Trinity Reformed Baptist Church 

The History of TRBC

The story of TRBC begins with what we called “The Life Boats.” Lifeboats are what you use when the main ship has gone down and you don’t want to drown. Six years ago several families found themselves without a church home. It very much felt as though we were all sort of rowing in a vast ocean trying to find some land. 

We eventually found ourselves with three options: join an existing church, find a pastor, or start a new church. For about a year and a half we searched to no avail for a Reformed Baptist church in the area. So we started looking for a pastor who would possibly move here and start a church with us. After months of searching and counsel and discussion, we arrived at the following conclusion: we needed to plant a church, show that we had a viable plan, and establish a functioning body.  We needed to step out by faith trusting that God would someday send us a pastor.

On September 4, 2016, with the people in the lifeboats, we started our first meeting in the upper room of one of our founding family’s homes. We studied Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Four of us took turns leading the liturgy and teaching God’s word. When one of our elders stepped away from his responsibilities and we had moved on to studying John’s gospel, we supplemented the live sermons with Dr. John MacArthur’s DVD collection on John.

After three years it was becoming obvious that we could not remain viable as a ministry unless the Lord sent us a pastor to serve as our teaching elder. In God’s providence, Pastor Curt Heffelfinger retired from his full-time pastor-teacher role at Orlando Grace Church in August of 2018 and moved with Jan, his wife, to the Clearwater Valley. In April of 2019, we laid hands on Pastor Curt as our part-time teaching elder. We were able to keep the doors open!

The Lord has blessed us with increased attendance these last few years. The pastoral needs increased to the point that we needed a full-time pastor-teacher to serve and lead us into the future. After an eighteen-month long search process, the Lord led us to Rev. Eric Botzet. He was called to accept the position as vocational teaching elder by unanimous vote of the membership in the summer of 2022. He was installed as pastor in a service of celebration on August 28, 2022, the same day in which Pastor Curt retired from his role as part-time teaching elder. We look forward to what God will do in our congregation in the days ahead as we seek to live to glorify His great name!