About Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

Who we are

Found in 1868 and established in 1904 at its home on Central Park West near Lincoln Center, Holy Trinity sits at the forefront of music, liturgy, and service in New York City.

Holy Trinity is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest progressive Lutheran body in the United States. As Lutherans, we go about Christianity in a Lutheran way, emphasizing that we are reconciled with God (justified) not by anything we do, but through and because of God’s love, freely given (grace). We love questions more than quick fixes (paradox); we read the Bible in a way that honors it as the source and norm of faith, but not as a literal handbook. As Lutherans, we also lift up the gifts and capacity for ministry (vocation) that everyone holds.

Holy Trinity is a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) congregation welcoming all persons in Christ’s name regardless of sexual orientation, race, ethnic origin, gender, class or other possible exclusionary distinctions. We seek an active commitment to inclusiveness in membership, evangelism, and social outreach. With a heart for the city, a passion for justice, and a commitment to the arts, we seek to be a place where all God’s people will know they are loved. Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you. There is a place for you here.

Click here to view our 2023 Impact Statement.

Architecture

With its signature copper spire (flèche), rose window, and red entry doors on Central Park West, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church has been a very visible and prominent part of New York’s Upper West Side community for over a century.

Worship & music

Holy Trinity holds its weekly Mass on Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m., and over the course of the year celebrates around 75 liturgies, including church festivals and Bach Vespers.

Holy Trinity worships in the Lutheran tradition, with a strong emphasis on preaching, hymn-singing, music, and the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. What makes worship at Holy Trinity particularly unique in New York and across the country is the juxtaposition of beautiful ancient traditions, including chanted prayers and psalms, organ and choral music representing over a thousand years of music literature, the weekly celebration of Holy Communion, fine paraments and clergy vestments, and the occasional use of incense, with preaching and prayer that is explicitly contemporary in tone and oriented towards justice. The worship time does not change during the summer. You can watch our live-stream on demand at here.

Music at our liturgies is provided by the Holy Trinity Parish Choir, which consists of professional and auditioned volunteer singers. The Holy Trinity Parish Choir not only sings at our weekly Mass from October through June, but the choir leads our annual service of Lessons & Carols, for which five new works have been commissioned since 2020. If you are interested in learning more about the Holy Trinity Parish Choir please email office@holytrinitynyc.org.

Service & Advocacy

Service & Advocacy is an important part of Holy Trinity's identity. Anchored by two longstanding ministries, we seek to provide opportunities for not just outreach but fostering a sense of justice both inside and outside our red doors.

H.U.G. (Human Understanding & Growth) was founded in 1978 in response to the number of single-room occupancy (SRO) housing units in the neighborhood. Working with the social workers at the SROs, members of Holy Trinity decided to open the doors of our Community Room on Saturdays, providing a meal and time for conversation and socialization for residents in the neighborhood. While few SROs are left in the immediate vicinity of Holy Trinity, our weekly H.U.G. ministry gathers neighbors in need for lunch, conversation, and community in the spirit of its original mission, and over 63,000 warm meals have been served since 1978.

In 1985, Holy Trinity launched a respite bed shelter for men in its Community Room in direct response to a plea by former New York Mayer Ed Koch. Nearly 40 years later, the shelter is now the Holy Trinity Women's Shelter, providing a warm meal, education, support, and housing for up to 14 women, three nights per week from January to June. Holy Trinity has provided over 22,000 bed nights to homeless persons over the past four decades of ministry.

More recently, in mid-2020, members of Holy Trinity were looking for ways to feed people experiencing hunger and homelessness, especially with the temporary closure of H.U.G. due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of this desire the Central Park Homeless Ministry was created, in which volunteers take sandwiches and basic toiletries to our neighbors living in Central Park on a weekly basis. That ministry now extends far beyond Central Park, with a team walking the streets and avenues of the Upper West Side each week.
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Apart from these core ministries, Holy Trinity supports new churches, educational programs, ELCA Disaster Response following natural disasters, and ELCA World Hunger initiatives that feed people across the globe. We’ve sent thousands of postcards to disenfranchised voters in an effort to communicate their rights in response to unethical voter suppression tactics. Holy Trinity hosts five recovery meetings which welcome well over a hundred of our neighbors each week. Altogether, some 72% of our calendar time is spent on service & community outreach, with approximately 5,500 service hours completed by members and friends of Holy Trinity each year.

Membership

Holy Trinity regularly welcomes new members into this community of faith. Both legally and theologically, every church needs people who say "I'm in" who will not only participate in the overall life of the congregation, but who will lead the church in the ways the Holy Spirit is moving. There are three basic requirements to membership, which include previous baptism in any Christian tradition or a desire to be baptized; regular attendance at Mass throughout the year; and a contribution of record at least once each year. There is no formal pre-membership class, although new members often join Pastor Tim for a meal and conversation about Holy Trinity and Lutherans.

New members are typically welcomed in a brief rite that takes place during a regular Sunday Mass. If you have any questions about what membership means at Holy Trinity, email office@holytrinitynyc.org.

Our pastor

The Reverend Timothy Weisman is a musician, teacher, community organizer, and a Lutheran pastor.

Pastor Tim arrived to The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity on March 10, 2020, three days before the city shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite several difficult of months of ministry in New York, Pastor Tim has led the funding and implementation of live streaming at Holy Trinity; championed the post-pandemic relaunch of H.U.G., the church's weekly soup kitchen, as a year-round ministry; advocated for the installation of a new shower in time for the reopening of the Holy Trinity Women's Shelter; balanced the budget; and he continues to sustain the rich tradition of preaching and liturgy at Bach Vespers. His weekly HT Bible Study draws more than twenty regular attendees, and Pastor Tim continues the twenty-year tradition of speaking at the annual September 11 memorial service at the local 40/35 firehouse.

Prior to coming Holy Trinity, Pastor Tim served as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; their work together included Jazz Vespers, which blended centuries-old evening prayer with jazz, blues, and Gospel; and Laundry Love, which helps dozens of people wash and dry their laundry for free each month at a local laundromat. Common Room, which welcomes thousands of artists, musicians, farmers, and community members into the church each year, was the result of care-filled congregational visioning, fundraising, and implementation led by Pastor Tim. (Just ask him about the time he played with Yo-Yo Ma.)

Pastor Tim originally hails from Indiana corn and basketball country. He completed a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Evansville (Indiana) with a major in organ and sacred music. He earned both the Master of Music (organ) and Master of Divinity degrees at Yale University, where he was awarded prizes in organ performance, organ accompanying, and church music. Pastor Tim has been published in Sundays and Seasons, the official liturgical planning publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the American Organist magazine; and his leadership in Massachusetts was profiled in a feature article in The Lutheran magazine. Pastor Tim has also appeared on the CBS Evening News.

Pastor Tim lives on the Upper West Side with his husband Jeremy Friedland, a board-certified orthopaedic nurse at Hospital for Special Surgery, and their adorable Boxer mix named Barley.

Our music director

Austin Philemon is an organist, conductor, and composer, and multi-instrumental performer.

About us