Our Vision

Knowing Jesus, making Him known

At Trinity we have a great passion and desire to know Jesus in the truest and fullest sense. We are convinced and convicted that knowing Him should move one into making Him known to others as well.

Core Values

Statement of Faith

1. We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in their original writing as fully inspired of God and accept them as the supreme and final authority for faith and life.

2. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3. We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, and is true God and true man.

4. We believe that God created man in His own image: that man sinned and thereby incurred the penalty of death, physical and spiritual: that all human brings inherit a sinful nature which issues (in the case of those who reach moral responsibility) in actual transgression involving personal guilt.

5. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, a substitutionary sacrifice, according to the Scriptures, and that all who believe in Him are justified on the grounds of His shed blood.

6. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus, his ascension into heaven, and His present life as our High Priest and Advocate.

7. We believe in the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

8. We believe that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God.

9. We believe in the resurrection both of the just and the unjust, the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and the eternal banishment of those who have rejected the offer of salvation.

10. We believe that the one true Church is the whole company of those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ and regenerated by the Holy Spirit; that the local Church on earth should take its character from this conception of the Church spiritual, and therefore that the new birth and personal confession of Christ are essentials of Church membership.

11. We believe that the lord Jesus Christ appointed two ordinances – Baptism and the Lord’s Supper – to be observed as acts of obedience and as perpetual witnesses to the cardinal facts of the Christian faith; that Baptism is the immersion of the believer in water as a confession of identification with Christ in burial and resurrection, and that the Lord’s Supper is the partaking of bread and wine as symbolical of the Saviour’s broken body and shed blood, in remembrance of His sacrificial death until He come.

History

The present church came into being on 11 February 1959 as an amalgamation of Queen Street Baptist and Cape Road Baptist churches. The Cape Road church had been established in the 1930's and had been running their services in the older building which is used as the church hall today. The current larger building was constructed with the merging of the two churches in mind and its pitched roof was designed to mimic two praying hands. The name Trinity has its roots in the thought that two churches were able to merge in order to form a third church. In 2019, we hosted our 60th celebration with 150 members.

Timeline

11 March 1958: Idea of amalgamation between Queen Street Baptist and Cape Road Baptist first broached by Rev. L J Gardner

17 March 1958: Meeting of Queen Street and Cape Road diaconates convened

28 May 1958: Decision to amalgamate taken by both churches

17 September 1958: Call accepted by Rev. S H Reed - inducted 18 January 1959

11 February 1959: Amalgamation an accomplished fact though morning services still continued at Queen Street

4-11 October 1959: Valedictory services at Queen Street Church. Final service conducted by Rev J L Green 11 October

18 October 1959: First united service conducted by the pastor in the hall

30 November 1960: Decision to build as a result of generous gift from Mr S R Siberry

27 May 1961: Turning of the sod by Mr F A Fereman

29 July 1961: Laying of the foundation stones

18 November 1961: Opening of the new church building by Mr S R Siberry

The Tweed

Trinity Baptist, interestingly enough, has a connection with a paddle / steam ship, called the Tweed. This particular ship was first launched in the Bombay Dockyard, India, in 1854. In 1888 the ship ran into disrepair and damage in Algoa Bay and was towed into Port Elizabeth Harbour for the final time. The Tweed was dismantled and it's usable parts auctioned off. It is recorded that the beams of the ship were used to build the roof of a church in Port Elizabeth and it is believed that Trinity Baptist is that church. What is confirmed is that Trinity had a few furniture items constructed from the wood of the ship, namely a communion table and chairs.