Our Story

Welcome! The best way to learn who we are as a church is to talk to our people. Until you get a chance for that, here’s a primer to get you started. Hint: Everything hinges on the Gospel of Jesus Christ).


The Gospel is our hope.

The Gospel is the good news that God sent his Son Jesus to rescue lost and broken people. Our hope is not in doing good things or in being moral people; our hope is solely in what Jesus has done for us. God’s grace gives us life!


The Gospel makes us a community.

God’s grace is changing our individual stories, and in the process, it connect us with others. Our church is a community of people who have found hope in the Gospel. That means that we are free to be authentic with each other; genuine, loving relationships replace superficiality. This is not to say our community is utopian; it means that we are striving to build a community centered on the Gospel.


The Gospel gives us purpose.

Gospel community is not inward and stagnant but outward and active. The hope of the Gospel has changed our priorities for life. Jesus has become everything to us. As a result, we want to spend our lives helping others come to know Jesus, too. So we are building Gospel community to reach our community with the good news of Jesus.


OUR MISSION

The church of Jesus Christ exists to glorify God by making followers of Jesus all around the world. Trinity Church is part of that movement. Our mission is to make more and stronger disciples of Jesus. Everything we do as a church is designed to flow out of this mission. That means that we are striving to bring new people into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and it means that we are striving to help Christians develop into mature believers who are more and more like Christ (see more on the Vision page).


OUR HISTORY

Trinity Evangelical Free Church was first organized on November 4, 1882 as the Swedish Free Evangelical Mission Church. The 130 years since then have brought many changes: in 1925, services in English rather than Swedish; in 1942, a name change; and in 1976, a new building. In 2010 Pastor Gary took on the role of senior pastor and in 2012 Pastor Travis began his role as the pastor of family ministries. In 2017 we added three part time staff members to further the ministry of Trinity in the Ludington community. Through all the changes, the congregation has remained committed to the centrality of God’s Word for the life of the church, and God has proven Himself faithful in providing for His people.


A church with such a long history is not without its scars. Trinity has suffered from difficult, divisive periods in its history, even in the last decade. But alongside such hard times, God has given encouraging times of growth. We believe that God is moving among us and calling us to a new time of faithfulness. We are being challenged by God to follow Him with a bold faith that holds nothing back in its pursuit of Christ and His Kingdom. We have seen God’s initial blessings and anticipate with great hope and joy the blessings that are still to come. May God be glorified in a great way in our time!

What We Believe

Trinity Church is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America. The EFCA is an association of autonomous churches united around these theological convictions:


God

We believe in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for Himself and to make all things new for His own glory.


The Bible:

We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.


The Human Condition:

We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled and renewed.


Jesus Christ:

We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus - Israel’s promised Messiah - was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.


The Work of Christ:

We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.


The Holy Spirit:

We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.


The Church:

We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers. The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.


Christian Living:

We believe that God’s justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.


Christ's Return:

We believe in the personal, bodily and premillennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.


Response and Eternal Destiny:

We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.