On a wooded stretch of Killian Hill Road in Lilburn, Georgia, Trinity Lutheran Church has been a steady presence since 1974. A congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Trinity is known across Gwinnett County for two things in particular: a worship life that welcomes everyone, and a Community Schools program that has shaped generations of local families. Each October the church also opens its grounds to thousands of neighbors for Lilburn's signature Oktoberfest, a fundraiser whose proceeds go straight back to people in need.
Two Sunday Services, One Welcome
Trinity gathers for worship in the Sanctuary every Sunday at 8:30 and 11:00 AM, with Christian education woven between them. Sunday School meets from 9:45 to 10:45 AM for everyone from age four through adult. Coffee and treats are laid out in Hanberry Hall, the Fellowship Hall across from the Sanctuary, so visitors and members can connect in the gap between services.
The congregation's Statement of Welcome, drawn from Romans 15:7, is at the heart of how Trinity sees itself. The church commits to welcoming people of any race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, and physical ability into membership, and to removing barriers that exclude anyone from full participation. Trinity is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, working with the wider ELCA on inclusivity.
The 8:30 service draws on a more traditional Lutheran liturgy led by the Chancel Choir, with chant, classical, and contemporary choral anthems. The 11:00 service is led each week by Messenger, an ensemble of singers and instrumentalists using guitars, saxophone, trumpet, and drums. Both services are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel, and bulletins for each hour are posted online.
Worship is followed by a Wednesday Night Family Program that pulls the whole congregation together. Dinner and fellowship begin at 5:30 PM, with a children's program for preschool through fifth grade at 6:15, adult Bible studies at 6:30, and middle and high school youth gathering at 6:30.
From Five Thousand Door Knocks to a Community Hub
Trinity's story begins with a very Lutheran kind of evangelism. In 1974, the Rev. Donald Hanberry organized the new congregation after going door to door across the surrounding neighborhoods, knocking on roughly 5,000 homes. Two hundred and eighteen people signed the original charter, making Trinity the largest organizing congregation of the Southeastern Synod of the Lutheran Church in America at the time.
Rev. Hanberry served as pastor until 1987 and gave his name to Hanberry Hall, the fellowship hall visitors still cross today. Rev. Dale Sillik followed, shepherding Trinity from 1987 to 2018, and Rev. Jill Henning served alongside him from 1995 to 2017. The current pastoral team is Rev. Scott Sessler, Senior Pastor, and Rev. Katie Christie, Associate Pastor.
From the start, Trinity reached beyond its own walls. The congregation helped establish two other Gwinnett County Lutheran churches, Christ the Lord in Lawrenceville and Community of Grace in Grayson. It became a founding member of the Southeast Gwinnett Co-Op and an active partner in the Lilburn Co-Op ministries. About forty years ago, Trinity launched a preschool that grew into the Community Schools program now serving hundreds of local children each year.
The Community Schools on Campus
The schools at Trinity are run as a Christian Learning Mission Team under the supervision of a Community Schools Board that includes the pastors, the director, a parent representative, and church members. Brenda Moody serves as Director of Community Schools.
Trinity Preschool is a non-profit weekday school open to children of all races and faiths. Its teachers work on five developmental pillars: cognitive, emotional, motor, social, and spiritual, and seek to foster each child's relationship with God through Jesus, the Church, and the world. The preschool calendar, newsletter, and registration packets for the 2026-2027 school year are available online.
TLC 4 Kids is the licensed Before and After School program for kindergarten through fifth grade. Doors open at 6:30 AM and close at 6:30 PM, following the Gwinnett County Public Schools academic calendar and weather policies. Weekly tuition ranges from $30 to $65. The program's mission statement describes it as a place where school-age children grow spiritually, physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally in a setting that welcomes children as their Lord welcomed them.
TLC 4 Kids Summer Camp rounds out the year. Registration for 2026 opened on March 1. Preschool Summer Camp is open to potty-trained three-, four-, and five-year-olds and runs from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The K-5 Summer Camp runs from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM, with weekly themes, arts and crafts, field trips, and water days. Both programs offer multi-child discounts and accept online payments, Zelle, checks, and cash.
Children, Youth, and Confirmation
Sunday mornings include a graded Sunday School for children age four through fifth grade on the first floor of the education wing, where students study the Bible between services. A Children's Choir and Chimes program begins at age three and rehearses during the Sunday School hour, with the group singing and playing chimes in worship roughly once a quarter.
Kids for Christ is the umbrella ministry for kindergarteners through fifth graders, offering special events throughout the year. Wednesday nights add Kids' Club for ages four through twelve, with Bible stories, songs, and crafts running alongside the family meal.
Middle and high schoolers gather under John Parson, Director of Youth Ministry. On Sunday nights from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, SWAG (Saved With Amazing Grace) meets for games, Bible study, and conversation. On Sunday afternoons from 5:00 to 6:00 PM, sixth through eighth graders attend Confirmation, a three-year program of small groups, worship, mentors, memory work, retreats, and family service projects. The Wednesday Night Family Program adds another weekly touchpoint, with middle and high school youth meeting at 6:30 PM.
Music Across the Sanctuary
Music is woven into nearly every corner of Trinity's life. David Singer serves as Organist. The Chancel Choir, directed by Alex Thomlinson, rehearses on Thursdays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM in the Sanctuary and leads worship at the 8:30 service. Messenger, directed by Leroy Kennedy, rehearses Mondays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM and leads worship every week at the 11:00 service with guitars, saxophone, trumpet, and drums.
Dynamic Range brings an entirely different sound, rehearsing Wednesdays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM and Sundays from 10:00 to 10:45 AM in the Choir Room. The ensemble plays American folk, gospel, and bluegrass, including nineteenth-century revival hymns and shape-note songs, accompanied by acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and bass. Dynamic Range leads worship once a month at the 8:30 service.
Resounding Joy, the adult handbell choir, rehearses Mondays from 6:00 to 7:00 PM in Room B105 and rings at worship about once a month, plus special festivals and weddings. Children's Choir and Chimes round out the program for the youngest musicians. Two YouTube playlists, Garden of Grace and Friday Reflections, share devotional music from the congregation.
Reaching Out in Lilburn and Beyond
Trinity's outreach reads like a tour of Gwinnett's safety net. Each March the church turns out for the Atlanta Hunger Walk, where it has finished first among Lutheran congregations for six years running, raising money for the Atlanta Food Bank and Lutheran Services of Georgia.
Backpack Buddies partners with Shiloh Elementary to send twenty children home each weekend with a sack of shelf-stable milk, juice boxes, cereal, Chef Boyardee or Hormel Compleats meals, peanut butter packs, vegetables, granola bars, and fruit cups. Volunteers package the food and deliver it to the school.
The Brown Bag Ministry prepares eighty peanut-butter sandwich sack lunches and delivers them to the Memorial Drive Hunger Ministry downtown, with Trinity's youth and adults working side by side. Knit and a Prayer, the church's knitting and crocheting group, makes hats and scarves to tuck into the lunches as the weather turns cold. The Gwinnett Children's Shelter receives a Sunday dinner prepared by rotating volunteers each month for roughly twenty-five children. Trinity also supports Inspiritus, which feeds and shelters new arrivals and people experiencing homelessness, and the Lilburn Co-Op, a partnership of local congregations that provides food, clothing, and financial assistance.
A community garden ministry partners Trinity volunteers with Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church to tend nine garden beds, delivering more than a thousand pounds of produce to the Lilburn Co-Op in 2024. Each month the congregation also takes up a Love Offering for a community or church ministry, listed on the back of the weekly prayer insert.
Stephen Ministry and Small Groups
Stephen Ministry at Trinity provides one-to-one care from trained laypeople who have completed fifty hours of training. Stephen Ministers walk alongside people who are lonely, grieving, divorced, unemployed, hospitalized, terminally ill, adjusting to retirement, navigating an empty nest, caregiving, or simply struggling. They are not counselors or therapists but caring Christian friends who listen.
A wide range of small groups meets throughout the week. The Book Club gathers in Hanberry Hall on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM. Table Talk meets at Summit Tavern on Highway 78 in Snellville on the third Tuesday at 7:00 PM for honest conversation across disagreement. Men's Breakfast meets the first Saturday of the month, with the men taking turns cooking and a small offering covering the meal. JUST Club (Jesus Uses Seniors, Too) gathers adults over fifty for hors d'oeuvres at 6:30 PM and a potluck at 7:00 PM on the second Friday in Hanberry Hall. Support groups and mental health resources round out the care offered through the church.
A Place to Remember: The Columbarium
Behind the Sanctuary, a Columbarium Memorial Garden offers 98 niches, each sized to hold two urns, available to Trinity members, their families, and friends of the congregation. A memorial brick program lets families add personalized stones to the garden. Members who have reserved niches describe the choice in similar terms: Trinity has been their spiritual home for decades, often since the church's earliest years, and the columbarium offers a way to remain part of that community after death. The columbarium is maintained entirely through niche sales.
Oktoberfest on Killian Hill
Each fall, Trinity's grounds transform into Lilburn's Oktoberfest, a family-friendly festival rooted in the congregation's German heritage. Authentic German food and drink share the menu with hot dogs and hamburgers; a craft fair fills the inside and outside of the church; live music and dancing fill the big tent at the back of the property; and a kids' carnival with games, face painting, and inflatables, plus a petting zoo, runs through the afternoon.
Free shuttle service brings visitors from overflow parking at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church on Killian Hill Road and at Calvary Chapel on McDaniels Bridge Road. Tickets are modest, and kids ten and under are free. Every dollar above the cost of the festival goes to the Lilburn Co-Op, the Home of Hope Shelter for women and children, and Gwinnett Relay For Life, a fitting close to a year of Trinity's steady ministry to its neighbors.
What the Church Believes
Trinity's Confession of Faith centers on grace. The congregation teaches that human beings are reconciled with God and with one another by grace alone, received as a free gift in Jesus Christ rather than earned by our own actions. Grace comes chiefly through the Word of God and the Sacraments of baptism and communion. As Jesus gave himself away, even to death, so the church is called to give itself away in service to others and to find itself in losing itself. Trinity confesses the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and names Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, trusting the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
Getting Involved
Worship slots for serving are plentiful. Adults can sing in the Chancel Choir or Messenger, ring in Resounding Joy, or play in Dynamic Range; lead liturgy as Assisting Ministers, Acolytes, Crucifers, or Communion Assistants; serve on the Altar Guild; greet as Ushers or Greeters; or join the Media and Tech Team running sound, slides, and livestream cameras. A short Worship Ministry Interest Form is posted online for anyone ready to step in. Beyond worship, the church's Outreach, Stephen Ministry, and Small Groups pages list current ways to serve, and the Community Schools welcome volunteers and staff for the preschool, before- and after-school program, and summer camp.