Our Story
Welcome to Trinity Cheltenham!
Trinity as a church building dates back to 1823 when the population of Cheltenham was significantly increasing.
Initially, it served as an overflow location for St Mary’s Church located in the centre of the town but soon began to host its own ‘parish’ church family. The first minister, Rev’d Francis Close, clearly established the mission purpose we still share – inviting people to become committed followers of Jesus and transform communities and nations.
Over the last 50 years, Trinity has seen God work powerfully through a number of distinct moves of the Holy Spirit. In the 1970s and through the 1980s, Lawrence Totty, John Risdon and Paul Harris led the church family from the point of possible closure into new seasons of growth and the family reaching out to serve the community in new ways.
Through the 1990s and up until 2016, the church was led by Mark and Karen Bailey. Again, the Spirit brought times of great spiritual renewal, significant numerical growth and many new mission initiatives locally, nationally and internationally including playing a major part in the development of the New Wine movement. These include a continuing commitment to strong children’s, youth and student ministries, and to our ‘Transform’ ministries serving the poor and vulnerable. God also provided funds for significant re-orderings of the main church building and the purchase of our Trinity House and Fusion facilities.
In 2017 Andrew and Nicki Blyth were called to lead Trinity into the next season. Through a difficult period of transition and the experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have reflected deeply on both our strengths and weaknesses and tried humbly to seek God’s reshaping. We have recommitted to our core mission purpose and to key vision priorities under the headings: ‘All in with God - All in with each Other - All in for the World’. We have been blessed with further growth in the number of people and have seen the Lord provide in the most amazing practical ways, including all the funds needed to re-roof the church building.