Meet Our Staff

Senior Pastor Rob Rienstra

I was born in 1959 in northern New Jersey, and grew up in the Christian Reformed Church where I was faithfully taught the Scriptures and the Heidelberg Catechism. It was at 15, after being challenged to read the Scripture for myself, that the Lord became real and I understood the truth and power of His word. Though the Lord began to show me gifts soon after that, it wasn’t until I was in my second year at Rutgers University that He confronted me and called me to the ministry. He continued to confirm and grow those gifts through my involvement with Inter-Varsity at Rutgers and in ministry at my home church in Cherry Hill, NJ. It was during my time at Rutgers that the Lord brought my wife Lynne & me together, and we were married a few months after graduating from college. I attended Westminster Seminary from 1982 – 1986 and served as the youth pastor and deacon in our local PCA church in southern New Jersey during that time. In 1985 Lynne and I went to S. Korea for a summer to explore a call to missions, and though called by MTW to join the church-planting team in Paris, France, we instead planted a church in southern New Jersey.

Planting a church from scratch and being in my first pastorate was a wonderful but exhausting experience. The Lord greatly blessed and grew the work and I learned some valuable and important things about myself and His church. After three years in New Jersey we were then called to revitalize a church in Massachusetts. Having seen much growth (spiritual and numerical) in our first church, I went with great expectations of seeing the same thing happen in Cape Cod. Though faithful in preaching, teaching, starting evangelistic Bible studies, and reaching out to the community, we experienced very little fruit from our labors and it became necessary for me to work a second job to support us. It was during that time that the Lord really challenged me about an idol of success and about the source of my true joy. It was from the book of Habakkuk that I learned “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” Though the ten years of ministry on Cape Cod can best be described as planting in very rocky soil, they were also years of joy and peace in the Lord.

In 1999 the Lord called us to Trinity. Once again it involved revitalizing a congregation that had been through some rough times. In the eleven years we have been here the Lord has richly blessed with renewed health and much growth. We are very thankful for all He is doing in us and through us as His church, and in using us to expand His kingdom here in Covington and in the world.

My heart for ministry is to teach, counsel and disciple people to grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Mark Howard, Minister to Youth and Assistant to the Pastor

By God’s grace, I was born into a strong Christian family and grew up in a Bible-teaching church in Wheaton, Illinois. Since a very young age I have been pulled towards the church and had a love for theology. Even as a freshman in high school, there was little question in my mind that I would go to Wheaton College and be a Bible major. While a Biblical Studies major at Wheaton, there was little doubt that I would continue on to get an M.A. My father was a professor as was his father before him, and I’ve always had a pull towards the academy. At the time, I did not sense a call to the pastorate, and I have always felt that being a pastor was not something I was to pursue like I would any other job. Thus, the direction I was heading in was clearly academic in nature. I was not sure what I wanted to specialize in for PhD studies, so I decided to take a break from school after marrying by wife, Tiffany, so that she could pursue her further education.

We moved to Atlanta where I began working with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. After two years with RZIM, I began working as a consultant with Development Services Group, a small firm that works with non-profits all around world, helping them design and implement major donor marketing and communications strategies. I was able to work with ministries whose focus ranged from evangelism to apologetics, church planting, cultural impact through the arts and media, high-adventure camps, training, education or diverse humanitarian services. This experience gave me the opportunity to see how God is moving in amazing ways through the Church across the world to bring glory to Himself - and God is indeed moving.

As my wife’s graduate education was drawing to a close, I began considering the future for my academic career that God first put the tug towards the pastorate in my heart. Nevertheless, I felt that the call needed to be confirmed not just by an inward sense, but by a church body that could reaffirm the call. Moreover, I felt that my time at my current job as a nonprofit consultant was not yet complete.

Upon completion of my wife’s PsyD, God brought us unexpectedly back to Covington, GA, the city in which she grew up. Through God’s providence, shortly after returning to Covington, I began serving at Trinity. I am thrilled to come alongside this congregation in our effort to grow in a deeper relationship with our triune God in a way that is spiritual, instructional, experiential and relational. I praise God for the unity He has given this church and invite any who are thinking about visiting to do so!

When not at work, I enjoy gardening, reading, music and painting - but mostly I just play with my wife, Tiffany, and daughter, Tallis. I earned my B.A. in Biblical Studies and a M.A. in Theology from Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. We live near the square in downtown Covington, GA.

Rob Brown, Director of Music Ministries

Rob has been the choir director at Trinity since February of 2009. He has served in music ministry in a variety of capacities for the past 30 years. His music degrees come from Houghton College and SUNY at Stony Brook in clarinet performance. Currently, Rob works for Pine Lake Music Company, a church music distributor. He and his wife Linda have three grown children, Kacie, Luke & Keri. In spare moments, Rob enjoys running, hiking and photography.