"The Trinity Today - Why It Matters" by Rev. Kim Salo

This blog is based on Rev. Kim's sermon "The Trinity Today - Why It Matters", preached on Sunday, November 19th, 2023:

​​1. Were you ever taught that God is distant, impersonal, quick to judge and punish, or hard to please? If you were, what was that experience like for you? If that was your experience, did it change? How did it change? Different teaching? Different church? A move of the Holy Spirit in you?

2. If you met someone who believed that God is distant or impersonal or interested only in moral obedience, how might that person be helped to encounter or believe in the God who is personal, relational, forgiving, close, challenging and empowering?

3. Have you typically thought of worship as something we humans offer to God? Would it challenge your understanding of worship to know that any real worship we give God is an activity of the Holy Trinity in us, the Holy Spirit moving us to praise and offer our gifts, through the Son, to the Father? 

4. When you pray on your own, how do you like to talk to God? How do you personally address God? Dear Jesus? Heavenly Father? Holy One? O, Lord? What is your “favorite”? What moves you privately to pray?

5. Think of what the Trinity does: creating, loving, sending, redeeming, sanctifying, gifting, all in dynamic moving relationships between Father, Son, and Spirit … Now, think of each of our church activities, such as pastoral care or visiting, fellowship and meals, music, preaching, holy communion, mission work, Sunday school, Bible studies, etc. How do any of these church activities reflect the relations and movements of the Father, Son, and Spirit? Hint: consider your answers to Question 3 on worship and Question 4 on prayer.

​6. In his sermon on ‘The Trinity Today, Why it Matters,’ Kim said that last January he shared his hopes for St. Aidan’s for 2023 as we look at the Trinity. “My hope and my prayer is that before 2023 is over, we will all know God better, pray with more understanding and depth, and minister with more power and grace from the heart of God. We will worship the Lord, experiencing the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will better understand God’s mission for his church as a continuation of the Father sending his Son, then the Spirit, and then ourselves into the world.” Do you think any of this happened in us as a congregation 2023? How?