Our History
On December 15, 1866, under the sponsorship of the East Alabama Presbytery, a commission from New Harmony Presbyterian Church near Waverly organized a Presbyterian church in Opelika. Facing the hardships of Reconstruction, the new church in a town of 500 relied on supply preachers for several years, holding worship services in the Baptist church. By 1871, the congregation was in a position to call her first pastor, the Rev. Claudius Augustus Baker (brother of the famed Southern evangelist, Rev. Daniel Baker of Georgia). Rev. Baker’s tenure was blessed by the Lord, and in 1871 the congregation moved to a new location on the corner of Calhoun and Tallapoosa Streets (now Second Ave and North Ninth). By 1876, membership had increased to 66. From 1887 until his death in 1893, Rev. Baker also supplied the pulpit of the Auburn Presbyterian church one Sunday each month.
For more than a century, Presbyterians in Opelika have stood for the foundational Christian tenet that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the very Word of Almighty God, verbally inspired and without error. Their overarching commitment to evangelical truth stated in the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation compelled two-thirds of the congregation to change its affiliation in 1973 to the Presbyterian Church in America. That year, under the leadership of the Rev. John Holmes, the church moved from its downtown location to the present site at India Road. The sanctuary was dedicated in February 1974, and the church was named Trinity Presbyterian Church to underscore the central Christian doctrine of the triune nature of the One True God.
Historically, Presbyterians have been known for their scholarship, their desire to grasp theology at its richest levels, and their success in teaching their children and the covenant community in general. Understanding the importance of education based on the objective truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures, the congregation founded Trinity Christian School in 1978 and Covenant University Fellowship in 1982 at Auburn University (later renamed Reformed University Fellowship). Located on our 26 acre campus, Trinity Christian School is east Alabama’s only classical Christian academy, ministering to families from Lee, Macon, Russell, and Chambers Counties. There are approximately forty-seven (47) churches from nineteen (19) denominations represented in the student body. In 2001, a high school was added, and the school continues to grow. Over the past eight years, the K-12 student body has doubled to over 250 students.
Today, the Lord continues to bless Trinity and her various ministries as she continues to uphold and proclaim the historic Christian faith in the Reformed tradition. In July of 2004, God graciously provided an additional six acres of land adjacent to the east of Trinity’s original facility. In December of 2005, the congregation celebrated the dedication of a new eight classroom addition and state-of-the-art science lab, and in September 2007 dedicated a new parking lot, computer lab, soccer facility, and playground. Trinity Presbyterian Church is a congregation of 250 members whose desire is to glorify God as He uses us to build one another to maturity in Christ through worship, fellowship, education, evangelism, and ministry. Trinity remains committed to the inerrant and infallible Word of God as our only rule of faith and practice, and to the central importance of the Word, sacraments, and prayer as God's primary means to bring us to faith and grow us in grace. May God continue to bless and unify our church as we seek faithfully to proclaim His Word.