​Taylor and Kitty come to us from Southwick, Mass, where Taylor has served as priest since 2003.

Southwick Community Episcopal Church was a church Fr. Taylor and Kitty helped to plant.  Trinity members: John Bald, George and Linda Lynch, and Josh and Sarah Thayer were part of the original launch team whose call was to establish a church that reached out, not to Episcopalians in the area, but to people who had given up on church altogether.
 
Kitty grew up in West Hartford and currently, works in Farmington as an analyst contracted by United Technologies. She is an avid sport fan, especially of the Boston Bruins. "I didn't grow up watching hockey, but when my nephews and nieces started playing, I caught the bug!"

Taylor was born in Virginia and grew up in the Baltimore area.

"I came to New England for seminary and thought I would be moving back south. I didn't figure that Tariffville was as far South as I would ever get. God certainly does have a sense of humor."

Following seminary, Kitty and Taylor moved to Western Massachusetts, where Taylor worked in a community mental health program in Holyoke. There he ran four 24-hour halfway houses for adults with severe mental health issues.

​"I think God used a very non-church kind of environment- clients and staff who felt they were at a great distance from God and who would have never considered church as a place they could attend or be welcomed, to shape the way I understood ministry. Without it, I would have never noticed the attention Jesus pays to people who seem so outside of the church loop we hold so dear."

In addition to his ministry as a priest, Taylor has served as the Chaplain of the Southwick Fire Department and part of the Massachusetts Corps of Fire Chaplains. He is a guitar player who has performed most recently in the Western Mass area, and a long time gym enthusiast. And, he has a passion for coffee!

While Kitty is a cradle Episcopalian, Taylor did not grow up in church. He credits his parents' personal transformation while in their early fifties as having the most significant impact on what led to his conversion at the age of twenty-one. That experience began a journey that led him into a variety of settings: a small, blue collar Pentecostal church, a lay religious order, youth and college ministries, and three very different seminary experiences, one Roman Catholic, one Evangelical, and one Episcopal.

Kitty and Taylor have two grown children: Jeremy and Katie.  Jeremy and his wife, Alli, just had their first child, Grace, and live north of San Francisco. Katie, currently a first lieutenant in the Air Force, just returned to the US after serving two years at Ramstein AFB in Germany and is stationed in Del Rio, Texas. She has her first puppy, Granger, a lab mix.

Taylor and Kitty are working overtime to get their house in Southwick ready to sell, and are working through the good-byes of 14 years of close ministry. They are looking forward to arriving in Tariffville and meeting the Trinity Church family, and we can't wait to have them both here!

Trinity's Recruitment team includes (from left to right): Josh, Rose, Madeline, Stephen, Paul, Carolyn, Hank, Kathy, and Troy.

The Recruitment team has begun the work of receiving names of those interested in being our new rector. Interview questions have been developed, and a practice "mock" interview was held thanks to the generosity of a local priest, who gave Trinity an evening of her time to come give the team the opportunity to work out the details for the interviews to come.

Skype interviews begin this week. 

Please continue to pray for clarity and confidence, and that God will lead all in this process to be just where they need to be. 

, Have you noticed a bunch of people huddled around laptops and iPads at all different times and places around the church this last month? 

That would be your Discernment team, hard at work responding to questions for the Ministry Website. 

Our responses will be posted by the diocese and read by clergy who are in the beginning of discerning their call to move where God sends them. 

​Here are a few of the questions:

• Describe your liturgical style and practice.  If your community provides more than one type of worship service, please describe all.
• As a worshipping community, how do you care for your spiritual, emotional and physical well-being?
• Tell about a Ministry that your worshipping community has initiated in the past few years.  Who can be contacted about this?
• How are you preparing yourselves for the Church of the future?

All of the information we have been gathering from you through during our Parish Breakfast, the history boards, the question of the week, etc. has helped us to craft responses that reflect who Trinity Church is.  When we have completed this phase of work, we will share with you.

Another part of the work of the Discernment Team has been to look closely at our own website and make adjustments and enhancements so that the site is easy to navigate, up to date, and inviting to those who stop by for a visit.

Amanda Lavallee and Carolyn Clement have been working on loading new content and hope to have the Rector Search section finished by the end of the month. However, there will be on-going needs for keeping our website current. 

A small but mighty team of "Trinity Techies" has met and have agreed to meet quarterly to discuss the 21st century tech needs of our church.  They are: Melien Lavoie, Hap Osborne, Larry Holl, Jeff Sutton, Amanda Lavallee and Carolyn Clement. 

Search around our site www.trinitytariffville.org, and remember to send any thoughts, comments or commendations to the Discernment team at trinitytransition17@gmail.com.

Trinity Discernment Team,
Elaine Chagnon, Carolyn Clement, Troy Mcfarlane, John Nagy, Kathy Sutton, Ray Williard, Kathy Zirolli

“We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
1 Thessalonians 1:3 NIV 

​The work of discernment is an important step as one encounters life’s stages and changes. 

Remembering the past is the first step to envisioning the future. We have to know who we are and who we have been before we can become who we want to be. 

In the life of our parish, as we undertake this journey into our new future, let’s gather our communal memory of all things Trinity and celebrate the overwhelming evidence that, “Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place”(Gen.28:16). 

Starting DECEMBER 18 you are invited to visit the parish hall and add your memories to the History Gathering posters there. Sticky notes and pens will be available for you. Every member of Trinity, past and present, is encouraged to share your remembrance of important people, events, personal life experiences, etc.

The information you post will have several purposes.
​
1) The sheer magnitude of God’s blessings and provision of the past is the encouragement we need, to remember that He is working his purposes now through us and through this place.

2) We have had multiple experiences here that might not be known or remembered by all of us. By sharing those experiences we can draw on our imaginations about our future.

3) People who are leaders, whether ordained or lay, have left indelible marks on us. By simply posting their names, others will remember and be blessed.

4) The Discernment Committee will synthesize this information and use it to complete our parish history to post on our website and share with our new rector.

We’re excited to see what God has done in our church, and encourage you to pray with us!

Kathy Sutton- Chair
Elaine Chagnon
Carolyn Clement
John Nagy
Ray Williard
Kathy Zirolli