Families across the diocese and beyond are finding heaven in their beautifully messy homes thanks to the Trinity House Community program, created by husband and wife Soren and Ever Johnson.
According to their website, the program, also known as Heaven in Your Home, seeks to inspire families to make their home, “a taste of heaven,” for the renewal of faith and culture. They do this by providing parents with tools in the form of workshops, letters and family gatherings.
“The best way to solve the crisis of faith is in the family, the domestic church,” Soren said.
The program has five levels of family life, which couples can work through to build their own Trinity House. The levels are faith life, persons and relationships, household economy, family culture, and hospitality and service.
In 2014, they opened Trinity House Café in Leesburg, which touches on most if not all of those levels, with coffee, food, and a side of Catholic faith-based books and events.
They began hosting in-person workshops to share their “Trinity House model” in 2019. They went online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People who attended the workshops kept saying, ‘We love this, but we need this in community,’ ” Soren said. “If you don’t have the community aspect, the danger is you attend a workshop and then you put the book back on your shelf because that is what daily life is like. There has to be something on the calendar.
“It also unlocks the couples evangelizing couples dynamic, because when they are in these discussions they evangelize in beautiful ways,” said Ever. “And that’s where the magic happens.”
The Johnsons are members of St. John the Apostle Church in Leesburg, where they started their program. Last May, they had two groups at their parish and at St. Philip Church in Falls Church. Now they have 15 Trinity House Community Group subscribers in six states. They offer the core documents in English and Spanish, and have two active Hispanic communities in the program. The bilingual offerings have helped the program move off-shore.
“The day after an article about the program ran in Spanish, a parish from Puerto Rico ordered a subscription,” Soren said.
Once a church or group decides to purchase the subscription, they have access to the resources that will help them host family gatherings on five Saturdays of the year. Each one involves a dinner, a video that covers one of the five levels and peer discussion. Childcare is provided during the video and discussion portions of the gathering.
Karina Rook and her husband, Michael, attended the Heaven in Your Home gatherings at St. Phillip.
“My son has started asking when we get into the car if we are going to ‘Mass Church’ or ‘Dinner Church,’ ” said Karina who has three children, ages 11, 7 and 5. “It has connected our children to the parish and given them positive associations. I noticed that they have even started talking and playing with other kids after Mass, which is something they did not do before.”
Father Denis M. Donahue, pastor of St. Philip and a member of the board of directors of Trinity House Community, shared his perspective in a video on their website.
“This is important because the family is important,” said Father Donahue. “The family is so important for our church, and for our society. The family needs to be cared for. (Heaven in your Home) is just a great blessing.”
Moving into 2024, Soren and Ever hope to reach more parishes across the country and to further expand their ministry resources for Spanish-speakers.
Their new book, “Heaven in your Home: Letters and Guides,” was released Jan. 25 and it accompanies year one of the program.
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, who wrote the forward, sees the work that the Trinity House Community has done as, “One of the many blessings of the Diocese of Arlington.”
“Through a beautiful reflection on the icon of the Trinity, … Ever and Soren explain how God’s life is one of welcoming, listening and serving,” Bishop Burbidge wrote. “As we reflect on who God is, these features of his life become like guideposts on a map to, ‘finding heaven in our homes!’ ”
Kassock is a freelance writer in Fredericksburg.
