Trinity Lutheran Church has anchored the west side of Bloomington, Illinois, since the Rev. Friedrich Ruff first preached in the old McLean County Court House in August 1858 and organized the congregation on September 19 of that year. Now in its 168th year, Trinity is a member congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and a community built around three Sunday morning rhythms (traditional worship, adult and youth discipleship hour, and contemporary worship), a Wednesday evening service, an attached Lutheran day school, a long roster of family and women's ministries, and an active mission program called Hearts Ablaze. The congregation is preparing to consolidate its church and school on a single campus at West Hamilton Road, where construction on a new sanctuary broke ground in August 2025.
Worship on Madison Street
Sunday worship at Trinity is built around two services with a discipleship hour in between. Traditional worship, led from the historic 1955 sanctuary at 801 South Madison Street, begins at 8:15 AM and follows the historic liturgy of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. At 9:30 AM the Adult and Youth Discipleship Hour fills the building with Bible studies, parenting classes, and confirmation instruction, while Trinity Kids opens for children from birth through fifth grade. Contemporary worship begins at 10:30 AM with a full band leading the music and continues to tie its teaching directly to the same Scripture readings used in the early service. Both Sunday services are livestreamed and remain available on demand on Trinity's YouTube channel.
Trinity also gathers for a Wednesday evening service at 6:00 PM. This midweek service gives members and visitors a chance to come together, sing, focus on God, and seek rest outside the Sunday rhythm. Each week the message is built on the previous Sunday's sermon, and the Lord's Supper is celebrated on the first Wednesday of each month unless otherwise noted. Children are always welcome at Trinity's services, and a staffed nursery is open during the Sunday discipleship hour. An unstaffed nursery space is also available for parents during worship services.
Visitors can let the church know they attended by filling out an online worship attendance form or by dropping a printed attendance card from the pew rack into the offering plate. Members are encouraged to check in through the Church Center app. Prayer requests can be submitted online and are added to verbal prayers, printed prayers, and private prayers as requested.
Trinity Lutheran School
Christian day school at Trinity has existed as long as the congregation itself. The first three pastors of Trinity taught the school in the 1860s, and it has continued without interruption ever since. Today Trinity Lutheran School serves students from age 3 through eighth grade at its campus on West Hamilton Road, a property the congregation acquired in 2000 and dedicated in March 2003 after outgrowing the Madison Street site.
The school exists to develop well-rounded, lifelong Christian disciples. Students participate in a full academic curriculum in a Christian learning environment, while field trips, service projects, family groups, outdoor education, and a wide range of extracurricular activities round out the program. Principal Shawn Hoffmann has led the school since 2004 and previously taught fifth through eighth grade science. Trinity Lutheran School is recognized as a Christ-centered place that focuses on a family, community environment.
Trinity Kids and Trinity Youth
Trinity Kids exists to partner with parents in passing on faith to the next generation. On Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:15 AM, children from birth through fifth grade experience God's gift of love through age-appropriate rooms and programming. The Nursery (ages zero to two) hosts a clean, safe space with background music, a short Bible time with back-and-forth interactions, and a personal blessing for each child. The Right From the Start class brings parents together with their infants through thirty-six-month-olds for ten minutes of simple faith rhythms, followed by a guided discussion for parents. Preschool classrooms include music, Bible reading, crafts, games, and prayers, while Kindergarten through fifth graders gather first in an opening room for music, birthdays, and a high-energy invocation before moving into small groups led by an adult disciple leader and a Teenmate.
Trinity Youth, for sixth through twelfth graders, follows five guiding principles: encouraging spiritual habits, inspiring Christ-like servant hearts, building intentional relationships, providing community, and emphasizing identity in Christ. Sunday morning programming from 9:30 to 10:15 AM includes a sixth-grade class built around Knowing God and the Bible, a seventh and eighth grade confirmation track, and a senior high class studying apologetics. JR Discipleship is a two-year confirmation journey built around the words Equip, Connect, and Engage that leads students toward the Rite of Confirmation, where they will give voice to the baptismal promises their parents made for them. Beyond Sunday morning, JR High and SR High youth groups meet on Wednesday evenings, an IMPACT Leadership Team develops student leaders who plan and serve at events, and a co-ed high school basketball ministry practices once a week and competes in the Holiday Invitational and State Championship tournaments.
Faith Milestones Across a Lifetime
One of the most distinctive features of Trinity's ministry is its Faith Milestones program, a series of intentional moments designed to help households pass the Christian faith from one generation to the next. Working under the conviction that the home has the greatest influence on a child's faith and the church has the greatest opportunity to support the home, Trinity has built a Faith Chest, a wooden box with a lid and tray that holds the spiritual treasures given to a child throughout childhood: the baptismal candle, devotionals, Bibles, music, Vacation Bible School projects, and other keepsakes.
Faith Milestones begin with Holy Baptism, when parents are equipped to write and speak a daily blessing over their child. They continue at the Preschool stage with an introduction to faith-at-home rhythms and the new Preschool Bible; in Kindergarten, where stewardship of faith, body, money, and time is celebrated with a towel and basin; and in Second Grade with the First Bible Milestone, where each child receives and personalizes a new Bible alongside a parent's handwritten blessing.
Older milestones include a Preteen Milestone for fifth and sixth graders, who retreat with a parent for a Mother/Daughter or Father/Son weekend built around God's design for his daughters and God's plan for a man. Eighth and ninth graders participate in Challenge and Choice, a four-session biblical course on sexual integrity. Tenth graders gather with parents for the Keys to Responsibility milestone, which uses the metaphor of driving privileges to talk about dating, freedom, and godly choices. The journey concludes with a Graduation milestone in May, when seniors receive a Blessing Blanket from their parents.
Family Life and Marriage Ministry
Family Life Ministry at Trinity is led by Director of Family Life Ministry Mary Bloebaum, a DCE (Director of Christian Education) who first interned at Trinity in 1997 and has served here ever since. The ministry exists to come alongside parents through Faith Milestones, Trinity Kids, Trinity Youth, and Marriage Ministry with the conviction that faith in Jesus Christ is intentionally nurtured and passed on to the next generation inside the home.
Marriage Ministry hosts periodic events for married couples. Past events have featured an evening of Italian food and live comedy at the ISU Bone Student Center, designed to give husbands and wives a fun, refreshing night out together. Information about upcoming marriage events is shared through Cross Currents, Trinity's weekly electronic newsletter.
Adult Discipleship Hour
The 9:30 AM Sunday hour between services is built for adults who want to grow deeper in their faith alongside others. Each fall and spring, Trinity offers several studies running simultaneously so that people at different life stages and stages of faith can find a fit. Recent and recurring offerings include a study of The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis led by Scott and Gudrun Dunt, a study of the Book of Job led by the pastors, and Family Matters, a twelve-week parenting class for parents of children from birth through age eighteen that covers topics such as Parenting With Purpose, Parenting the Child You Actually Have, To Discipline Is to Love, Parenting in a Digital World, and Faith at Home When It Doesn't Feel Natural. There are no prerequisites, and newcomers can join at any point.
Small groups form a parallel track for adults who want to build relationships, grow through Bible study, and serve together.
Music Ministries
Music at Trinity is designed to help God's people of all ages connect, grow, and share their faith through creative and skillful participation in the arts. Three ensembles form the backbone of the music ministry, all of which rehearse on Wednesday evenings. The Alleluia Ringers, a handbell choir for high school through adult, gathers at 5:30 PM in Rooms 140 - 144 and welcomes ringers of all experience levels. The Trinity Adult Choir, also for high school through adult, rehearses at 6:30 PM in the same rooms. The Contemporary Worship Team leads the 10:30 AM service from the front of the sanctuary and rehearses at 8:00 PM Wednesday evenings under the direction of Worship Arts Director Angela Wirsing. Each ensemble gathers not just to rehearse music but to explore how each piece connects with Scripture, worship, and the wider faith journey.
Women's Ministries
Trinity Women's Ministries provides a wide array of service and fellowship opportunities for women of every age and life stage, from young mothers to grandmothers. The mission of the ministry is for Christian women to work together, sharing the forgiveness and love of Jesus Christ to people everywhere through thoughts, words, prayers, and actions.
Lutheran Women in Mission (LWML), the official auxiliary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, has been part of Trinity since the national organization began in 1942. The group meets at church on the second Thursdays of February, April, June, August, October, and December for Bible study, mission-focused programming, and fellowship, and joins women from seven other congregations in the Central Illinois District for Rallies, Retreats, and Conventions. Mites collected at meetings fund mission grants that have provided student aid for church workers, expanded access to Camp CILCA, and aided a Lutheran church and school in Magamaga, Uganda.
Ladies Aid, organized on September 15, 1892, by the Rev. Carl F. W. Sapper, remains one of the longest-running women's groups at Trinity. It meets on the first Thursday of each month for devotions, a short business meeting, and a program focused on outreach opportunities in the community or the church. Dorcas Circle meets weekly to sew quilts, school kits, baby care kits, personal care kits, fabric kits, and Christmas stockings that are distributed locally and through Lutheran World Relief. The Prayer Shawl ministry knits and crochets lapghans and shawls for those experiencing healing, distress, mourning, the joy of a new baby, or the joy of a new marriage, meeting the first Wednesday of each month from 1:00 to 3 PM.
Other women's ministry groups include the Altar Guild, which prepares and cares for the sanctuary, paraments, linens, sacramental vessels, and vestments; the Baptismal Banners ministry, which has handmade banners for each child baptized at Trinity since 1998; the Flower Ministry and Giving Gardeners, who grow flowers in church beds and arrange altar bouquets for shut-ins, the hospitalized, those grieving, and others in need of cheer; Parish Nurses, who offer monthly blood pressure screenings, illness prevention education, and a Blue Christmas service each year; and Helping Hands, which assists members, families, and the broader community during times of need and coordinates the annual Adopt-a-Family at Christmas.
Hearts Ablaze: Mission and Outreach
Hearts Ablaze is the umbrella mission ministry that organizes Trinity's outreach in Bloomington-Normal and beyond. Drawn from Acts 1:8, the ministry is divided into four geographic teams: Jerusalem (within McLean County), Judea (across the United States outside McLean County), Samaria (communities in peril locally, nationally, and internationally), and Ends of the Earth (outside the United States).
On the local level, Hearts Ablaze partners with Faith in Action, which supports adults age 60 and older; the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal; the Community Health Care Clinic; Habitat for Humanity of McLean County; Home Sweet Home Ministries; Integrity Counseling; Jump 4 Joy; the Love of Sports; and the Western Avenue Community Center. Hearts Ablaze members volunteer with Home Sweet Home Ministries' annual Night in a Car, a homelessness simulation that highlights the experience of those in the community who sleep in their vehicles. Each fall the ministry runs The Big Give, a joint effort with Home Sweet Home Ministries, Midwest Food Bank, Thrivent, Hy-Vee, and other local churches that provides Thanksgiving meals for thousands of area families. Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan's Purse, fills shoeboxes with toys, hygiene items, and school supplies for children affected by war, poverty, natural disaster, famine, and disease. Trunk-or-Treat, held in the Madison Street parking lot each Halloween, draws hundreds of children to a safe, decorated alternative to door-to-door trick-or-treating.
Regionally and nationally, Trinity's Lutheran Early Response Team (LERT) is a trained group of disaster relief responders with a trailer ready to deploy. Each summer the congregation sends a team of youth and adult missionaries to Chicago for the UKANDU mission trip, partnering with several other LCMS congregations on construction, painting, landscaping, outreach, Vacation Bible School, and media projects at churches, schools, and ministries across the city.
Internationally, Trinity has supported the Mission of Christ Network's LightHouse Transformation Ministries in Costa Rica since the organization began, helping to provide informal education and Gospel proclamation in rural, coastal communities where young people face generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunities. Past Hearts Ablaze teams have also traveled to Poland, Latvia, Guatemala, Kenya, and Honduras, including eyeglass ministry teams that have served in Kenya since 2009.
A New Church Building at Hamilton Road
After more than a century on Madison Street, Trinity is in the process of consolidating its church and school onto a single campus at 1102 West Hamilton Road, the same site where Trinity Lutheran School has been located since 2003. The Building Committee, chaired by Kirk Fuemmeler with advisory members including Pastor David McBurney, Lay Director of Properties Joe Elble Jr., Director of Finance Scott Hoeft, Principal Shawn Hoffmann, and Congregation President Dave Wilcox, has guided the project through several years of planning, prayer, and three capital campaigns.
Phase One of the project includes an 18,000-square-foot church building with a sanctuary seating 560 to 600, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, church offices, and a fellowship room, plus additional parking with a second entrance off Hamilton Road and a Ministry Center for storage and ministry activities. Bids for the work came in half a million dollars under original estimates, and the ceremonial groundbreaking took place on August 9, 2025, when members signed rocks that have since been sealed into the foundation's concrete. Construction is expected to be substantially complete in late 2026, with the existing Madison Street property listed for sale as the new facility comes online.
The new sanctuary is designed to honor Trinity's history. Stained glass medallion windows from the current sanctuary will be incorporated into the new building, and a new Allen organ will anchor music in the space. The gathering space will be roughly three times the size of the current narthex, with limestone carvings, abundant natural light, and an adjoining fellowship room. The project's estimated total cost is approximately $12.3 million, with three capital campaigns underway to bridge the gap with as little debt as possible.
Beliefs
Trinity Lutheran teaches the Bible-based theology of Martin Luther and the reformers, summarized in three short phrases: Grace alone, Scripture alone, Faith alone. The church teaches that God loves the people of the world even though they are sinful and rebellious, that He sent Jesus, His Son, to love the unlovable and save the ungodly. The Bible is taught as God's inerrant and infallible Word, the sole rule and norm for Christian doctrine. By His suffering and death as the substitute for all people of all time, Jesus purchased and won forgiveness and eternal life; those who hear this Good News and believe it receive the eternal life it offers.
Trinity responds to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one God, coequal and coeternal. The Lord's Supper is joyfully celebrated in accordance with the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. Trinity believes that all have sinned and are in need of God's gracious forgiveness; that our Lord empowered and commanded His followers to declare and share the forgiveness of sins with those who repent and confess Jesus Christ as their Savior; that forgiveness of sins is assured to penitent sinners through Confession and Absolution and through the Sacrament of Holy Communion; that communicants receive the very body and blood of Christ with the bread and wine; that eating and drinking this Holy Food unworthily is a grave danger to life and faith; and that Holy Communion is a family meal of baptized Christians who confess the same faith in the One True God.
The word Synod in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod comes from the Greek word meaning walking together. Trinity is a member congregation of this synod, along with many others that hold to a shared confession of Jesus Christ as taught in Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.
A Story Since 1858
Trinity's story began in August 1858, when the Rev. Friedrich Ruff came to Bloomington and first preached in the old McLean County Court House. On September 19, 1858, the congregation was organized, and Pastor Ruff served as Trinity's first pastor beginning in October. The congregation rented a small hall for its first years while looking for a suitable building lot. In 1863 the new church was solemnly dedicated at the northeast corner of Madison and Olive Streets, and in 1867 the congregation was officially received as a member of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States.
By 1872 the Christian Day School had grown to over 100 pupils, and by 1873 the congregation operated two school buildings, one on the south side of Bloomington at Lincoln and Main Streets taught by Mr. John Brase and the other on the west side on West Chestnut taught by Mr. E. C. Marr. In 1885 the church moved to a new building in the western part of the city, seating 905 and costing $19,000. In 1892 the two schools were consolidated at the 700 block of South Madison Street, with a new building dedicated on October 30. Seminary assistants and vicars began serving Trinity in 1931.
The mid-1930s brought a new parish hall and improved school facilities, dedicated in 1941. By the late 1940s the congregation was looking ahead to a new church and Sunday school facilities, and at the October 1953 Voters Meeting, after long and prayerful deliberation, the decision was made to build the current church home next to the school building. The cornerstone was laid on April 4, 1954, and the three original church bells from 1885 were lowered down from their tower on July 20, 1954, to be transferred to the new church tower at 801 South Madison Street. The new building, with seating for approximately 1,100 and a total cost of nearly $725,000, was dedicated on February 13, 1955.
In honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary, on May 8, 1956, the congregation voted to plant a new mission church on the east side of Bloomington. Our Redeemer Lutheran Church was organized in 1959 and continues to serve the community today. After a difficult period in the mid-1990s, when a segment of the membership left to form Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Trinity approved a new constitution in 1993 and continued its ministry.
In 2000 the congregation purchased a 48.6-acre tract on Bloomington's south side as the future site of an expanded school. In 2003 the new Trinity Lutheran School opened at 1102 West Hamilton Road, and a major renovation of the Madison Street facility added a handicap-accessible covered drop-off entrance, an elevator, a new south parking lot with lighting, new sanctuary lighting, electrical upgrades, and renovated restrooms. In 2008 Trinity celebrated its 150th year of ministry. Today Trinity Lutheran continues to serve Bloomington-Normal as a congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, preparing for the next chapter of ministry with its new sanctuary rising beside the school at Hamilton Road.
Pastors, Staff, and Lay Leadership
Pastor David McBurney serves as Trinity's senior pastor. A Bloomington-Normal native, he graduated from Normal Community High School and Illinois State University before teaching communication courses at Heartland Community College and ISU. After seminary at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, he was ordained in 2008 and served at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in South St. Louis County as associate and then senior pastor before returning to Bloomington-Normal in 2020. He became Trinity's interim senior pastor in July 2023.
Pastor Chuck Bahn serves as Assistant Pastor of Christian Growth, Assimilation, and Fellowship. He enjoys visiting members in their homes, teaching Bible study and new member classes, and walking with members through illness and difficult times. He and his wife Kathy have three grown children and one grandson.
Mary Bloebaum serves as Director of Family Life Ministry. A Wisconsin native and Director of Christian Education since 1998, she holds a master's degree in Family Life Ministry from Concordia University, Nebraska, and has been part of Trinity since her DCE internship in 1997. Christy Malinowski serves as Director of Youth Ministry and has a heart for helping young people use their God-given gifts in service to Him. Amy Cottone serves as Children's Ministry Assistant, partnering with Family Life and Youth Ministry to provide in-person and online opportunities for kids and parents. Angela Wirsing serves as Director of Worship Arts, directing choirs, handbells, and the Contemporary worship team. Shann Anderson Elble serves on the Communications team, managing social media, newsletters, the YouTube channel, livestreams, and in-house publications.
Trinity's ministry is supported by an extensive lay leadership structure. The Board of Elders, chaired by Justin Stanek and meeting the fourth Tuesday of each month, provides spiritual support and personal care for every member of the congregation, organized into Family Connection Groups. The Board of Lay Ministry, meeting the second Tuesday, includes Lay Directors for Assimilation, Care and Concern, Christian Growth, Communications, Family Life, Fellowship, Missions, Properties, School Administration, School Curriculum and Instruction, School Student Services, Stewardship, Witness, and Youth. Dave Wilcox serves as Congregation President, Craig Bertsche as Vice President, Lorraine Gosnell as Secretary, and Alex Mikesell as Treasurer.
Getting Connected
Discover Trinity is the congregation's two-session new member class, offered several times each year. Each session runs from 8:30 AM to noon, and participants complete the class before joining the congregation on a chosen Sunday morning. Small groups meet throughout the week for Bible study, fellowship, and service. Trinity Kids and Trinity Youth gather on Sunday mornings during the 9:30 AM Discipleship Hour, and adult Bible studies run at the same time.
Church Center is Trinity's online hub. Members and visitors can download the Church Center app for iPhone or Android, search for Trinity Lutheran Madison Campus, and use it to check in to worship, register for events, view the church calendar, access an online directory, and give electronically. Trinity's weekly Cross Currents email and monthly Messenger newsletter keep the congregation informed about upcoming events, prayer requests, sponsorships, and ministry news. Visitors who want to be added to the email list can subscribe through the church's online form.
Weddings may be held in the historic 1955 sanctuary at 801 South Madison Street or, after completion, in the new sanctuary at the Hamilton Road campus.
Trinity Lutheran Church is located at 801 South Madison Street in Bloomington, Illinois. Church office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. The phone number is (309) 828-6265, and the email address is info@trinluth.org. Worship is livestreamed and remains available on demand on Trinity's YouTube channel. Online giving is available through the Church Center app and the church's online giving page.