanctuary walls. Repaired, not replaced.

08/24/2026

Most of us have put something up where people can see it. A name on a door, a photo on a wall, a line in a bio that says who we are. It is very old work, and we are remarkably good at it. In this sermon, Pastor Hans begins at a cliff in the ancient world — drilled full of niches, crowded with statues of a god, a temple to the emperor standing out in front, and beneath it a cave that people believed was the door to the land of the dead. Standing there, of all places, Jesus turns to his closest friends and asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, and is told in the same breath that the answer was never his own idea. What follows is a word about identity and calling that arrive from outside us, about a promise made against the largest ending there is, and about what it means to say something true out loud in a year when someone we love is leaving. Wherever you are coming from, and whether any of this is familiar to you or not, you are welcome here.

08/19/2026

When she was 12 years old, Deaconess Deborah crouched down on all fours at the Four Corners Monument so she could have a hand and a foot in four states at once — at a dot that someone, somewhere, at some time simply decided to draw on a map. Most of the lines we live with aren’t on any map. In Matthew’s Gospel, a woman crosses the deepest one of her day because her daughter is sick and she has nowhere else to go, and what happens when she kneels in front of Jesus changes the shape of who gets included. If you have ever wondered whether you would be welcome in a room like this one, this is a good place to start listening.

08/16/2026

In Isaiah we hear that God’s house shall be a house of prayer for all people and that God will gather the outcasts of Israel. The Canaanite woman in today’s gospel is a Gentile, an outsider, who is unflinching in her request that Jesus heal her daughter. As Jesus commends her bold faith, how might our church extend its mission to those on the margins of society? In our gathering around word and meal we receive strength to be signs of comfort, healing, and justice for those in need.
Follow along with our worship bulletin: https://trinityreading.hflip.co/2026-Lectionary-20