On a quiet corner of Chestnut Street at Ninth Avenue, in the heart of Old Escondido, Trinity Episcopal Church has been gathering for worship and rolling up its sleeves for North County San Diego. The parish's motto - "To bring people to Christ, to bring Christ to the people" - frames a community that embraces traditional liturgy, lively music, and a deep bench of hands-on ministries. The Rev. Dr. Adam T. Trambley was recently called as Rector, and the parish continues under the leadership of The Rev. Cindy Dodson, a deacon ordained in early 2026 and assigned to Trinity by Bishop Susan Brown Snook of the Diocese of San Diego.
Sunday Mornings at Trinity
The Sunday schedule is simple and consistent. A single Eucharist service is held at 10:00 a.m. each Sunday morning, with the choir leading the music. Sunday School begins at the same hour, and children join their families in the sanctuary at the Peace before processing forward for Holy Communion. All baptized persons are welcome at the altar rail, regardless of age or church background. A Coffee Hour follows in the parish hall, with the parish's monthly breakfast held at 9:00 a.m. on the third Sunday of each month.
Holy Curiosity, an adult study and conversation hour, meets at 9:00 a.m. every Sunday except breakfast Sundays, taking up contemporary faith questions and Bible study in the parish hall. Once a month after the service, the Daughters of the King chapter gathers, and on the first Sunday afternoon of most months, newcomers are welcomed at Trini-tea, a casual gathering hosted in a parishioner's home.
For those who cannot be present in person, the 10:00 a.m. service is livestreamed on Facebook Live, with the broadcast link posted on the parish homepage. Recent services are also available to watch afterward on Facebook and YouTube. A printable Pentecost service booklet and a monthly newsletter are posted online, and a Friday weekly e-blast keeps the parish in the know about the week ahead.
Walking Through the Liturgy
Trinity makes no apology for the strangeness of Episcopal worship. The parish describes its service as one that leans into the oddness of standing and kneeling together, reading from a common prayer book, and singing in unison. The two-act structure - the Liturgy of the Word followed by Holy communion - follows the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer, and the lectionary means that Trinity reads the same four passages of scripture on any given Sunday as Episcopal congregations across the country and around the world.
Visitors are told that what to wear is entirely up to them. Some parishioners arrive in their Sunday best, others are casual; both are equally at ease. Ushers hand out bulletins at the door and help with directions, while greeters make sure newcomers are introduced around at Coffee Hour. During the service, the congregation reads together, prays together, kneels together for prayer, and sits to listen to the lessons. The reading from the Old Testament, the Psalm, the Epistle, and the Gospel is bracketed by ancient hymns - the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Sanctus - whose roots reach back to the earliest centuries of the Church.
Worship leaders wear vestments whose origins reach into both the Church of England and scripture. Acolytes of all ages light candles, carry the crucifix, and assist at communion, with regular trainings to help them learn the various roles. At the offertory, members of the congregation bring forward the bread and wine as the choir sings, and the giving of treasure is folded into the larger act of self-offering that prepares the assembly to receive the sacrament. All baptized Christians are welcome to receive the bread and wine; those who prefer may intinct - dipping the host into the chalice - or receive only one element. The service closes with a final hymn, a blessing, and the dismissal to go forth into the world.
The Music Program
Music is central to life at Trinity. The Parish Choir sings at the 10:00 a.m. service from September through June and rehearses on Wednesday evenings from 7:30 to 9:00, under the direction of David Lewis, who has been Director of Music and Organist since 2005. Lewis also directs The San Luis Rey Chorale and Chamber Orchestra, an ecumenical community choir he founded in 1978, and has been an Episcopal church musician since 1976. The choir draws from a library of more than 600 pieces spanning ancient to modern, and the parish has welcomed instrumentalists, singers, and fans of music at every level of experience.
The organ combines a 22-rank Reuter pipe organ installed in 1974 with a large three-manual Rodgers instrument added in 2006, producing a rich and varied sound that fills the sanctuary. Trinity hosts the American Guild of Organists annual concert each year in tribute to the instrument's quality.
The Trinity Bell Choir rings five octaves of Schulmerich hand bells and four octaves of Malmark chimes, rehearsing on Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m. from September through June under Dr. Joe Stanford, a retired music professor from Palomar College. The bell choir performs nearly monthly, and its cooperative, many-hands style is one of the more striking sights in the parish. Ringers with no experience are invited to join - Stanford's only prerequisite for new ringers is the ability to count to four.
Children and Families
Children are first-class members of Trinity. Sunday School gathers at 10:00 a.m. and runs year-round in a one-room schoolhouse model that keeps siblings, friends, and visiting children together. Lessons follow the lectionary and Book of Common Prayer, weaving each week's readings into the curriculum. Children join the worship service at the Peace and return to their families for Holy Communion; baptized members of any age are welcome to receive.
The Family Ministry is led by Lynn and Mary Meurs. Beyond Sunday mornings, the parish hosts children's activities in Grape Day Park in downtown Escondido, intergenerational seasonal gatherings during Advent and Lent, and events like the Trinity Sunday Waterfight, Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual Blessing of the Animals. Children also share in service alongside their parents at Interfaith Community Services and in the Trinity Neighborhood Garden. Vacation Bible School takes place in the summer; the parish runs seasonal intergenerational events to mark baptismal milestones and other celebrations.
Interfaith Community Services: Forty Years of Partnership
Trinity helped found Interfaith Community Services more than forty years ago, when parish leaders joined with other faith centers to establish what has become the largest social services agency in North County San Diego. Today, Interfaith provides food, housing, counseling, job training, and more across the region, and Trinity continues to supply leadership, financial support, and volunteers. Members of the parish have served on the Interfaith Board, including the Rector, who currently chairs it.
A simple collection basket sits by the baptismal font in the sanctuary for non-perishable food donations, and the Samaritans ministry coordinates ongoing food and household essentials contributions to Interfaith throughout the year.
Haven House and the Turk Center: Twice-a-Month Tables
Twice a month, on the second and last Thursday, Trinity cooks and serves dinner for guests at Haven House, Interfaith's shelter in North County Escondido. Co-leaders Jan McDaniel and Cindy Mayo coordinate a shopping list and a sign-up sheet for provisioners; on the day, cooks arrive at Interfaith at 4:30 p.m., and servers typically begin serving between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. The parish takes pride in serving meals made from scratch and has been told its home cooking is a guest favorite. On the same Thursday evenings, a separate team also serves dinner at Interfaith's Turk Center for Recuperative Care.
The Rotational Shelter
For more than twenty years, Trinity has been part of the North County Inland branch of the Rotational Shelter, which moves a winter family shelter from church to church across Escondido, Poway, San Marcos, and Vista. Parishioners have helped with set-up and take-down, served as overnight hosts, provided meals, driven children to school, and simply spent time with guest families. The shelter is currently in transition, and the parish expects to host again during the winter months.
Trinity ToyMakers: Wooden Toys for Children in Need
The ToyMakers may be Trinity's most distinctive ministry. From midsummer through early December, a group of skilled woodworkers and novice helpers meet most Saturdays at Chief ToyMaker Joe Stanford's workshop in Fallbrook to produce between 500 and 600 handcrafted wooden toys a year. The finished toys are blessed just before Christmas and distributed to children through Polinski Center for Foster Children, Interfaith Community Services, Ronald McDonald Houses, and the Salvation Army. Volunteers with no woodworking experience are welcome - sanding, painting, and gluing are all part of the work.
Prayers and Squares
Prayers and Squares is part of the international interfaith quilting outreach of the same name. The ministry constructs small prayer quilts, brings them forward during a worship service for a special blessing, and asks worshippers to tie a knot in the quilting threads while saying a prayer for the recipient as they do. Trinity's quilters also make dolls and bedding for the wooden cradles built by the ToyMakers, baby blankets for mothers in need, and even vestments. The group meets on the first Saturday and the third Thursday of each month at 9:30 a.m. in the parish hall. Prayer quilts have traveled to Wounded Warriors and to Gently Hugged, a support service for new mothers, and any worshipper may request a prayer quilt for a loved one at no charge.
Trinity Neighborhood Garden
On the parish grounds, in the Old Escondido Historic District, the Trinity Neighborhood Garden is open to the whole neighborhood. Gardeners may choose from forty-three ground-level plots with shared watering hoses, fourteen accessible four-by-four redwood raised beds at two-foot height with individual hoses, or two wheelchair roll-under planting boxes. The garden is supported by community sponsors including Pauley Equipment Company, Earth Stone & Rock, Grangetto's Farm and Garden Supply, Kellogg Garden Products, Lowes Home Improvement, Farmer Roy Wilburn of Sunshine Care, EscoGelato, and Trinity itself. Annual dues to help cover operating costs are $35 per plot, with the support of volunteers and the local Boy Scout troop keeping participation affordable.
African Team Ministry
Each fall, Trinity hosts a sale of crafts and jewelry from African Team Ministry, with proceeds supporting programs in East Africa - schooling for children, drip irrigation for family gardens, and assistance for refugees. The sale has been a parish tradition for several decades and typically runs for two Sundays as a Christmas shopping event.
Samaritans: Service, Learning, and Advocacy
Trinity's Samaritans ministry organizes the parish's social justice engagement. Educational programs have included Sacred Ground, an Episcopal Church video-based curriculum on the history of racism in the United States and the framework for reconciliation; ChurchNext, an Episcopal video library on a variety of issues; and Making Our Faith Spaces Safe Spaces, a local racial reconciliation program from Interfaith Community Services. Service activities include the regular Haven House dinners and ongoing food collection for Interfaith. On the advocacy side, Trinity supports Escondido Together, an interfaith effort to build unity across the city; the Diocese of San Diego; and Bread for the World, a Christian advocacy organization focused on hunger policy, with an annual Offering of Letters campaign that invites parishioners to write to their congressional representatives.
Pastoral Care, Pastoral Visitors, and the Nursing Home Ministry
Pastoral Care volunteers provide phone calls, ride coordination, meals for families with new babies or those just out of the hospital, and home communion visits for those who join worship online. Pastoral Visitors work to make sure no Trinity member goes missing, while a separate nursing home ministry celebrates Holy Communion at Escondido Post-Acute Rehab on the second Wednesday of each month, with volunteers needed to lead music, distribute communion, and offer companionship to residents.
Adult Formation and Spiritual Life
Beyond Sunday morning, Trinity offers an array of formation opportunities. The Daughters of the King, an international Anglican order for women, meets in a chapter that gathers monthly on Zoom and in person quarterly. Members take vows of prayer, study, and service and are called to be, not simply to do. The parish runs Trinity 101 quarterly, an introduction to Christian thought, Episcopal particulars, and Trinity's own life and people, with newcomers' ministry chefs providing dinner. A book club meets monthly, with members choosing both the books and the meeting places - homes, the church, or a coffee shop - and with friends and neighbors welcome. Cursillo, supported by the Bishop and the National Church, offers a three-day weekend retreat experience with monthly small-group follow-up, and the Thursday Night Program adds another weekly gathering for parish life.
Fellowship Around the Table
Coffee Hour is treated almost as a sacrament at Trinity, a place where members from different backgrounds and walks of life practice being the Body of Christ over snacks. Hosting a Coffee Hour requires only a few treats and a willingness to chat. Monthly breakfasts bring the parish together over food, with teams handling purchasing, setup, cooking, serving, and cleanup. Trini-tea welcomes newcomers the first Sunday afternoon of most months from 1:30 to 3:30 in a casual home setting.
Building a Welcoming Community
Trinity describes itself as sacred, community, inclusive, rational, and relevant. The parish welcomes people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, abilities, political beliefs, and marital and family status. It describes its tradition as the saving work of Christ for all people, both within and beyond its walls, and its vision as joyful gatherings of a community that cares about members' lives, finds ways for all to be involved, and expresses gratitude for that work. Reason is named as one of the three sources of authority in the Episcopal tradition alongside Scripture and Tradition, and the parish encourages worshippers to wrestle with their faith rather than follow doctrine blindly.
The congregation celebrates the work of the wider Anglican Communion, embraces liturgical worship, and supports the Diocese of San Diego under Bishop Susan Brown Snook. Worship is led by the Rector, the Deacon, the Director of Music and Organist, the choir and bell choir, and a host of lay readers and worship leaders drawn from the congregation.
Visiting and Joining Trinity
The parish sits at 845 Chestnut Street, where Chestnut meets Ninth Avenue. From Interstate 15, visitors take the Ninth Avenue exit and head east across town, past Center City Parkway and Escondido Boulevard, until Ninth Avenue dead-ends into Chestnut. The parking lot is just to the left before the stop sign. The parish office is in the main church building and is open Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., closed on Fridays and Monday holidays. The phone number is 760-743-1629 and the email is office@trinityescondido.org. Baptisms, weddings, and funerals are arranged through the clergy. The parish hall and other spaces are also available to host community groups and private events.
Those who wish to support Trinity's ministry can give online through PayPal, and those who want to learn more can sign up for the weekly e-blast, the monthly newsletter mailed to homes, or one of the newcomers' offerings like Trini-tea and Trinity 101. Children are welcome in worship, in Sunday School, and in intergenerational seasonal celebrations. Everyone is welcome.