Trinity Church sits on North 10th Street in Covington, Louisiana, just a block or so from the spot where a small group of Christian men first began meeting for prayer and Bible study in 1973. Today the Evangelical Free Church of America congregation gathers more than fifty years after those first conversations in Kirk Triplett's home, drawing families from across St. Tammany Parish for Sunday worship, a Spanish-speaking service called Dulce Refugio, a midweek Bible study for seniors, weekday home groups, and an active slate of ministries for children, students, women, and men. The church's purpose, as its members like to say, is simple: develop wholehearted followers of Jesus Christ.
What a Sunday Morning Looks Like
The rhythms of Trinity are built around a single Sunday gathering, with ministries wrapping around it for every age. Most guests arrive around 9:45am, and greeters meet them at the doors. Adult Bible Fellowship meets from 9:00 to 9:45am in Room 307, and a prayer meeting runs from 9:30 to 9:55am in Room 306, giving early arrivals a chance to dig into the Word or pray together before the main service.
At 10:00am the Sunday Worship service begins in the Worship Center with congregational singing led by a band, followed at about 10:30am by a Bible message from one of the pastors. The service wraps by 11:15am. For families, kids in 5th grade and under check in at kiosks in the main building foyer or in the Family Discipleship Center next door, and the children are released during the service to their own age-appropriate teaching in the FDC. Nursery care is available for infants through age 3. Trinity Youth, for students in grades 6 through 12, gathers separately in the Student Ministry Building from 5:00 to 7:00pm on Sunday evenings for food, games, teaching, and small group discussion.
A short walk across the parking lot leads to the Family Discipleship Center, where Dulce Refugio, a Spanish-speaking church pastored by Roberto Paz, holds its own service at 10:00am. Trinity and Dulce Refugio share the same campus but serve different language communities, and members frequently describe the two congregations as a family of churches under one roof.
From a Living Room to a Thirteen-Acre Campus
Trinity's story begins in 1973, when a group of Christian men from various churches and Bible studies in the area met at Kirk Triplett's home with a plan to form an outreach ministry to St. Tammany Parish. They organized as Tammany Christian Fellowship and met for prayer, business meetings, and Bible studies in an old office building on 10th Street donated by Dr. Pete Hendry. Northlake Christian School was started in those same buildings in 1978, with trailers supplementing the main structures. In 1980, both the church and the school moved to a new campus on Three Rivers Road across from the Tulane Primate Center, where the fellowship worshipped in one of the school trailers on Sundays.
A few years later, the fellowship built a multi-purpose building on the Northlake campus, transitioned to an elder-led model, and joined the Evangelical Free Church of America. The congregation took the name Trinity Church, and Rodney Wood served as the first pastor under that name. In 1995 the multi-purpose building was sold to the school and leased back for Sunday services. Thirteen acres of land were purchased in the fall of 1996, and Trinity's current building, complete with an auditorium, classrooms, a nursery, and church offices, was completed in the summer of 1998. The Family Discipleship Center, which houses all of the children's classrooms, was added in 2005.
Another major chapter opened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when Senior Pastor Michael Sprague helped launch the ReachGlobal Crisis Response Center, an EFCA ministry now headquartered on Trinity's property that responds to catastrophes around the world. Rodney Wood was followed as senior pastor by Lance Bourgeois, who served from June 2014 to February 2019. In November 2019, Marcus Busenitz accepted the call to become Trinity's current senior pastor.
What Trinity Believes
Trinity subscribes to the Statement of Faith of the Evangelical Free Church of America, adopted by the EFCA Conference on June 26, 2008. The church teaches that there is one God, Creator of all things, who exists eternally in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is the verbally inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority for faith and life.
Trinity affirms the historic Christian understanding of the human condition: that Adam and Eve were created in God's image, that humanity fell into sin, and that only through the saving work of Jesus Christ can people be rescued, reconciled, and renewed. Jesus Christ is confessed as God incarnate, fully God and fully man, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, who lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest and Advocate. The Holy Spirit is honored as the one who convicts, regenerates, indwells, illuminates, guides, equips, and empowers believers for Christ-like living.
The church teaches that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone in Christ alone, and that this church is expressed locally in congregations whose membership is made up of believers. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the two ordinances given by Christ. Trinity looks for the personal, bodily, and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and believes that God will raise the dead, judge the world, and assign the unbeliever to condemnation and the believer to eternal blessedness in the new heaven and new earth.
The Pastoral Team and the Elder Board
Marcus Busenitz has served as senior pastor since November 2019. A native of Kansas who met his wife Sarah at Moody Bible Institute and later graduated from Beeson Divinity School, Busenitz came to Trinity after nine years on staff at Mountain Brook Community Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He and Sarah have five children and live in the Covington area.
Miguel Lopez serves as Pastor of Worship Ministry and Discipleship. A lifelong New Orleans-area native and LSU graduate, Lopez has spent most of his career pointing teenagers toward Christ, including a previous stint on Trinity's student ministries staff and a season of church planting. He moved into his current role in August 2018. Chad Bender assists him on the worship team.
Avery Mendheim, a Covington High School graduate and LSU business management alumnus, leads the Youth Ministry. Amy Gex directs the Children's Ministry after first serving Trinity as church administrator. The office team also includes Communications Director Angelle Rowe and Office Administrator Kathy Godfrey.
Six men make up Trinity's elder board: Randy Aultman, Steve Freeman, Jeff Walter, George Durant, Anthony Gex, and Bryan Whiteman. Several have served multiple stints as elders and have deep roots in the congregation, including a handful who have been members since the church was meeting in the gymnasium at Northlake Christian School.
Kids and Students
The Kids Ministry exists to partner with parents in raising children who become wholehearted followers of Jesus Christ. From infants through 5th grade, kids are cared for in age-appropriate classrooms using play, Bible lessons, games, crafts, and the Gospel Project curriculum. Nursery care is provided for infants through age 3, and Children's Church gathers children ages 4 through 5th grade during the sermon. Child dedications are offered as a regular part of church life for parents who want to commit their children to the Lord and have the church commit its help.
Trinity Youth, for students in grades 6 through 12, meets every Sunday night in the Student Ministry Building. The gatherings include food, recreation, a teaching time, and small group conversation, and the ministry partners with parents rather than trying to replace them. Students are encouraged to worship with their families on Sunday mornings, to spend time alone with God through the book of Matthew, to stay in contact with their leaders, and to invite friends along to student ministry activities.
Women, Men, and Senior Adults
Trinity's Women Ministry is built around the four core values of the church: worship, discipleship, community, and mission. Women gather on Thursday mornings at 9:30am for a study led by Laura Freeman and on Thursday evenings at 6:00pm for a parallel group led by Tamarah Myers, with childcare available for the morning study. The current study walks through Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, treating the spiritual disciplines not as ways to earn God's love but as practices that make room for His transforming work. A monthly Moms to Moms brunch, held the second Saturday of each month at 10:00am in the church foyer, pairs seasoned mothers with newer moms of newborns and preschoolers for fellowship and encouragement. A separate Meals Ministry, coordinated through the church, delivers meals, gift cards, or food deliveries to families during seasons of difficulty or joy such as recovery, grief, or the arrival of a new baby.
Trinity men gather for a Saturday breakfast on the first of each month and meet throughout the week in small accountability groups and in-depth Bible studies. Special events, including tailgates for big SEC matchups, build fellowship outside the regular rhythms of the week.
Senior adults have a place of their own in the Silver Seekers Bible Study, which meets every Wednesday at 10:00am in Room 304. The church also walks families through seasons of loss with a GriefShare support ministry, with classes offered as leaders and circumstances allow.
Home Groups: Gospel Hospitality, Conversation, and Care
Home Groups are the backbone of Trinity's discipleship strategy. Most groups meet in homes throughout the week, last about ninety minutes, and center on three practices: Gospel Hospitality, where the group functions like a family sharing meals and life together; Gospel Conversation, where members engage the previous Sunday's sermon using a study guide; and Gospel Care, where the group prays for one another and walks through life's ups and downs together. Members commit to a group for one school year, with breaks in December and during the summer, and groups multiply organically over time as new leaders are raised up.
Reaching Beyond the Walls: Missions and Dulce Refugio
Trinity frames missions around three simple challenges: pray, give, and go. The church supports a network of mission partners locally and around the world, including three families serving with EFCA ReachGlobal Crisis Response (Dorinda Bogran and Steve, Mark and Denise Lewis, and Kevin and Babette Watterson); Jerry and Mallory Dendinger with Athletes in Action; John and Wendy Gerhardt with Urban Impact Ministries in New Orleans; Barry and Liz Haindel with Life Resources; Shane and Vickie O'Hara with Team 5:18 Ministries, which includes life coaching for kids, Malachi Dads, prison ministry, gospel illusions, and campus outreach; and the local counseling and outreach work of No Heart Left Behind. Trinity also partners with the New Orleans Mission, the Northlake Crisis Pregnancy Center in Covington, the Samaritan Center, the child sponsorship ministry GlobalFingerprints, and NeverThirst, which drills clean water wells in unreached communities.
Right on the Trinity campus, the Spanish-speaking congregation of Dulce Refugio, pastored by Roberto Paz, holds its own Sunday service at 10:00am in the Family Discipleship Center. The two congregations share facilities, leadership support, and a vision to make the love of Christ accessible across the language barriers of the Northshore.
The Access Initiative
Looking ahead, Trinity is investing in its campus through the Access Initiative, a building and ministry plan designed to give greater access to the gospel. The work centers on four focus areas: worship, with updates to the audio, visual, and lighting systems in the Worship Center; discipleship, with a covered walkway between the main building and the FDC, a new playground, and multipurpose spaces for small groups; community, with a brighter, more welcoming front entrance, an expanded hospitality area, updated restrooms, and a family restroom and nursing mother's room; and mission, with the first dollars raised going to support NeverThirst's work drilling wells in unreached communities. Architectural renderings of the planned work are available for anyone who wants to see the future shape of the campus.
Care for the Congregation
Beyond the regularly scheduled ministries, Trinity walks alongside its members in the practical struggles of life. The Meals Ministry organizes meal trains for anyone recovering from surgery or illness, grieving a loss, welcoming a new baby, or simply facing a hard season, with the option of a home-cooked meal, a gift card, or a food delivery. GriefShare support groups are offered as leaders and circumstances allow. A weekly sermon discussion guide, an archive of past messages, and a library of RightNow Media Bible studies give members resources to grow throughout the week, while the church's printed and electronic bulletins keep the congregation connected to what is happening across ministries. Giving is available online, services are livestreamed on Sundays, and prayer requests can be shared with the pastoral team for those in need of prayer support.
Office hours run Monday through Thursday from 8:30am to 4:30pm, and the office can be reached at 985-893-0218 or info@trinityefca.com. Whether someone is stepping onto the Trinity campus for the first time or has been part of the family for decades, the church's prayer is the same as the one it has carried since 1973: that lives would keep changing as more and more people gain access to the gospel of Jesus Christ.