Event details
- Friday | May 9, 2025
- All Day
What happened to WNA? Wednesday Night Alive, or WNA, has been with us for many years. But how do you have Wednesday Night Alive on a Thursday or a Sunday? So, Abra Cadabra! WNA has transformed into Wellsprings of Wisdom (you can call it WOW if you want to. :-))
Now you can register for fabulous classes that take place on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sunday afternoons. Classes are $20 for the session unless otherwise noted. As with WNA, Wellsprings of Wisdom is about fellowship, not fundraising. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the full amount, please talk with Sid or Amy.
Register for classes using the registration form available at Trinity or Registration Form, or register online.
Meeting People on the Margins
Too often we tend to associate with people who are just like us. As a welcoming church, we’d like to know other people better, but our fears and prejudices can sometimes hold us back. The homeless person might seem a little too scary. We might want to help a disabled person, but don’t want to seem condescending. “Meeting People on the Margins” is about learning to confront our prejudices and reach past our fears. In this class we will discuss how to set boundaries and stay safe while still being accepting and respectful of people who may be different from us. Each night we will discuss a different topic with a new facilitator:
- September 5 – Confronting Our Own Prejudice – Angela Ward. Angela is an educator working at the Central Admin office of AISD. She is responsible for the ongoing development and delivery of anti-racist professional development for district staff in alignment with national professional development and culture standards.
- September 12 – Homelessness and Poverty – Jim Wilson. Jim is a Trinity member and is a long-time (20 year) volunteer with Trinity’s Homeless task force (the group that feeds the homeless population every Sunday morning). He is a mental health specialist with Austin State Hospital.
- September 19 – Mental Illness – Mary Pratt. Mary is a Trinity member and leads groups full-time at Paladin, a day program for mentally ill adults.
- September 26 – Disabilities – Tom Hansen. Tom is a Trinity member and an administrator at AISD and is a specialist working with elementary and middle school students with disabilities and other educational challenges, as well as their families.
- October 3 – Chronic Disease/Death and Dying – Jim Kvale. Jim is a Trinity member and a physician specializing in hospice care. He is the author of The Real Truth About Aging: A Caregiver’s Guide (2004).
Steven Blaisdell is an Austin area psychotherapist (LPC) with a professional interest in, among other areas, adolescence, family, and parenting. A father himself, and faced with the wealth of available information on parenting (both good and not so good), Mr. Blaisdell noticed that some of this information stood out as wise, practical, and effective. The result – a distillation of some of the most respected names in communication, developmental research, and family therapy, filtered through personal and professional experience. Stated simply: when you build the relationship, you build the person.
- Week 1: Building the relationship
- Week 2: Communication
- Week 3: Finding solutions/solving problems
- Week 4: Managing peer and media pressure
- Week 5: Effective discipline
Stewardship: The Year of Living Generously
Trinity’s Stewardship Team is offering a class that looks at issues pertaining to money and spirituality; money and justice-making; money and balancing supporting a church community with individual/family needs; and financial planning.
We have three outstanding leaders:
- Jack Schulze—Trinity member and accountant, who will share about the importance of personal financial planning and will give you some tools on how to do that;
- Dick Young—a member of First UMC Austin and the staff member of the Texas Methodist Foundation who helped us with our successful capital campaign in 2010 and has been our Stewardship consultant for the last year and a half. Dick will be talking about what it means invest in a spirit of generosity to help sustain your spiritual community;
- Candy Gross—a member of Trinity and a vice president of the Texas Methodist Foundation. Candy will help us look at ways to do estate planning and giving for the church, as well as how to set up a church endowment fund for future ministry needs.
We will also be looking at several DVDs that address money, stewardship, and generosity, including one that features U2’s Bono on the importance of giving for social change.
Crocheting & Knitting Group
Get your knitting needles polished and your crocheting hooks shined! Join Micheal Harper and Katharine Orgain and make Reconciling stoles or prayer blankets; no experience needed! An organizational meeting will be held on August 22nd at 7 pm; a crochet class will begin September 5. Willing to teach knitting or have donations for the group? Email Micheal at harper6702@austin.rr.com or call her at 512-272-8969.
Children’s Activities
- Ages 0-4: Free childcare in the nursery/preschool.
- Ages 5-10: Kids for Peace Activities– On Wednesday, September 5th, Trinity will launch our very own neighborhood Kids for Peace Chapter. Through cross-cultural experiences and hands-on arts, service, and environmental projects, children will join together to foster peace. The Kids for Peace chapter activities center on the vision of a safe and peaceful world where all people respect and care for each other and our planet—with our children leading the way.
- All are welcome! Bring your child’s friends and neighbors to join in the fun.
- Activities are designed for children ages 5-10.
- Chapter dues are $10/child for the year and go directly to Kids for Peace to support the work at an organizational level. Please let us know if you need this fee waived due to financial hardship.
- Peter Marsh, our new Children’s Coordinator, is our Chapter leader. You can contact him at peter@trinitychurchofaustin.org, kidsforpeace@trinitychurchofaustin.org, or children@trinitychurchofaustin.org.
- Chapter activities are scheduled every Wednesday from 7-8 pm; children who came with an adult in a Wednesday class may stay for unstructured activities until classes end at 8:30 pm.
Every Wednesday night at 7 pm, “ACT-ion” (a group for teenagers) will meet. This is a student-directed/adult-facilitated time for fun act-ions and community! Currently, the students are painting a mural on the shed in the church parking lot. All supplies are provided, just wear clothes that you don’t mind getting painted!
This year we plan to collaborate with other progressive UMC youth groups to create opportunities for service and fun for our teens. All are welcome – bring your friends! No need to register your teens, just show up prepared to have fun. Contact Matt Moon at matt@trinitychurchofaustin.org or youth@trinitychurchofaustin.org.