Special Day of Celebration Sunday May 2:
We are planning to remember the beginnings of the church with a special morning service (10.30 a.m.) on May 2 at which Ian Grant will be the guest preacher. Jeff and Annette Lane (O.M.F.) will also be with us to be update the church about their ministry with international students in Auckland. The service will be followed by a pot-luck lunch at 1.00 p.m. Former members and adherents are invited to attend the special service and lunch. If church commitments elsewhere preclude attending the service they are welcome to come to the pot-luck luncheon to catch up with friends from days gone by.
History:
Trinity Reformed Baptist Church is holding a special service and reunion luncheon in May to remember the beginnings of the church thirty years ago. The church began meeting in January 1980. It was known at that time as Hamilton Reformed Baptist Church. The first meeting was held in the home of Ian and Christine Grant. When David and Daphne Sterne returned from their holidays the meeting place was changed to their basement. A small group of people who had come to Reformed convictions under the preaching of Stephen Turner at Hamilton South Baptist Church had decided to form a Reformed Baptist work. They did this when it became clear that Ham South would not elect another Reformed pastor to replace Stephen who had resigned to go to Wales to pursue further studies. At first the new church listened to taped messages from Al Martin, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, New Jersey. By 1981 the church had outgrown the Sternes’ basement and began meeting in the Frankton School Hall. Numbers grew and so later in 1981 the church called its first pastor, John Leevers. After ten years of ministry John resigned as pastor in 1991. Peter Rutledge, who was ministering at a Baptist Union Church in Melbourne, suggested that the church contact David Marshall, a pastor in rural Victoria. In October 1992 David became the church’s second pastor. The name Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, Hamilton was adopted in 1993. Then in 1998 the church purchased what had originally been Methodist church buildings in Maeroa, just north of Hamilton’s Central Business District.