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 2018 we welcomed Pastor Nolan as worship pastor and completed renovations to the sanctuary. 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 within the last fifteen years. 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!