Pastor Alyssa Kaplan (she/her)
Hello beloved of Trinity Lutheran Church,
I’m Alyssa Kaplan, and I am so delighted and honored to be your pastor!
What does the pastor at Trinity actually do?
A little bit of everything — I lead worship, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. I connect people to each other, do some community organizing, and strive show up fully for both life’s joyful celebrations and its hardest moments.
I also serve part-time as Executive Director of Trinity Place Shelter, our 10-bed shelter for LGBTQIA+ youth experiencing homelessness.
What draws you to this work?
A conviction that God’s grace and justice are for all people, with no restrictions — full stop. Far too many of our neighbors have been told otherwise, that they have to earn their place or hide part of themselves to belong. Trinity is a congregation where people can live authentically, in community, knowing they are held by grace and called to serve.
What makes Trinity feel like home?
We are a beloved, dynamic, diverse community growing together in faith and trying our best to live out Jesus’ radical ministry of love, grace, and justice in this particular time and this particular place. We are creative, and we’re not afraid to try and fail and try again.
Come talk to me about
Sourdough starters (mine has a name and opinions), the New York Liberty, being an aunt, ICE abolition, the history of our garden, peace and reconciliation work, biblical storytelling, what it means to be a Reconciling in Christ church, an idea for a new small group, or anything at all on your heart. I’d genuinely love to hear it.
Outside of Trinity, you’ll probably find me
Playing (very casually) on one of my adult softball teams, walking in Central Park with my wife and our dog, or devoting myself to whatever new hobby has caught my attention this month.
Pastor Alyssa earned her Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, where she worked with the New Sanctuary Coalition and deepened her commitment to immigrant justice. During those years she also began to see how deeply pastoral care and public justice work are intertwined — a conviction that has shaped every call she’s held since.
She went on to lead the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Virginia Tech in becoming a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) ministry, affirming full LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the life of the church, and helping students build a community where they could bring their whole selves to their faith. From there, she moved to Baltimore, MD, where she helped develop a bilingual worshipping community to support immigrant communities, working across language and culture to build a church home for people navigating a new country.
She became the pastor of Trinity Lutheran in March, 2024 and firmly believes she has the best job in the world.