Our Story

Our story goes back to 1886 when a Disciples of Christ evangelist got off the train in Bristol and attended worship at the old Washington College Prep School in the original Bristol Congregational which had wound down. He looked around and saw only students in this Christian school and few from the surrounding community. After a series of outdoor evangelistic meetings 19 people were baptized and joined his new church. Instructors from the College served as pastors of the church. When Washington College closed in 1914 supply pastors started coming from the Presbyterian seminary in San Francisco (San Anselmo). By 1924 Trinity Presbyterian Church was founded in 1886 as a chapel of the New England Presbytery.

In 1956 the Presbyterian Church USA saw Bristol, California as a hot spot for church growth with the construction of a new General Motors plant. The denomination helped transform the little country church into a large suburban multi-staff church. Purchasing new land, building new facilities, growth of the church kept pace with the burgeoning Bristol community. Reaching a peak of over 1,300 members by 1969 we had come a long ways in 80 years.

In recent years Bristol has become an exciting hub for newly arriving immigrants from China and India as well as many other countries. The challenge for the church today is to learn how to serve people from widely different backgrounds. It's an exciting challenge but it's the same challenge as when it started. Reaching people for Jesus Christ and making fully devoted disciples has been and hopefully always will be this church's story.