Downloadable Information
Trinity TrumpeterChurch Calendar“LIVE” DIVINE SERVICE Each week,
our 10:30 am service will stream live on YouTube! Go to our page on YouTube: “Trinity Lutheran Church Norman, Oklahoma”.
CHURCH CHRISTMAS DECORATING
Friday, December 5 at 6:00 p.m.
Everyone is invited to help decorate the church for Christmas – children, teens, college students and adults. Meet in the narthex.
We need everyone to come join in the fun and prepare our sanctuary for our festive Christmas and Epiphany season!
For more information call the Church Office.
CHRISTMAS CAROLING
Sunday, December 7
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Come join us as we go caroling at the homes of our church shut-in folks!
Meet at the church and Pastor will drive the church bus to the nursing homes and houses to bring Christmas cheer!
SENIORS
Christmas is just around the corner and our first meeting of the month will be December 4th at 11:15 am in the church Fellowship Hall. This will be our last meeting with Pastor before he retires, so let’s have a great turn out. After the devotional, the business meeting, and the dinner, we will have a Christmas song fest with Joanie on the piano.
Our trip this month will be on Friday the 19th. We plan to drive to Mustang to see their Christmas lights and then come back to church for Christmas homemade sweets and refreshments.
UPCOMING MUSIC EVENTS
As always, musicians at Trinity will be very busy this month! Our primary focus is on the special music for the 7 p.m. Christmas Eve service.
The bell choir will begin looking at its Christmas Eve music on December 4 at 6pm. Rehearsals will continue each Thursday at the same time until Christmas Eve. This will be the biggest event of the year for the group, so if you’ve ever wanted to join, now is the perfect time!
The choir will also begin looking at its Christmas Eve music on December 4 and continue doing so each Thursday until Christmas Eve, but after the bell choir at 7pm. We have a great core group this year, but more voices are always welcome, especially for this festive season!
For the glory of God,
Timothy Schmidt, organist and choir director
WHAT’S UP WITH THE THERMOSTATS?
As you have used Trinity’s facilities over the past few weeks, you probably noticed a sleek new thermostat on the wall in a number of rooms. You may have also wished to adjust the temperature in the room, only to find the thermostat only responsive within a narrow temperature range. Or maybe the range was unreasonably large, contributing to an uncomfortable temperature in the room. This is by design!
In October, the trustees executed a complete overhaul of our climate control system with Ideal Impact, Inc., a company that specializes in maximizing energy efficiency using the existing HVAC equipment of a facility. The goal is to save a significant amount of money on our utility bills by reducing energy usage when we don’t need it and instituting cost-effective heating and cooling strategies when we do. The best part of this partnership? We pay Ideal Impact only out the savings we create with their technology. So there is no financial risk for our congregation! The more we save, the more we pay them. The less we save, the less we pay. Once we pay them the cost of the project, 100% of the savings are ours!
The main change you see are these new thermostats. They are connected wirelessly to a network that calculates when to bring a room to its ideal comfort level based on its occupancy schedule. For example, we always meet for worship in the Sanctuary on Sunday mornings, so the system schedules the Sanctuary to be within our specified temperature range in time for those services every week. But outside of Sunday mornings, when the Sanctuary is largely unused, the HVAC system is mostly dormant, and the temperature will typically “drift” up or down based on the weather outside.
This means that it is critical for anyone with a planned meeting in the church, either one time or recurring, to inform the trustees of that event and where it is meeting ahead of time. This allows us to program it into the occupancy schedule so that the room is ready for you when you arrive. It is still possible for you to set the temperature of a room to whatever value you wish (within the range provided by the thermostat), but it is advantageous to plan occupancy in advance so you don’t have to endure a heat-up or cool-down period. Also, thermostat overrides typically reset on every even hour. So, if you set a temperature at 3:45pm, for example, it will go back to the occupancy schedule default at 4:00pm.
To facilitate and communicate the scheduling of rooms, the Trustees have set up a realtime Google calendar. This calendar will be used to update the climate control occupancy schedule, but it will also become the primary calendar for all church events. All members of the congregation are encouraged to visit the calendar, linked on the church website, to keep up to date on our many activities. Church staff, board chairs, and anyone else who oversees church activities will have access to an online form to quickly inform the church office of event additions and changes.
If you have questions about the new climate control system or calendar, Joel Anderson, Steve Bute, and Timothy Schmidt have been the most involved in the project and would be happy to help you. They also have the ability to update the system to your needs. Please have patience as we continue to seek the best balance between energy efficiency and congregational comfort and pray that the Lord will help us in our efforts to be good stewards of this wonderful facility entrusted to us!
In Christ,
The Trustees
COMING IN JANUARY LIFE SUNDAY MOVIE Sunday, January 25 NOON
As we celebrate God’s gift of life, we would like to invite the congregation to see a film called “A Matter of Life” about abortion. Due to the nature of the content, we recommend ages 17 or older. The Matter of Life compels us to understand the pro-life case and form our own individual beliefs based on facts and not on what is said in the media. In the film we hear from the experts and learn about the history, philosophy, morality, and impact of abortion. The movie presents real life decisions by people in different situations. Lunch will be provided, please sign up in the narthex so that we can plan for lunch.
THE CHURCH OFFICES ARE CLOSED
Wednesday, Dec. 24 through Thursday, January 1st
Pastor, Vicar and all the church and ELC staff will be taking time to be with their families during that time. Call pastor at home for any special needs during that time. All hospital calls and special needs will still be handled during those days.
HOLIDAY NEWSLETTER DEADLINE
Due to the Christmas holiday, the deadline for turning in articles for the Trumpeter newsletter in December will be a week early, on the 11th of the month, rather than the usual deadline on the 18th. Please be on time!
