Click Here To Download Our App!

About
Anglicanism

An ancient faith
for the modern world.
A Worldwide Communion

An ancient Christian tradition that began in England, Anglicanism is now a worldwide church with more than 80 million members, the majority of whom live in Africa. Pictured above are Anglican Bishops from around the world gathered in Jerusalem in 2008.

“Via Media”

Anglicanism is sometimes called the “via media” — the middle way — between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. We share important qualities of each tradition.

Like Roman Catholicism, we celebrate communion each week, we draw upon a two-thousand year tradition, and we have Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

Like Protestantism, we preach the doctrine of justification by faith, we receive the Bible as our highest authority, and we allow clergy to marry.

Generous Orthodoxy

Anglicans are committed to Biblical teaching on faith and morals, and do not follow the shifting winds of secular culture. At the same time, we are a “big tent” church, open to people at all stages in their spiritual lives, and interested in a broad discussion across theological and political views. Skeptics and seekers will find Anglicanism a congenial place to explore their faith, while committed Christians will find rich spiritual practices by which to grow in the knowledge and love of God.

Beauty & the Arts

Anglicans are especially drawn to the beauty of God, and seek to respond to God’s grace with beauty, across many forms of art. We have made outstanding contributions in the fields of poetry, prayer, choral music, hymnody, architecture, and Biblical illustration. Today, we both enjoy these aesthetic traditions, and also seek to build upon them with new expressions of beauty to the glory of God.

Notable Anglicans

What do George Washington and CS Lewis have in common? Both were Anglicans! Here is a short list of notable Anglicans from across the ages:

St. Alban
St. Patrick
Hilda
The Venerable Bede
Anselm
William Tyndale
Thomas Cranmer
Elizabeth I
George Herbert
John Wesley
George Washington
Jane Austen
CS Lewis

What We Believe 

We are committed to the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, and the exclusivity of Christ as the only way of salvation. Our beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and the Jerusalem Declaration.

Leadership

Rector

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Johnston
Peter is the Rector of Trinity and Ministry President of Anglican Compass.

A graduate of Yale College and Yale Divinity School, he holds a PhD from UL with a dissertation on Paradise Lost. He lives in Broussard with his wife Carla and their seven children. Contact him at peter@trinitylafayette.com.

Artist-in-Residence

Kevin Lindholm
Kevin is the Artist-in-Residence at Trinity, making visual art and leading music.

A graduate of UL and Ohio State, Kevin has taught art in multiple colleges and high schools. He specializes in printmaking and Biblical illustration.

Communications Coordinator

Lisa Fruge
Lisa is the Communications Coordinator at Trinity, managing e-mail, social media, Sunday bulletins, and volunteer coordination.

Lisa delights in her five adult children. She also loves getting to know members and new visitors to the church. Stop in and say hello!

Vestry

Trinity has a leadership board called a Vestry, which consists of church members serving staggered three-year terms. The Vestry oversees the church's finances and facilities, and supports the congregation in its ministry and mission. The Vestry maintains a web-page with its working documents here.

Our Story

A remarkable story of two churches coming together.
It all started in 2016, when we launched Trinity Anglican with a vision and lots of prayer. The vision led us to South Lafayette, a growing part of the city. Founding Rector Peter Johnston wrote e-mails to area pastors, hoping to build relationships and perhaps find a location for worship. Within five minutes of meeting Pastor Bob Ogle at Trinity Presbyterian, it became clear God was doing something special.

Bob explained that he had first visited Lafayette in 1983, when his Youth-With-A-Mission (YWAM) bus, full of kids on a mission trip, broke down on I-10. Then local church planter Martyn Minns came to their rescue, and a few years later Bob became the Missions Pastor at Martyn’s church. At this point, Peter became excited, for he knew Martyn Minns. Years after leaving Lafayette, Martyn became an Anglican Bishop, and only weeks before Peter had spoken to Martyn by phone about his time in Lafayette. Meeting Bob completed the circle.  At the end of that first meeting, Bob said to Peter, “Martyn gave me my start – I’m going to give you yours.”

What followed was a church partnership that exceeded everyone’s expectations. Trinity Anglican worshipped at 9AM, and Trinity Presbyterian at 11AM. We renovated an old copy-room so that Peter could have an office in the church. We began to work together on mission and outreach (and mowing the lawn). And the partnership proved to be good soil for growth. The Trinity Anglican core membership went from 10 to 25 to 50. As we grew, we came to recognize the need for a later Sunday service, and we began to imagine the possibility of our churches merging together.

There were, however, two obstacles to any merger. First, would the congregations be willing to come together? Second, would the Presbytery allow it? At multiple points along the way, we thought we were at an impasse, and began to prepare ourselves for the churches to go separate ways. But at every stage, in many different individuals, God moved hearts and changed decisions, preparing the way for unity in our churches. And so in the end the congregations came to an agreement, the Presbytery blessed the merger by offering a lease-purchase arrangement on the property, and the two churches merged on October 1st, 2018.

Now we are one church, united in mission and excited to grow together. In hindsight, we can see that God was working to bring us together the whole time. Thanks be to God for leading the way!