| Trinity Presbyterian Church 1400 Sheley Road Independence, MO 64052 |
The Family We Call Trinity
"Who We Are " is divided into three areas.
1. Immediately below is a short history of the church
after it was founded in 1952.
2. Next is the Trinity's Covenant, which was
prepared and signed by the members after the church
was established. This is to clearly define Trinity's
beliefs and how they will worship the risen Lord.
3. Celtic Cross. In 1957 a Celtic Cross was placed in
front and the interesting history with pictures. Over
the years this cross has been updated and expanded.
1. Immediately below is a short history of the church
after it was founded in 1952.
2. Next is the Trinity's Covenant, which was
prepared and signed by the members after the church
was established. This is to clearly define Trinity's
beliefs and how they will worship the risen Lord.
3. Celtic Cross. In 1957 a Celtic Cross was placed in
front and the interesting history with pictures. Over
the years this cross has been updated and expanded.
Sanctuary Stained-Glass Window
The Story of Trinity Presbyterian Church, USA
Members of First Presbyterian Church of Independence, Missouri, saw a need for
another church in 1952. To meet this need they formed a group to establish which
eventually we now know as Trinity Presbyterian Church. It, too, is in Independence.
While combining their own blood, sweat, tears and love with the efforts of professional
contractors, the membership saw the church building rise from the ground to become the
building with the large front columns you now see.
Services began before the main building was fully completed.
another church in 1952. To meet this need they formed a group to establish which
eventually we now know as Trinity Presbyterian Church. It, too, is in Independence.
While combining their own blood, sweat, tears and love with the efforts of professional
contractors, the membership saw the church building rise from the ground to become the
building with the large front columns you now see.
Services began before the main building was fully completed.
Trinity's Covenant
We, the members of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, being covenanted with the living
God, through Jesus Christ, and being His people in this place and in this age, do sincerely
and openly make this covenant with one another. We strive to provide the following as a
Church Family and mission:
Weekly celebration in worship of the Living God as He comes to us through Jesus Christ;
An on-going nurture in the acceptance and caring of one another;
A deepening awareness through education of what our Christian faith means to us;
Participating in a witnessing love which declares to the world the love of God in Jesus
Christ and an invitation to be part of it;
Opportunity to seek out and work for those means of pursuing the justice of God in the
wholeness of life.
We as individual members covenant to use the gifts God has given us:
To be regular in worship and to grow in peace and Christian knowledge;
To draw others to the Church and to promote a spirit of love within the Church;
To be supportive of the ministers of the Church and to support the Church financially;
And to be loyal to the Church and to give evidence of the power of Christ by a
Christ-like life.
We, the members of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, being covenanted with the living
God, through Jesus Christ, and being His people in this place and in this age, do sincerely
and openly make this covenant with one another. We strive to provide the following as a
Church Family and mission:
Weekly celebration in worship of the Living God as He comes to us through Jesus Christ;
An on-going nurture in the acceptance and caring of one another;
A deepening awareness through education of what our Christian faith means to us;
Participating in a witnessing love which declares to the world the love of God in Jesus
Christ and an invitation to be part of it;
Opportunity to seek out and work for those means of pursuing the justice of God in the
wholeness of life.
We as individual members covenant to use the gifts God has given us:
To be regular in worship and to grow in peace and Christian knowledge;
To draw others to the Church and to promote a spirit of love within the Church;
To be supportive of the ministers of the Church and to support the Church financially;
And to be loyal to the Church and to give evidence of the power of Christ by a
Christ-like life.
For several years the Celtic Cross stood as a welcomed landmark for Trinity
Presbyterian. However, time and the elements slowly changed and the cross became in
need of repair. So, church member Gary Elting, an experienced craftsman, stepped
forward and offered to make another cross exactly like the one the youth had so lovingly
made in 1957.
Gary completed the new Celtic Cross in 1973 and it was installed. This time it was not
placed in the ground but upon a concrete base. Again in 2004 Gary stepped forward and
with his talents the cross of replicated and reinstalled and now stands in front of the church.
Gary also crafted a smaller replica and it hangs in the sanctuary. A picture of it serves as
the cross in the background pages of this website.
Presbyterian. However, time and the elements slowly changed and the cross became in
need of repair. So, church member Gary Elting, an experienced craftsman, stepped
forward and offered to make another cross exactly like the one the youth had so lovingly
made in 1957.
Gary completed the new Celtic Cross in 1973 and it was installed. This time it was not
placed in the ground but upon a concrete base. Again in 2004 Gary stepped forward and
with his talents the cross of replicated and reinstalled and now stands in front of the church.
Gary also crafted a smaller replica and it hangs in the sanctuary. A picture of it serves as
the cross in the background pages of this website.
Celtic Cross Histories
The following is from an issue of the Kansas City Star dated April 20, 1957. It gives
many details on how a Celtic cross was made and installed in the front the church by some
youth of the church. The present cross gracing the front of the church is the third one
installed in 2004 because weather got to the first and second crosses.
The Star head line was: “Youth with Long Hours of Devoted Labor Give Their Church
Celtic Cross at Easter.” We quote it below.
"When in the dusk of last Wednesday evening some 10 men, with perhaps another 60
looking on, had completed the erection of the 900 pounds of the Celtic Cross on the
Grounds of the Trinity Presbyterian Church out in the southwest marshes of town, a
sudden quiet came to those gathered there, and some removed their hats in the reverence
of a strangeness that came upon them.
"For this was no ordinary cross, this Celtic Cross. Hovering over it, like an unseen
tenant, and protecting it, were an historical legion reaching back now only to the very
beginnings of the presbyters of Old Scotland in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, when
with John Knox all Scotsmen effected their own splintering off from the Lutheran
Reformation; but, on further back to 635 A.D., a Millennium before: in the time of King
Oswald of North Umbria; in the earliest beginnings of Christianity beyond the Roman
Empire; in the savage turbulence of the Northlands.
"For this cross, of which the one here is a highly altered imitation, translated dimly and
imperfectly the mutations of the old pagan rites and divinings of the Druids into the modes
of the Christian inspiration.
"It had at first been created by refugees from religious persecution from the hills of
Scotland, who had fled to the Island of Iona off the wild northwest coast of Ireland; but,
though they had become Christian in their professings, they retained still the deep roots of
the Druidic rites and ratiocinations of their tribal fathers. And these were all fused into
the symbols they carved half-magically into their cross.
"When Scot missionaries of the time of Mary Queen of Scots discovered this cross, it
became embosomed at once as the standard of the infant Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
"Thus it was in the dusk of last Wednesday evening these man stood hushed, though few
perhaps were aware of the full history of what they had raised there, and so shuffled
uneasily as they turn to the Rev. Oscar Gustafson, to say in low, uncertain voices that it
seemed, did it not? A prayer should be said? And this the Rev. Gustafson did.
"In the days following, and at night when the moon escaped from the thunder heads, many
stopped to stare in wonderment. It reared like an apparition, to some stark, to others
eerie, out of another world, or reminding the present of ancient mists, long vanished, when
long-forgotten figures strove, and perhaps failed, but yet worshiped according to the lights
of their Eternity. This they had to create for themselves, as all men have had to before
them and since with their own thinking.
"In the night wandering squad cars of the police, seeing the people standing and staring in
the moonlight, pulled up short and trained a light on this strange thing, and marveled as
the rest, and somewhat perhaps as the shepherds when the Star of Bethlehem burst full
upon them, in the old tale.
"It stood high, huge in it sentinel solitude 16 feet above the earth, with its spreading arms
and the great Druidic circle symbolizing the eternality that embraces in its never-
endingness both death and life.
"Work of Teenagers. An apparition, perhaps, to the unwary coming upon it, but no
happenstance. Inside it is a copper scroll, and on it are engraved these names of the
young people, all teenagers, of the Trinity Presbyterian Church. Girls, first, they are:
Gene Ann Baade, Katherine Lent, Nancy Brown, Judith Hokum, Linda Smith, and Janet
Scribe. The boys: Jimmy McConchie, Jr., Jon Morris, Micky Morris, Dickey Morris,
Dave Lyons, Ronnie Dollins, Jimmy Lewis, Bob Wennersten, and Bob Edwards.
"They were the young people who made the Celtic Cross, who gathered in long sessions
through the dark hours of winter, bringing wood from their garages and basements to the
church parlor and sitting before the roaring fireplace to carve out of two-by-four yellow
pines the symbols of their Celtic Cross. For it was imperative that it stand where it is, on
a spot that in the chancel of future buildings will be the site of the altar, to stand high in
the resurrection of life that is Easter.
"This Cross cost nothing but the labor of these. There are 154 pieces of wood in the
cross, and these young people brought it from their own homes or wherever they could
find it.
"They SCROUNGED them. They scrounged everything else. They scrounged the nails,
the screws, the two electric routing machines and the 16 cutting bits of different sizes to
rough out for the wood chisels.
"Use Electric Routers. Only two were allowed to use the two electric routers, for
machines that spin diamond-hard cutters at 22,000 revolutions per minute are dangerous,
and are not playthings. The skilled ones here were Dave Lyons, 18, son of Mr. And Mrs.
Carl Lyons, 2904 S. Forest, and Micky Morris, 15, son of Mr. And Mrs. Vern Morris,
1203 W. Bryson. Mickey was also the official an indefatigable scrounger, and implacably
a producer, so they all declare together. Whatever they needed, he got.
"But these could not have routed, nor the rest, the carvers, have carved with their chisels
and knives, without first the artistry of Janet Scribner, the 17-year-old daughter of Mr.
And Mrs. Sam Scribner, 1313 W. 29th Terrace. Janet drew carefully on the exterior
woods the designs of the symbols to be executed, and eliminated the more minuscule lines
intolerable to their engraving tools.
"Now, there were adults in this, but in a functions strictly auxiliary and little of that. A too
man kept the tools dangerously sharp for the delicate carving of the carvers, who made
experts of themselves by studying an art which, in the beginning of late last summer, they
had thought of nothing at all.
"Guard Against Termites. Then there were the Bell Pest Control people, none of them of
the church, who contributed three gallons of termite chemicals to saturate the lower feet of
the shaft of the cross, and four feet of earth into which the cross had been sunk. And
there was a workaday painter, Jess Hauptley, who gave these workers a wood
preservative to apply with the linseed oil coatings. But these young ones did all the work,
until a few were spending more time at the cross they were building than they were in their
school studies at home, especially as the deadline, which was Easter, thrummed in their
minds with its nearness.
"But far back they had to determine their symbols. Some of the old Druidic symbols were
discarded, but not all, with 45 Christian symbols given substitution. Thus the labyrinths of
the original cross of the Island of Iona, by which the artist of the Druids felt life’s
entanglements were inextricably man’s fate, to be accepted with equanimity, have been
largely replaced by the gridirons on which early Christians were sometimes roasted alive
by their persecutors. But the old pagan concept of eternality as described by a great
circle, from which the immutable tie of the simple wedding ring was derived, is retained.
Instead of the lines of medieval Gothic spires pointing towards Eternity, supported by the
buttressing earth. Here, too, the flaying knives of Bartholomew, “the silent apostle,” tho
word of whose was ever recorded.
"Flame of the Pentecost. Along the south shaft is the seven-tongued flame of the
Pentecost; the Savior as the light of the world; the star or Bethlehem; a flaring head of
wheat for growth; the carpenter’s square and a spear for all who work with their hands.
"Of the pagan concept, however, there is retained the bursting pomegranate seeds of
prolification, and the opening flower which the Druids sometimes wove into their Great
Circle of the unassailable eternal to denote, as one symbol among thousands of primitive
men, the aggressions of fertility.
"But, the center of the big circle is a smaller, and in its center a ship on the waves. And
this has been adopted for its symbol by the World Council of Churches.
"There is much more on the Celtic Cross. But to detail all its features is surely to violate
the privacy of its strength. These cannot in any case be seen as the cross stands starkly
alone in the moonlight, poised quiet and solitary and brooding in the spirit of its contained
knowledge, as scret to the view as the unseen copper scroll with the names of 14 boys and
girls inside it. Not mere autographs these names, but signatory to the spirit that moved
them at their labor through the black winter hours, also in the words: “Created by the
youth of Trinity Presbyterian Church to the glory of God. A church is only built by those
who are willing to work”...........(here several words are missing from our copy of the
article)....... 'no other hands than our.'”
The article ended at this point
The following is from an issue of the Kansas City Star dated April 20, 1957. It gives
many details on how a Celtic cross was made and installed in the front the church by some
youth of the church. The present cross gracing the front of the church is the third one
installed in 2004 because weather got to the first and second crosses.
The Star head line was: “Youth with Long Hours of Devoted Labor Give Their Church
Celtic Cross at Easter.” We quote it below.
"When in the dusk of last Wednesday evening some 10 men, with perhaps another 60
looking on, had completed the erection of the 900 pounds of the Celtic Cross on the
Grounds of the Trinity Presbyterian Church out in the southwest marshes of town, a
sudden quiet came to those gathered there, and some removed their hats in the reverence
of a strangeness that came upon them.
"For this was no ordinary cross, this Celtic Cross. Hovering over it, like an unseen
tenant, and protecting it, were an historical legion reaching back now only to the very
beginnings of the presbyters of Old Scotland in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, when
with John Knox all Scotsmen effected their own splintering off from the Lutheran
Reformation; but, on further back to 635 A.D., a Millennium before: in the time of King
Oswald of North Umbria; in the earliest beginnings of Christianity beyond the Roman
Empire; in the savage turbulence of the Northlands.
"For this cross, of which the one here is a highly altered imitation, translated dimly and
imperfectly the mutations of the old pagan rites and divinings of the Druids into the modes
of the Christian inspiration.
"It had at first been created by refugees from religious persecution from the hills of
Scotland, who had fled to the Island of Iona off the wild northwest coast of Ireland; but,
though they had become Christian in their professings, they retained still the deep roots of
the Druidic rites and ratiocinations of their tribal fathers. And these were all fused into
the symbols they carved half-magically into their cross.
"When Scot missionaries of the time of Mary Queen of Scots discovered this cross, it
became embosomed at once as the standard of the infant Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
"Thus it was in the dusk of last Wednesday evening these man stood hushed, though few
perhaps were aware of the full history of what they had raised there, and so shuffled
uneasily as they turn to the Rev. Oscar Gustafson, to say in low, uncertain voices that it
seemed, did it not? A prayer should be said? And this the Rev. Gustafson did.
"In the days following, and at night when the moon escaped from the thunder heads, many
stopped to stare in wonderment. It reared like an apparition, to some stark, to others
eerie, out of another world, or reminding the present of ancient mists, long vanished, when
long-forgotten figures strove, and perhaps failed, but yet worshiped according to the lights
of their Eternity. This they had to create for themselves, as all men have had to before
them and since with their own thinking.
"In the night wandering squad cars of the police, seeing the people standing and staring in
the moonlight, pulled up short and trained a light on this strange thing, and marveled as
the rest, and somewhat perhaps as the shepherds when the Star of Bethlehem burst full
upon them, in the old tale.
"It stood high, huge in it sentinel solitude 16 feet above the earth, with its spreading arms
and the great Druidic circle symbolizing the eternality that embraces in its never-
endingness both death and life.
"Work of Teenagers. An apparition, perhaps, to the unwary coming upon it, but no
happenstance. Inside it is a copper scroll, and on it are engraved these names of the
young people, all teenagers, of the Trinity Presbyterian Church. Girls, first, they are:
Gene Ann Baade, Katherine Lent, Nancy Brown, Judith Hokum, Linda Smith, and Janet
Scribe. The boys: Jimmy McConchie, Jr., Jon Morris, Micky Morris, Dickey Morris,
Dave Lyons, Ronnie Dollins, Jimmy Lewis, Bob Wennersten, and Bob Edwards.
"They were the young people who made the Celtic Cross, who gathered in long sessions
through the dark hours of winter, bringing wood from their garages and basements to the
church parlor and sitting before the roaring fireplace to carve out of two-by-four yellow
pines the symbols of their Celtic Cross. For it was imperative that it stand where it is, on
a spot that in the chancel of future buildings will be the site of the altar, to stand high in
the resurrection of life that is Easter.
"This Cross cost nothing but the labor of these. There are 154 pieces of wood in the
cross, and these young people brought it from their own homes or wherever they could
find it.
"They SCROUNGED them. They scrounged everything else. They scrounged the nails,
the screws, the two electric routing machines and the 16 cutting bits of different sizes to
rough out for the wood chisels.
"Use Electric Routers. Only two were allowed to use the two electric routers, for
machines that spin diamond-hard cutters at 22,000 revolutions per minute are dangerous,
and are not playthings. The skilled ones here were Dave Lyons, 18, son of Mr. And Mrs.
Carl Lyons, 2904 S. Forest, and Micky Morris, 15, son of Mr. And Mrs. Vern Morris,
1203 W. Bryson. Mickey was also the official an indefatigable scrounger, and implacably
a producer, so they all declare together. Whatever they needed, he got.
"But these could not have routed, nor the rest, the carvers, have carved with their chisels
and knives, without first the artistry of Janet Scribner, the 17-year-old daughter of Mr.
And Mrs. Sam Scribner, 1313 W. 29th Terrace. Janet drew carefully on the exterior
woods the designs of the symbols to be executed, and eliminated the more minuscule lines
intolerable to their engraving tools.
"Now, there were adults in this, but in a functions strictly auxiliary and little of that. A too
man kept the tools dangerously sharp for the delicate carving of the carvers, who made
experts of themselves by studying an art which, in the beginning of late last summer, they
had thought of nothing at all.
"Guard Against Termites. Then there were the Bell Pest Control people, none of them of
the church, who contributed three gallons of termite chemicals to saturate the lower feet of
the shaft of the cross, and four feet of earth into which the cross had been sunk. And
there was a workaday painter, Jess Hauptley, who gave these workers a wood
preservative to apply with the linseed oil coatings. But these young ones did all the work,
until a few were spending more time at the cross they were building than they were in their
school studies at home, especially as the deadline, which was Easter, thrummed in their
minds with its nearness.
"But far back they had to determine their symbols. Some of the old Druidic symbols were
discarded, but not all, with 45 Christian symbols given substitution. Thus the labyrinths of
the original cross of the Island of Iona, by which the artist of the Druids felt life’s
entanglements were inextricably man’s fate, to be accepted with equanimity, have been
largely replaced by the gridirons on which early Christians were sometimes roasted alive
by their persecutors. But the old pagan concept of eternality as described by a great
circle, from which the immutable tie of the simple wedding ring was derived, is retained.
Instead of the lines of medieval Gothic spires pointing towards Eternity, supported by the
buttressing earth. Here, too, the flaying knives of Bartholomew, “the silent apostle,” tho
word of whose was ever recorded.
"Flame of the Pentecost. Along the south shaft is the seven-tongued flame of the
Pentecost; the Savior as the light of the world; the star or Bethlehem; a flaring head of
wheat for growth; the carpenter’s square and a spear for all who work with their hands.
"Of the pagan concept, however, there is retained the bursting pomegranate seeds of
prolification, and the opening flower which the Druids sometimes wove into their Great
Circle of the unassailable eternal to denote, as one symbol among thousands of primitive
men, the aggressions of fertility.
"But, the center of the big circle is a smaller, and in its center a ship on the waves. And
this has been adopted for its symbol by the World Council of Churches.
"There is much more on the Celtic Cross. But to detail all its features is surely to violate
the privacy of its strength. These cannot in any case be seen as the cross stands starkly
alone in the moonlight, poised quiet and solitary and brooding in the spirit of its contained
knowledge, as scret to the view as the unseen copper scroll with the names of 14 boys and
girls inside it. Not mere autographs these names, but signatory to the spirit that moved
them at their labor through the black winter hours, also in the words: “Created by the
youth of Trinity Presbyterian Church to the glory of God. A church is only built by those
who are willing to work”...........(here several words are missing from our copy of the
article)....... 'no other hands than our.'”
The article ended at this point
Soon after, membership growth made it necessary to add a wing to the building to meet
the demands for more classrooms and facilities for the growing congregation.
In 1981 Trinity again faced the challenge of a growing membership with too little room.
Banding together once again, a new sanctuary was constructed and additional modern
amenities were added to assure the facilities met the needs of a growing body of Christ.
The previous sanctuary, which is on the top floor of the first building, became Founder's
Hall and is now a favorite place for large meetings, honor luncheons, special services,
dinners and even adult Sunday education classes.
In 2000 Trinity added an elevator, enlarged the parking lot in back of the church,
remodeled Founder's Hall and added a small kitchenette to compliment the large kitchen
found in Fellowship Hall on the lower level.
Like the building, Trinity's parishioners and its mission have gone through many changes.
In 2001 the members of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Independence, joined the
Trinity congregation. The move brought many wonderful new faces and gifts, as well as
new traditions.
The current membership is representative of all ages. They come from the immediate
area, Kansas City, Raytown, and even as far away as Lee's Summit and Blue Springs.
Average worship attendance is 135 and we worship in a style that blends both traditional
and contemporary perspectives. The Rev. Dr. Allison K. Seed has served as pastor since
September 1995.
We are a people who serve the Lord Jesus Christ with our hearts, our minds and our
hands.
We ask questions, we find answers, support, challenge, and fellowship in our church
family.
We believe we are called to serve the world, our community, and one another with
Christ-like love.
We live in hope and with joy, because by God's grace we have been forgiven.
Sunday, for many of us, is the highlight of our week because of the caring and acceptance
we feel within the church community, and we are eager to share the good news of Jesus
with others.
Find hope here.
the demands for more classrooms and facilities for the growing congregation.
In 1981 Trinity again faced the challenge of a growing membership with too little room.
Banding together once again, a new sanctuary was constructed and additional modern
amenities were added to assure the facilities met the needs of a growing body of Christ.
The previous sanctuary, which is on the top floor of the first building, became Founder's
Hall and is now a favorite place for large meetings, honor luncheons, special services,
dinners and even adult Sunday education classes.
In 2000 Trinity added an elevator, enlarged the parking lot in back of the church,
remodeled Founder's Hall and added a small kitchenette to compliment the large kitchen
found in Fellowship Hall on the lower level.
Like the building, Trinity's parishioners and its mission have gone through many changes.
In 2001 the members of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Independence, joined the
Trinity congregation. The move brought many wonderful new faces and gifts, as well as
new traditions.
The current membership is representative of all ages. They come from the immediate
area, Kansas City, Raytown, and even as far away as Lee's Summit and Blue Springs.
Average worship attendance is 135 and we worship in a style that blends both traditional
and contemporary perspectives. The Rev. Dr. Allison K. Seed has served as pastor since
September 1995.
We are a people who serve the Lord Jesus Christ with our hearts, our minds and our
hands.
We ask questions, we find answers, support, challenge, and fellowship in our church
family.
We believe we are called to serve the world, our community, and one another with
Christ-like love.
We live in hope and with joy, because by God's grace we have been forgiven.
Sunday, for many of us, is the highlight of our week because of the caring and acceptance
we feel within the church community, and we are eager to share the good news of Jesus
with others.
Find hope here.
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