Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Columbia, SC, is the result of two parishes merging in 1945. The first parish was formed in 1908 when a group of people pulled away from Mount Tabor Lutheran Church, West Columbia, SC. At the time Mount Tabor Church was a member of the Tennessee Synod, a national group which aimed to keep the Scriptures, the Sacraments and the Lutheran Confessions at the center of the Lutheran Church’s life. Apparently anticipating a shift from the Tennessee Synod to the South Carolina Synod (it took place in 1922), a group of people formed Holy Trinity Church In 1908 so the Scriptures, Sacraments and Lutheran Confessions would remain at the center. The parish carried out its ministry from four different locations in West Columbia.

The second parish was Messiah Lutheran Church. It was formed in 1938 by the Rev’d Fred Lineberger, the man who began Mount Olive Church, Irmo, SC, in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Messiah Church was located in Five Points, a downtown area in Columbia a mile east of the state capitol. There the church took hold and saw its ministry steadily expand.

The relationships between Holy Trinity Church and Messiah Church actually reached back to the early 1900’s when Pr. Lineberger served as a vicar at Holy Trinity Church. For nearly fifty years the two parishes carried on their own ministries until it became clear that the two parishes could better exercise those ministries as one. So the parishes merged in 1954 with Messiah Church giving up its name for Holy Trinity Church.

Holy Trinity Church has remained at its location in Five Points while serving most of Columbia’s metropolitan area. Since the early 1990’s the parish has been undergoing a series of discoveries about itself and its work. The discoveries are increasingly turning their attention to the Scriptures, the Sacraments and the Lutheran Confessions, reflecting the concerns of its ancestors in 1908. This turn is shifting the parishioners from a concern for self to a concern for Christ. We used to drive ourselves to be successful as the world defines it, now we understand that the drive is to be faithful as the Lord defines it. Drawn into the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through Baptism, undergirded and dominated by the Scriptures, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Forgiveness, and driven by the Cross, the parishioners increasingly see themselves as carrying Christ’s life from worship through their vocations to the absorbed and afflicted lives of the world’s people. This change in attitude, perspective and action is triggering the richness, meaning and satisfaction of Christ’s crucified and resurrected life.