Posted March 9, 2016 in Featured News

Being More TogetherThey are three simple words, but they carry plenty of meaning, one that The Synod of the Trinity leadership hopes translates both to Presbyterians and to the world.

In an attempt to help describe the physical and spiritual work the Synod is called to do, the Synod’s Communications Team has created a new expression of faith that will now resonate with its name: “Synod of the Trinity: Being More Together.”

Synod Moderator Teaching Elder Johnnie Monroe said of the new tagline that “Being challenges us, the Synod of the Trinity, to use our imagination, to think in new ways, to envision, to see with new eyes, to experience the claim of Christ on our lives in new ways, to see new possibilities.”

Synod Vice Moderator Ruling Elder Kate Sillman explains how the new phrase will add new meaning to all of the work being done by the Synod.

“I saw a comment recently in the Huffington Post, ‘… we should let our be-ing inform our do-ing,’” she said. “I thought of our lives as Christians and compared ‘be-ing and do-ing’ to our faith and our works of service. Living our faith, our being in a relationship with God should lead to our doing works to serve Him, but the strength lies in the being, the living in the present, and the experiencing of a deeper relationship with God. We strengthen our faith in the Triune God together within the communities of faith – our congregations, our presbyteries and our Synod.”

For Teaching Elder Barbara Chaapel, the former Moderator of the Synod and a member of the Communications Team, she drew a comparison to more than just the Synod’s work and its new tagline.

“The Synod of the Trinity contains presbyteries in three states — Pennsylvania, West Virginia and part of Ohio, thus a trinity of sorts,” she said. “But our name is more deeply a theological one. The doctrine of the Trinity means that God exists distinctly in three persons, yet in one being. At the heart of it, believing that God is Trinity means that God in God’s being is a relationship.

“So the presbyteries of the Synod of the Trinity exist in essential relationship, each distinct, but able to be more in ministry together than any could be alone. The ministry and love of the whole people of God in the Synod is more than that of any of its parts.”

Ruling Elder Gregg Hartung, the director of Presbyterian Media Mission and another member of the Communications Team, feels that because the tagline is short and to the point that it gives it even more meaning.

“To have a supporting, short, recognizable theme or supportive cutline to identify the Synod of the Trinity quickly for readers or viewers is needed in this day of information overload,” he said. “The messages are so many and so often that using short identifiers with a longer story or message for people to quickly realize who the message is from and what their purpose is is helpful in providing quality communication. The word art and phrase to help identify the Synod is another tool in the digital tool box of communicating the stories of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in our region.”

The “Synod of the Trinity: Being More Together” word art was created by Lindsay Wilson, who grew up attending Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, PA. A Camp Hill native, Lindsay graduated from East Pennsboro Area High School and the Capitol Area School for the Arts in 2007. She studied Illustration and Fine Art at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, and is pursuing an undergraduate degree in physics. Lindsay is currently a tattoo artist, freelance illustrator and fine artist based in the Harrisburg area.