We know and hear frequently that Jesus gave us the Great Commission that reaches into every corner of the world. And, I think we continually kept that before us as a church. But there is nothing that compares with actually going to far-off places or places that are very different than our country, to share the good news of Jesus. While I had thought about becoming a missionary early in my ministry, God’s direction was for me to pastor in the U.S. However, missions was always on my heart, and with Trinity, I was able to lead a number of groups to Mexico and Puerto Rico. But I also had the opportunity to go with George Renner, John Shekleton, Annah Harrigan and a few others to minister in Kenya and to teach at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. While there, I met some men whom I still keep in touch with today. I was able to visit and preach in one of poorest sites in Nairobi. Those trips made a deep impact on my desire to see the good news of Jesus spread throughout the world. The Trinity family always was supportive of me going on these mission trips and a number of people from Trinity also went. Trinity enabled me to keep the Great Commission in my heart and before the church.

As I was praying about coming to Trinity, and as the Church was considering me as their next pastor, I talked with Jim Van Yperen, the interim pastor at that time. He shared that he thought that there was a demonic bondage that was affecting the unity and spiritual vitality of Trinity. In fact, he felt that New England itself was targeted by spiritual warfare, which affected the health and spiritual vitality of not only churches, but pastors as well. This was something I had not experienced. After I came and as I shared this with our leaders, we prayed were led to a program targeting situations like this called, “Setting Your Church Free.” The program was an all-day Saturday event in which we prayed, sang, confessed our corporate and individual sins, and dedicated our church to the Lordship of Jesus. I believe that was a key turning point early on in my time at Trinity and enabled our church to truly be set free from the negative spiritual forces that had plagued Trinity with divisions and disunity. While there were no wild, demonic happenings that day, what came from it for the next years, was a peace among the church family and a joy people had in simply coming to church. We were glad to come and looked forward to seeing one another.

Another turning point in the church was when we faced a number of facility issues that needed fixing. During a time of growth under the pastoring of George Renner, Trinity was growing in numbers. The original building, now the fellowship hall, was getting cramped in space with more people coming. The plan was to build an auditorium, the present one we currently have. Money was raised and borrowed to complete the project. However, after God called George to missions, troubles among the church family came, and people left the church. But the church was still in debt to pay off the building, and the debt was formidable so that when Trinity called me, besides a part-time secretary, I was the only staff person. After God graciously brought Trinity back to spiritual health, and as people started to come to Trinity again, our financial situation improved to the point that we were able to finish paying off the debt and then address some facility needs. Then, with the financial status of Trinity better, we were able to develop the church in two ways: one was to hire a youth pastor and then a children’s ministry director. These two positions targeted an important segment of not just Trinity, but of the Nashua community as well. The other area we expanded in was our facilities. We renovated the downstairs of the D House to make it our youth activity room at that time. We bought the small house between the church office (formally the parsonage), and the main church building, and used it as the youth pastor parsonage. We also addressed our parking lot, our grounds, and eventually added on to our facilities with several key additions. One was the kitchen, which we upgraded to the standards of a commercial kitchen. That allowed us to cook and serve meals to not only our church family, but also to the community. It also enabled one of our most significant ministries, the Food Pantry to begin and continue, which is still going strong under the leadership of Cathy Lewis.

Another significant change was to move the church leadership from being led by a Governing Board, to being led by Elders. I felt that the Bible’s organizational leadership was based on godly men, elders, of which the senior pastor was one among equals. The elders were not just to be the spiritual shepherds of the church, but also the ones who set the direction if the church. The congregation would vote to approve the elders, thus creating a balance among the church governance which allowed the elders, as leaders, to lead.

One final boost to the church was the willingness to host the Chinese Church of Greater Nashua, and then later, the Unidos en Cristo Spanish Church. No one church can reach all the people in a community, especially when there are different ethnic groups living among us. When men came from the Chinese Church of Greater Lowell who were looking for a temporary home to start the Chinese Church of Nashua, Trinity responded. There were various issues to coordinate to enable them to meet, such as sharing space, making sure events from both Trinity and the Chinese Church didn’t conflict. But the effort was well worth it because people were being reached for Christ who would not be reached by Trinity. After the Chinese Church moved on to their new site, the Spanish Church came looking for a church home as well. And Trinity, again, responded to allow them to use our facilities. With both the Chinese Church and the Spanish Church, a beautiful picture of the Church of Jesus Christ became evident—that Jesus’ Church is comprised of all ethnic groups.

One of the hallmarks of Trinity was that we have always been people who trust God and hold to his word. This helps us move ahead even when there have been traditions that Trinity has maintained. However, the church family has also been forward-thinking when it comes to considering how God might be moving Trinity into a new direction. This was the case when we faced the fact that we could have more opportunities for a variety of ministries if we removed the church pews and replaced them with moveable seating. The pews had been in the church auditorium since it was built in 1984. In addition, most people called the auditorium the sanctuary, which tended to sanctify the building to the level of the ancient Jewish Tabernacle. The problem was that we were using the space only once or twice a week, and primarily only for worship services. We did not want to build an additional auditorium while we had before us, a great space we could use for ministry. We considered removing the pews, but number of people were initially against the plan. As they considered the auditorium a sanctuary, the pews were also sacred. We prayed; we realized that the sanctuary was really just a building. The people were the Church. The pews were just seats to sit on (or an occasional place to lie down during a long, boring sermon). To make changes like we were considering often causes church divisions and even splits. But we prayed. We talked to each other. We prayed some more. We began to see new opportunities for ministry that could happen. The time came to vote, and the overwhelming sentiment was to make way for God to do new things. We found a new church home for the pews so another church would use them and we replaced them with the chairs we currently have.

That change definitely has opened up new ministry opportunities. We have had kids programs; we have held VBS; we have had Night in Bethlehem; we hosted community-wide leadership seminars; we have held dinners. We would not have been able to have these events, if we had not replaced the pews with chairs. What initially was a potentially divisive issue, through prayer and godly and wise men and women, we moved ahead and helped our church family realize that with God’s leading, we can make changes—even difficult ones—and keep the church moving ahead with God’s plans and doing so in a unified way.

From the very beginning of Trinity’s existence, godly men and women recognized an evangelical church was needed in Nashua. As a small core group of people prayed, God was faithful to grow that seed of faith into our first church on Main Street. As the church grew, God was faithful to provide the land for Trinity to build our present church. And God’s faithfulness was evident in building a church of people. But God’s faithfulness was especially evident as he brought us through difficult times. In the early 1990’s, the turmoil caused by events related to two successive pastors created problems that weakened Trinity, both in terms of people leaving and in the ensuing high debt that remained. God’s faithfulness, though, became evident again, as he worked through the godly men and women who were still committed to believing that God had plans for Trinity. Trinity lost over half its members, and that created significant financial difficulties. But the people of Trinity believed God wasn’t through with Trinity. They hired an interim pastor, Jim Van Yperen, through whom God worked to address continuing staff issues and leadership dissension. Trinity appointed a pastor search team who believed God was going to be faithful to lead the right pastor to Trinity. And God was faithful to do that. It is not that God brought a perfect pastor to Trinity by any means. But it’s interesting that God reached all the way across the country to bring me from San Jose to Trinity. God’s faithfulness was continually evident as he worked in me to help me become a better pastor. God was faithful to bring a new season to Trinity. A number of young families started coming to Trinity. The life and spiritual vitality of Trinity grew because of God’s continued faithfulness. God’s faithfulness continued to be evident: the church grew in number, the debt was erased, the facilities and grounds were remodeled. God’s faithfulness also became evident six years ago in leading Pastor Shawn Carpenter to Trinity, again reaching across the county to California. My motto has been that the church is family—the family of God. This means that each member of the Trinity has a commitment and vested interest in our church: Jesus is head of the church and always will be; the Holy Spirit dwells not only in each believer, but he also dwells corporately in the church to unify and purify it; and God gives his grace and resources to enable the church to stand strong together against the powers of Satan and the influences of the world. God has been faithful in the past 75 years and promises to continue to be faithful, not just for the next 75 years, but until Jesus returns to establish his Kingdom.