An Anglican Parish on South Main
Trinity Church sits at 550 South Main Street in Washington, Pennsylvania, a few blocks from the center of a small college town that is also the seat of Washington County. The congregation is an Anglican parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, part of the Anglican Church in North America, and it lives by a simple motto: "We love God, we love each other, we love our neighbors." The framing is deliberate. The parish calls itself "a community defined by the one-way love of God," and from that conviction everything else flows: a liturgical rhythm of Word and Sacrament, an unusually deep investment in the Alpha course, and a network of partnerships that reaches from a Washington County jail cell to a school in Kenya.
Sunday Worship, Midday Prayer, and Wednesday Quiet
The week at Trinity Church turns around three regular acts of prayer. On Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m., the congregation gathers in the Sanctuary for Holy Communion. The service is also livestreamed, and the readings follow the familiar Anglican pattern of four passages: an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, a New Testament reading, and a Gospel, with a sermon that draws them together. The congregation recites the Psalm, joins in the prayers, and comes forward to receive Communion. All baptized believers are welcomed to the rail regardless of age or denominational background.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at noon, the Sanctuary opens again for Midday Prayer. It is a brief, simple office, the kind of steadying pause in the middle of the working day that the Book of Common Prayer envisions. Then on Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m., the lights come down for Contemplative Worship, a quieter service running until about 8:30. The rectors describe this as a service of word and sacrament shaped by the broader Anglican tradition, and they note that the parish uses the Daily Office 2019 lectionary as a backbone for daily prayer throughout the week.
The Rectors: Tracey and Jamey Russell
Trinity Church has been led since its early days by two priests who share both marriage and ministry. The Rev. Canon Teresa (Tracey) Russell and the Rev. James (Jamey) Russell were ordained together in January 2011 by the Most Rev. Robert Duncan, then Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America. Both graduated from Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge in 2009 with Master of Divinity degrees, where Tracey received the Mike Henning Award for excellence in preaching and the couple together received the John Guest Award for Mission and Evangelism.
Before coming to Washington, the Russells helped plant Seeds of Hope Anglican Church in Pittsburgh, where they served for eight years. Tracey then became Youth Pastor at Christ Church Fox Chapel and Priest in Charge of I-Heart Blawnox, a Fresh Expressions ministry in the Borough of Blawnox, while Jamey preached and served as a youth pastor at the same church and ran a technology business on the side. Originally from New England, they have been married since 1997 and have five children. They are joined at Trinity by The Rev. Frances Metcalf, who serves as Assisting Priest, and by Josie Kost, who directs the music ministry.
Alpha: The Heart of Discipleship
If there is one program that has shaped Trinity Church's identity, it is Alpha. The parish hosts the introductory course, a series of Friday-evening sessions exploring life, faith, and meaning over a shared meal, several times a year, with childcare provided and a full Alpha Weekend held at Camp Agape in Hickory, Pennsylvania. The rectors have personally led dozens of Alpha courses over the years, with youth, adults, and the incarcerated.
Both Russells trace their own faith to the course. Tracey, who grew up close to God but drifted in young adulthood, writes that she walked into Alpha "with a chip on my shoulder" and "left the course a different person," eventually meeting Jamey there. Jamey, who once considered himself a "Unitarian with a Christian focus," describes how his intellectual objections to faith fell away during small group time and how, at the Holy Spirit weekend, "I finally accepted God's mercy. I wept uncontrollably as I realized that I was loved and forgiven."
The parish also runs Alpha at the Washington County Jail, where Jamey teaches a men's group and Tracey leads the women's course. They are now in their sixth cycle at the jail. Both rectors speak openly about the heartbreak and the miracle of prison ministry, including transfers, solitary confinement, and the women who come once and disappear, and also about baptisms behind the walls, healings, and former inmates who still call to say, "Alpha changed my life." The four foundational values of the course, be real, be relational, rely on the Holy Spirit, reproduce by empowering others, have become part of how the parish talks about its life together.
Children, Youth, and the Next Generation
Children are a serious part of the parish's ministry. During the 10:00 a.m. Sunday service, the church offers nursery care for the youngest children and Children's Church for older ones. The Sunday school curriculum is Godly Play, a Montessori-based program that the parish adopted recently and that, in the rectors' words, "the children love." On Wednesday mornings from 10:30 a.m. to noon, the church hosts a mid-week playgroup for parents and young children, a more informal gathering that gives young families another point of contact through the week.
All Children's Ministry volunteers carry Pennsylvania child abuse safety clearances and have completed Ministry Safe abuse prevention training. The parish is explicit about why: "Our children's ministries are not just babysitting during the service; we seek to teach the Gospel to the next generation of leaders in the Church."
For teenagers, the parish offers Engage, a one-on-one discipleship program. Each teen is paired with an adult mentor, and the two meet at a coffee shop, often Dunkin' or Starbucks, to read the Bible together. The shape is intentionally low-key: a meal, a conversation, and a passage of Scripture, away from the formality of a classroom.
Adults in Formation and Fellowship
Adult formation at Trinity is built around a few ongoing rhythms. On Thursday afternoons from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m., the parish walks through one hundred Bible passages, drawn from both Testaments, in a study designed so that newcomers can join at any point without feeling "behind." Over the course of a year, the group covers the arc of the biblical story.
For fellowship, the church runs a network of Supper Clubs: small monthly dinner groups that meet in members' homes. Four clubs are active at any given time, and the rectors regularly invite newcomers to start one of their own. Around the Supper Clubs has grown another set of "Huddles," smaller, more intentional small groups for prayer, study, and mutual care. The parish also keeps a card ministry for members who are struggling, visits the sick in the hospital, brings meals to those who are shut in, and gathers for coffee hour, potluck dinners, and movie nights, the last of which, the rectors have learned, often produce some of the best theological conversations of the month.
Adults who want to use their gifts in the life of the church can serve on one of several teams: the Intercessory Prayer Team, the Altar Guild, the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Sunday Service Team (Acolytes, Ushers, Readers), the Card Ministry, the Children's Church and Nursery team, or the Volunteer Staff Team.
Hands and Hearts for Washington
"We love our neighbors" is more than a slogan at Trinity. The parish supports a wide circle of partner ministries, both financially and with volunteer labor, and gives at least ten thousand dollars a year to outside organizations. The core local partnerships are with City Mission and Resurrection Power Ministries, both in Washington. Parishioners serve celebration dinners for residents of three-quarter houses in recovery, host training events for Resurrection Power, and tend a community garden whose produce, vegetables and herbs, since 2021, goes to City Mission.
Inside the church building itself, the parish hosts thirteen recovery meetings a week, including eleven Anonymous groups and two Al-Anon groups. For those in need of clothing, the church operates Our Kids Kloset, a satellite food and clothing pantry that distributes donated clothing free of charge to children and young adults in the Washington area by appointment, along with periodic open events. The church also partners with the Boy Scouts and supports a Coalition for Christian Outreach ministry at Washington & Jefferson College.
Beyond the immediate region, Trinity's reach extends to the Bishop Mundia Academy of Excellence in Kenya, which feeds and educates children who would not otherwise be in school; to Shepherd's Heart Mission on the streets of Pittsburgh; and to Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, the seminary where the Russells themselves trained.
The Building and the Light of the World
Worship at Trinity centers on a Sanctuary anchored by a single, striking piece of sacred art: a stained glass window designed by glass artist Rachel Barnyak, which hangs above the chancel above the Lord's table. The window is inspired by William Holman Hunt's famous 1850s painting The Light of the World, itself a meditation on Revelation 3:20: "Listen, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." The rectors have used that image as the basis for whole sermons, pointing out that the verse is set in a letter in which Jesus first rebukes and then loves the Laodicean church, a reminder, they say, that "even when we have shut him out of our lives with our prideful self sufficiency, he is waiting at the door."
The Sanctuary hosts the main Sunday and weekday services and is also where the parish gathers for weddings, funerals, and the small receptions that often follow. The Parish Hall downstairs can accommodate up to 150 guests for a reception or luncheon after a funeral, with tables, chairs, and kitchen facilities available for families to use.
From the Font to the Grave
Trinity takes the rhythm of Christian life seriously. Baptism is offered to infants being raised in Christian families, as well as to youth and adults who confess Jesus as Savior and Lord. The most fitting days for baptism are the Easter Vigil, the Baptism of Our Lord, Pentecost, and All Saints' Day, and the rite is celebrated within the context of a Sunday service. Confirmation is a public affirmation of the promises made at baptism, and it requires completion of a preparation course plus ten hours of volunteer service in one of the parish's ministries. The Bishop of Pittsburgh confirms candidates during his annual visitation.
Weddings are conducted under the authority of the Bishop of Pittsburgh. At least one of the couple must be a baptized, communicant member of Trinity Church in good standing, and the officiating priest meets with the couple at least four times for marriage preparation. The church is also willing to host a Service of Prayer and Dedication for couples already legally married who want to mark a new chapter in their life together.
Funerals follow the Burial liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer 2019, "an occasion of both sorrow and joy: our sorrow in the face of death, and our joy in Jesus' promise of the resurrection of the body." The rite usually includes Holy Communion, and the rectors are available to lead a vigil the night before or a graveside service afterward. Members are not charged for the clergy's time; non-members pay a modest set of fees, which the parish publishes openly.
An Anglican Parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh
Trinity is part of the Anglican Church in North America and sits within the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which provides episcopal oversight for marriage policies and the bishop's annual visit. The parish uses the Book of Common Prayer 2019 as its primary liturgical resource, and its worship is described as "liturgical, which means we follow a rhythm that celebrates both word and sacrament." Music is led by Director of Music Josie Kost, and the congregation joins in the sung portions of the services and the Psalm.
The parish lives within the wider Anglican tradition's emphasis on the beauty of common prayer, the centrality of the Eucharist, and the importance of bishop, priest, and people. At the same time, it is plainly evangelical in its commitment to lay witness: the Alpha course is offered as a basic introduction to Christianity, and parishioners are regularly invited to bring a friend. "We are called to make the grace of God credible," Tracey writes, quoting the evangelist Michael Green, "by a society of love and mutual care which astonished the pagans and was recognized as something entirely new."
Giving and the Vestry
Trinity Church depends on the regular giving of its members and the wider Christian community. Donations can be made in person during services, online through PayPal, or by mail. The parish submits to an annual outside audit and maintains a detailed budget that members may review at any time in a binder kept in the Narthex. Beyond its own operating costs, Trinity commits at least ten thousand dollars a year to outside organizations, and the Kids Kloset clothing ministry is funded entirely by gifts from the congregation.
The parish is governed day-to-day by a Vestry of lay leaders chaired by Senior Warden Scott Becker and Junior Warden Scott Nordmark, with Susan Drakeley as Treasurer and Jenny Messmer as Secretary, and a wider bench of elected members including Vivienne Felix, Kathy Schneider, Deb Woodstuff, Steve Kuhn, and Kelly Couri. The Vestry's role is to protect the vision of the parish, safeguard its values, support the rectors, and model sacrificial giving.