Trinity Baptist Church meets at 300 Trinity Drive on Mountain View Road on the east side of Williston, Vermont, accessed from Interstate 89 at Exit 12. From this single location it runs two Sunday services, midweek Discipleship Groups, a K-12 day school, and a network that supports missionaries on several continents. Its motto, drawn from Matthew 28:19-20, is "Making Christ-like Disciples," and a banner verse from 2 Timothy 1:7 accompanies it: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
Sundays from Morning Prayer to Evening Service
The church's week begins on Sunday at 8:30 a.m., when the pastor opens his office for a brief season of prayer and anyone is welcome to step in. Life Groups follow at 9:00 a.m., meeting in classrooms across the building to work through the previous Sunday's sermon; visitors are welcome in any group. Morning Worship gathers at 10:00 a.m. and forms the main assembly of the day, and the schedule does not end at noon. An Evening Service meets at 5:30 p.m., and the same hour brings two parallel ministries for younger members: Youth Group, which is open to teens, and Expeditions for Kids, the children's program for the same age group. Both run from September through May, pausing during the summer when many families are traveling. The morning and evening services share a single sermon focus for the weekend, and a printable Conference Guide accompanies most services so that guests can follow along.
Life Groups and Discipleship Groups
The midweek rhythm carries the week forward. Discipleship Groups are small men's and women's groups that meet bi-weekly on different days and at different times, gathering for deeper Bible study and the kind of mutual accountability the church considers essential to the Christian life. A phrase from the church's philosophy of ministry sums up the goal this way: every disciple is invited to "Be One, Follow One, Lead One, Win One." Visitors interested in being placed in a group can contact the office to be matched with one that fits their schedule and the section of town they live in.
Children, Youth, and Trinity Baptist School
Trinity Baptist School shares the campus with the church. The day school is a ministry of the congregation, with elementary and senior-high programs on site. Before becoming Senior Pastor, Rob McIlwaine taught Bible to senior-high students and served as the school's superintendent, and his wife, Dana, teaches in the elementary program. The school operates within the church's broader conviction that the education of children belongs first to their parents, "not to the state or any other human institution," and the statement of faith calls parents to raise their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." On Sunday evenings during the school year, that same conviction takes shape in the Youth Group and Expeditions for Kids, both of which run alongside the Evening Service.
What Trinity Holds to Be True
The church's statement of faith draws heavily from the King James Bible and reflects the main contours of historic Baptist theology. The Old and New Testaments are verbally and plenarily inspired, inerrant in the originals, and the supreme authority for faith and life. There is one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, born of the Virgin Mary, sinless in His earthly life, crucified for sinners under the divine wrath, raised bodily, and now enthroned at the right hand of the Father as High Priest and Advocate. The Holy Spirit is the divine agent in conviction, regeneration, indwelling, sealing, and the progressive sanctification that follows salvation.
Salvation is by grace through faith, the free gift of God, never merited by human effort, received by personal repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus. The church practices two ordinances: believers' baptism by immersion, portraying Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and the Lord's Supper, in which baptized believers partake of the bread and the cup in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice. Neither ordinance carries saving power in itself.
On last things, the church is premillennial. The statement affirms an imminent pre-tribulation rapture of the church and the visible return of Christ at the end of the Tribulation to defeat the armies of Satan and inaugurate a millennial reign. Creation is described as having occurred in six literal twenty-four-hour periods, and evolutionary theories are rejected as unscriptural. The spirits of the saved go to be with Christ at death; the spirits of the unsaved descend into a place of punishment until the final day of judgment at the Great White Throne, when the lost are raised bodily and cast into the lake of fire.
On moral questions, the statement is plain. Marriage is a lifelong union of one man and one woman. Sexual activity is confined to such a marriage, with homosexuality, fornication, adultery, and pornography named as contrary to Scripture. Abortion is condemned as the unjustified taking of human life from conception. Disputes between believers are to be resolved within the church rather than in a civil court. The statement affirms the autonomy of the local congregation as "answerable to no ecclesiastical body, but directly accountable to God," and calls the church to separate from any group that would tolerate what it describes as apostasy.
Missions and Teaching
Missions sit at the heart of Trinity's identity. The church supports missionary families in Zambia, South Africa, Cambodia, Dominica, and other countries, along with missionaries serving within the United States. Giving can be directed to a separate Missions fund for that purpose, while the General Fund sustains the everyday work of the church and the school.
That outward focus also shapes the preaching. Recent series have walked through the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Gospel of Mark, an in-depth study of Revelation, and a passage through Ephesians on the armor of God. An extended teaching under the heading "Day of the Lord" lays out the church's view of end-times events in detail, drawing on the preaching of Dr. Billy M. Gotcher, who has taught at conferences and Sunday evening services for years. Each week a Conference Guide accompanies the morning services; visitors can pick one up in the lobby or download it as a PDF.
Planning a First Visit
The building sits off Mountain View Road, accessible from Interstate 89 at Exit 12, Vermont Route 2A, or Williston Road. Parking is ample, with handicap-accessible spaces and a covered drop-off loop near the entrance. Sunday mornings are the largest gathering of the week and typically end in time for a late lunch.
For those who want a place to start, the church offers a free eBook called Kicking Off that outlines how to begin a Christian life, along with a printed Bridge Tract that lays out the same gospel message. Both are available without cost, and physical copies of the booklet can also be requested from the church office. Visitors who want to stay in the loop about service changes and special events can sign up for the church's mailing list on the home page. Giving can be done in person, mailed to the office, or made online through the Tithe.ly platform and mobile app, and a secure drop box in the school's front entrance is monitored by video camera and checked regularly.
Services are livestreamed on YouTube and the sermon archive keeps recordings organized by series, so anyone unable to attend in person can keep up with what the church is teaching. Telephone for the office is 802-878-8118, extension 100, and the office email is churchoffice@tbcvt.org.