Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church has gathered Lutherans in Boonsboro, Maryland for what many consider to be 275 years, making it one of the oldest continuing congregations in Washington County. The red brick church with its newly restored aluminum steeple stands on the corner of South Main Street, and on Sunday mornings the church bell in its tower calls the town to worship at 10:15am. Trinity belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and to the Delaware-Maryland Synod, and it carries on a faith story that began when German Lutherans were among the first settlers of the area around the middle of the eighteenth century.
275 Years on South Main
The earliest known Lutheran gathering in the Boonsboro area took place at Ringer's Church, a log meeting house several miles northwest of town on the Peter Ringer homestead. Around 1750 a German Reformed congregation built its own log church, called Shunk's or Shank's Church, and within decades the two groups combined to build a shared stone meeting house known as Salem Church on land associated with the Boone family in Boonsboro. To raise the money for that building, the congregations petitioned the Maryland Legislature for permission to hold a lottery. The site today is behind the present United Church of Christ on Potomac Street, and the bell for the Salem Church, cast in England, cost four hundred dollars. Shingles for the roof were donated by General Samuel Ringold of Fountain Rock. The first known Lutheran pastor was the Rev. John G. Schumacker, who served the congregation from 1802 to 1809.
By 1870 Trinity had outgrown Salem Church and sold its share in the building to the Reformed congregation for sixteen hundred dollars. That same year the Lutherans bought a lot on South Main Street for one thousand dollars and laid the cornerstone for their own house of worship on July 16, 1870. The new Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was dedicated the following January at a cost of twelve thousand five hundred dollars, and the Trinity Lutheran Sunday School was organized on May 15, 1870. In 1925 the congregation added the present church school building and a parsonage at a cost of twenty-six thousand dollars. A major renovation between 1954 and 1956 brought a Moller pipe organ, new heating, new lighting, a new chancel, an amplifying system, a balcony converted into a room for parents with babies, and the renovation of the social room, with the rededication taking place on October 28, 1956. The church school building was renovated again in 1963.
Trinity has weathered one devastating setback. In May of 2011 a fire that started in the ceiling above the sanctuary caused nearly half a million dollars in damage to the sanctuary, pipe organ, pews, social hall and Sunday school rooms. Neighbors saw the smoke and called the Boonsboro fire department, and the building was saved. A year later the congregation was back worshipping in its sanctuary and using its recovered spaces to house Micah's Backpack of South Washington County, a weekend food program for elementary children. In 2025 the congregation marked 275 years as a gathered body, and on November 20, 2025 a new aluminum steeple, given by the family of longtime member C. Rodney Cline, was lifted onto the brick tower where an older wooden steeple had stood until lightning strikes forced its removal in the 1950s. The original bell still rings inside the tower each Sunday morning at 10:15 to announce the start of worship.
Worship at 10:15
Trinity holds one Sunday morning worship service at 10:15am year round, following a traditional Lutheran liturgy that draws on the historic patterns of Lutheran congregations. Holy Communion is generally celebrated on the first and third Sundays of each month, and all baptized Christians are welcome to come forward by the center aisle, take a glass from the acolyte and kneel at the rail. Children are invited to come forward with their family to receive a blessing. On the second Sunday of the month the service takes on a more contemporary flavor, with the chancel choir set aside in favor of a praise band led by contemporary director Chip Rockwell.
On the first Sunday in September the congregation sets aside its own building and joins the wider community at the Shafer Park gazebo at 10:00am for a shared service during Boonesborough Days. Special services through the year include Ash Wednesday, a midweek Lenten study and prayer series with Pastor Karl, Palm Sunday with a processional that begins outside the sanctuary, a Maundy Thursday service with communion around a table, a Good Friday community worship held at Trinity, and an Easter morning that opens with a contemporary Sonrise service at 7:30am, followed by an Easter breakfast hosted by the men of the church at about 8:30am, and the traditional festival Easter worship at 10:15am. The anniversary celebration service in May 2025 was livestreamed so members near and far could take part, and the church plans to continue that practice for major worship moments.
Sunday Morning Before Worship
Adults and kids gather at 9:00am for a shared hour of Christian education that Trinity simply calls Bible Study. Classes meet in various rooms around the church - the education wing, teen room, social hall and lounge - so that children, youth and adults can all be studying together at the same hour. The hour pauses for the summer and returns on Rally Day in September, which is also the kickoff for the Faith Explorer Sunday School classes. A separate Men's Bible Study meets at 8:00am on Sundays in the parsonage for the men who want an even earlier start.
The Sunday School program has been a part of Trinity since 1870, when classes first met in the church basement. Trinity's Coffee Call follows the 10:15am service one Sunday each month, offering an informal time of beverages, snacks and conversation. Volunteers serve regular and decaf coffee, tea, iced tea, water and a plate of finger foods. Coffee Call teams rotate through the year, and the schedule is posted so that everyone can plan ahead.
Trinity's Youth Ministry
Trinity's Youth Ministry is open to all kids in fifth grade through high school graduation. The group mixes service projects with the kind of playful gatherings that keep teenagers coming back. Service efforts in recent years have included support for the local food bank, collection drives for the Hagerstown Pregnancy Center and CASA, participation in Operation Christmas Child, and contributions to Church World Service efforts in other countries. On the lighter side the youth have gone snow tubing at Whitetail, bowled, camped, picnicked at the Family Recreation Center, slept over in the church and held movie nights. Older youth have attended RoadTrip, a gathering of ELCA youth from the Maryland and Delaware synods, where they have examined and solidified their faith together. The group has its own closed Facebook page for members and parents.
The congregation also runs a weeklong Summer Day Camp for children entering kindergarten through fifth grade. Camp runs from 8:00am to 4:00pm and features Bible lessons, music, science experiments, crafts, games and a daily snack, with extras each day that have included a reptile show by Wolfe's Exotic Encounters, a field trip to Mar-Lu-Ridge Camp and Retreat Center, a bounce house and a fitness class at Fit in Boonsboro. The cost is sixty dollars per child, with members receiving a fifty percent discount, and Trinity subsidizes part of the program so that the price is not a barrier for local families.
Blessings in Motion
Blessings in Motion is the umbrella under which Trinity gathers many of its hands-on outreach efforts. The Blessing Box is a small cabinet on the porch of the parsonage, also called the Funk Education Center, stocked with non-perishable items such as cereal, soup, pasta, sauce, juice, peanut butter, canned goods and, from time to time, hygiene items, formula and diapers. Neighbors who need a little help can take what they need without having to walk into a food pantry, and members of the congregation restock the box a few times each week.
The Blessing Bags program grew out of a smaller effort and now serves roughly twenty-four families in the Orchard Manor Apartments in Boonsboro, along with a handful of residents at Schoolhouse Manor. A small group of volunteers collects each recipient's wish list, shops for paper products, cleaning supplies and food, packs the bags and delivers them once a month. The groceries are purchased with funds from the Robert Swain Memorial Fund. In the summer of 2024 Trinity launched Patty's Picnic at Schoolhouse Manor in memory of member Patty Burkett, a resident of that community, and that December the group returned to carol and bring Christmas cookies.
Two longer-running holiday efforts also live under the congregation's care. For more than a decade, member Julie Williams has personally coordinated Trinity's Thanksgiving Blessings, which fills the church kitchen with tons of mashed potatoes and roast turkeys and prepares full Thanksgiving dinners with all the trimmings for local families in need, most of them from Boonsboro and Sharpsburg. Christmas Blessings follows a similar pattern with bags of groceries. Member Laura Iager serves as the volunteer coordinator for the San Mar Christmas Elf Program, through which 160 foster and low-income children in the greater area received gifts in 2024. Trinity's team, the Trinity Trekkers, also takes part in the HARC Walk, the South Washington County CROP Walk and the Coldest Night of the Year to bring awareness to local hunger. A Stewardship Fund held by Trinity provides short-term financial assistance to South County residents and congregation members who face sudden hardship such as a house fire, job loss or medical emergency.
South County Food Pantry
The South County Food Pantry is an independent nonprofit that uses Trinity's building for its work and is supported by volunteers and donations from many local churches and organizations. The Pantry serves residents of southern Washington County, including Boonsboro, Keedysville, Pleasant Valley, Sandy Hook, Sharpsburg and part of Greenbrier. It is open on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month from 1:00pm to 3:00pm, with parking behind the church and entry through the side door off the alley. The Pantry welcomes donations of non-perishable foods and operates on a small budget that relies heavily on private support. Donations may be mailed to South County Food Pantry, P.O. Box 63, Boonsboro, MD 21713.
Micah's Backpack
Micah's Backpack of South Washington County is housed at Trinity and supplies bags of weekend food to more than 120 children at seven local schools: Boonsboro Elementary, Pleasant Valley Elementary, Sharpsburg Elementary, Greenbrier Elementary and Fountain Rock Elementary. Each bag contains at least two nutritious breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners for a child who qualifies for free and reduced-price meals at school. The program was started in Boonsboro in the spring of 2012 in the immediate aftermath of the sanctuary fire, and the congregation made the program's hosting one of the first projects after the church reopened. The food list emphasizes single-serve items that a child can carry home, including oatmeal packs, hot chocolate, pudding cups, granola bars, applesauce cups, canned vegetables and pasta, tuna, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter to-go cups, sandwich crackers and microwave popcorn.
A Building That Keeps Growing
Trinity's social hall is a busy place. Local groups including the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Alcoholics Anonymous and Save Our Children, a support group for family and friends of heroin addicts, use the building for their meetings and programs. In September of 2022 the congregation dedicated a new outdoor pavilion that now hosts picnics, the annual Community Picnic for Boonsboro, summer day camp activities, outdoor worship and other fellowship events. In October of 2023 a long-absent feature returned to the steeple: an electronic carillon, installed by Church Specialties of Vermont, that plays hymns at noon and 6:00pm each day. The chimes were a familiar sound in Boonsboro for many years until the original carillon was removed during the 1954 to 1956 renovation; their return has been a gift to the wider town, as well as to the congregation.
The Moller pipe organ, installed in 1954 and now restored, anchors the music program. A special organ concert and hymn sing in April 2025 featured Wayne Wold, who served for many years as Professor of Music and College Organist at Hood College and as Director of Chapel Music at Camp David, playing a program of German, French and American repertoire on the Moller. Trinity shares ownership with Trinity UCC of two cemetery sites, the Boonsboro Cemetery behind the church at 35 Potomac Street and the larger cemetery behind Trinity Lutheran at 64 South Main Street. The historic bell that called the Salem Church congregation to worship is gone, but Trinity's own bell still rings from the tower every Sunday morning at 10:15, and the new aluminum steeple, lit for all to see, now rises above South Main once again.
First Friday, Coffee Call and the Community Picnic
Fellowship is woven through Trinity's calendar. First Friday Dinners bring the congregation together at 5:30 or 6:00pm on the first Friday of most months, with the church providing the main course and guests signing up to bring sides, desserts or drinks. The host family picks a theme and Trinity welcomes anyone in the community to come for food and friendship. Coffee Call fills the social hall after worship one Sunday each month. The annual Community Picnic for Boonsboro, now in its fourth year, opens the church grounds to the whole town for an evening of hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, ice cream, a bounce house, live music, games and the Antietam Dairy ice cream truck. Trinity also hosts Sight and Sound group trips to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, chartering a bus so no one has to drive alone, and attends an annual fall worship service together at Mar-Lu-Ridge, the Lutheran camp and retreat center.
Help for Hikers on the Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail runs along the top of South Mountain just east of Boonsboro and brings hundreds of hikers through the area each year. Trinity has long offered assistance to those hikers in the form of transportation, shelter or medical help. Hiking the trail is harder than some expect, and being alone on it carries its own challenges; the congregation sees the support it offers as a simple way to care for neighbors, near and far, who happen to be passing through.
Lutheran Beliefs
Trinity's mission is to reach out to all people and invite them into a deep relationship with Christ through Gospel-centered worship, Bible study, fellowship and a compassionate community. The congregation holds to the basic principles that trace back to Martin Luther and the Reformation of 1517: that we are saved by the grace of God alone and not by anything we do, that our salvation is through faith alone as we trust in the God made known in Christ who promises forgiveness, life and salvation, and that the Bible is the norm for faith and life, the true standard by which teachings and doctrines are judged.
As part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Trinity belongs to a church family of nearly five million baptized members in more than ten thousand congregations across the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and to the Delaware-Maryland Synod. The ELCA has entered into full communion agreements with the Moravian Church, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ, and it continues an ongoing dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church that produced the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999.
Pastor Karl E. Muhlbach was installed by ELCA Delaware-Maryland Synod Bishop Gohl on December 6, 2021. He holds a Master of Divinity from United Lutheran Seminary and an undergraduate degree from Towson University in Human and Family Services, and he spent a year in Chicago with Lutheran Volunteer Corps before going on to serve as Associate Director at Mar-Lu-Ridge. He is supported in ministry by Church Coordinator Meaghan Collins, by Organist and Traditional Choir Director Marianne Talhelm, and by Contemporary Choir Director Chip Rockwell. Church Council President Matt Iager leads the 2024 council, and a long list of committee liaisons helps carry the work of the congregation forward.