The story of Highrock Lexington began in Cambridge, MA in the winter of 1889-90. A group of faithful Swedish immigrants in Cambridge and Somerville gathered together to worship and hear preaching in their native tongue. In 1897, twenty-five members founded The “Swedish Evangelical Mission Church of Cambridge.”

The church met in rented space at first, but with much sacrifice from its members and an appeal to people from other Cambridge churches, in 1903 they built the church at 134 Hampshire Street in Cambridge (now the Massachusetts Avenue Baptist Church). Twenty-one years later they decided to build a new church at 16 Beech Street, Cambridge (now Hope Fellowship Christian Church). It was here, in 1930, that the congregation decided to transition from Swedish to English in their worship services. This change was difficult for the older Swedish-speaking members, but they realized that it was important to reach younger generations and include people from non-Swedish backgrounds.

In 1945, the congregation changed its name to “Evangelical Church of Cambridge” and joined the national denomination (currently called the Evangelical Covenant Church).

In the early 1950s many of the members had moved out of Cambridge to the towns of Arlington, Belmont, and Lexington. Needing more Sunday School space, the church again searched for land. In 1958, they purchased 41 acres off Allen Street in Lexington, and started construction in 1964. On May 1,1966, the first services were held in the new church building in Lexington; the church now renamed Trinity Covenant Church.

When you ask people in Lexington about Trinity Covenant Church, many have no idea that it exists or where it is. How did this beautiful campus come to be so hidden? With a map and some history, the story becomes clear. In the early 1960s a plan to connect Route 3 (from New Hampshire) with Route 2 called for building Worthen Road, from Bedford Street to Pleasant Street. The church's building committee planned for Trinity Covenant Church to be along that main road. Worthen Road and Worthen Road East remain as vestiges of that plan, but the connection between them was never built.

The church location notwithstanding, the congregation grew beyond its Swedish roots to represent the diversity of metropolitan Boston. But the church retained its original commitment to faith, community, and mission and attracted people from Lexington and many other surrounding communities. This faith community became known for its love and care for each other and its neighbors. The church became known for its outsized impact, forming a long-serving ministry to those with mental and emotional challenges and providing care and compassion through in-person missions in Mexico and Uganda.

In 2015, Trinity Covenant Church began a process of discernment and revitalization to better understand how it could better serve God's kingdom. That process led to conversations with its sister church in the same denomination, Highrock Covenant Church. After a unanimous congregational vote to dissolve and become Highrock Lexington, the congregation is now part of the multi-congregation Highrock church that now includes Arlington, Cambridge, Lexington, and MetroWest (the Needham area) all based in Eastern Massachusetts, as well as Highrock Online.

Compelled by God’s love, we remove barriers in order to welcome all people into God’s community.  

They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. (Mark 2:2-4)

Freed from shame by God’s grace, we offer one another truth and our true selves, both our weaknesses and strengths.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

Awed by God’s grandeur and mystery, we depend on God fully while holding convictions humbly.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Captivated by God’s self-revelation, we seek wisdom by asking questions, wrestling with Scripture, and learning from many voices.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”  (Exodus 3:2-3)

Inspired by the passion of Jesus, we share the burdens of others, and put love into action.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:3-8)

Continually drawn by God's love, filled by God's Spirit, shaped by God's Word, and attentive to God's presence, we worship the living God with our hearts, minds, souls, and strength above all else and in all else. This includes practicing praise, prayer, obedience, sacraments, Sabbath, study, service, singing, silence, confession, celebration, fasting, feasting, forgiving, thanksgiving, and seeking God's presence, power, and purposes in every aspect of our lives.

Most of God's promises are made not to individuals, but to the collective Christian community called the Church, and apply to all who belong to her. In our uniqueness that results from diverse ethnicities, experiences, preferences, and perspectives, we are reconciled in Christ's one body by a love that compels us to confront, confess, comfort, counsel, and celebrate each other in God's name so that we might all grow in Christlikeness and reflect Christ to a world that longs to see Him still alive among them. We cannot love God, follow Christ, or fully preach the Gospel if we do not love one another, including our enemies. The primary context for individual spiritual growth and Gospel proclamation is Christian community. Through shared laughter, tears, prayers, experiences, and mutual submission, our relationships will become environments in which mutual dignity is protected, truth is shared, and forgiveness is sought, extended and received, resulting in repentance and reconciliation as we enter into the battle for each other's souls against the power of sin and death.

We continue God's work of creation and redemption of all creation in our worship, our work, and our relationships as we engage the world as servants of Christ, empowered, energized, and equipped even to suffer for the Gospel so that God's will "will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven," and in order to hasten the day when "every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the Glory of God the Father." As the body of Christ, we want God to do through our body the very kinds of things He did through Christ's body as we imitate our Lord's passion for the least, the lost, and the left out and the lonely. We have been created and called by God, and we want to use "whatever gifts we have received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." We pray for and invite those who are estranged from our Savior and His Church to experience His Spirit alive in our community. Seeing our love for them and one another that transcends our differences and sins, they will get to taste of our Lord's own love, and long to enter into community, initially with us and ultimately with God Himself.