Trinity Presbyterian Church
About Our Church
Trinity Presbyterian is a small multicultural worshipping community in Southwest Stockton. Originally started in the 1930’s as the Lighthouse Filipino Mission, serving recent immigrants and farmworkers, the church was chartered as a Presbyterian Church in 1942. While Stockton Filipino Church was one of the original ideas for a name, the pastor, Maurice LeGare, encouraged the church to find a more inclusive name in order to fulfill the biblical vision that God’s house would be “a house of prayer for all people,” (Isaiah 56:7).
Trinity has been involved in mission and social justice projects involving hunger, tutoring children, neighborhood development, and racial/ethnic representation within the wider church.
We are part of the North Central California Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA. The name “presbyterian” comes from a Greek word used in the New Testament to mean “elder.” We choose Elders to lead the church alongside pastors and Deacons, who have a compassionate ministry to care for the sick and homebound in our community.
Our form of church government is a representative democracy, in which congregations elect and ordain elders to serve on the session, a group that, with the pastor, makes decisions to benefit the whole body. Members from each church in our presbytery elect delegates to presbytery meetings where we work on regional issues. A General Assembly, held every two years, has delegates meet to make national policy.