Pastor

Rev. Dr. Trent Hancock

Our pastor is the Rev. Dr. Trent Hancock. Trent began his work at GPC in October 2013. Here's a brief biography:

Trent grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where his parents were charter members of Southminster Presbyterian Church. He would become the first person from that congregation to be ordained to pastoral ministry.

Trent attended Ripon College and American University where he studied political science on an Army ROTC scholarship. He planned to attend law school after college and commissioning.

In the summer before his junior year, however, Trent unexpectedly found himself serving as the chaplain at Camp Long Lake, a Boy Scout Camp in central Wisconsin. Over the course of several weeks, he began to discern a call to ministry and returned to Ripon that fall bent on preparing for a new vocation.

After Ripon, Trent began his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he sang in the touring choir and met Angela, a soprano from California. Trent and Angela married the summer before their final year of seminary.

Upon graduation, Angela and Trent were called to serve as co-pastors of McConnellsburg United Presbyterian Church in south-central Pennsylvania. They served together for 4 years, during which time their two children, Alex and Tess, were born.

In 2000, Trent was called to active duty as an Army Chaplain, serving the soldiers and families of the 3-101st Aviation Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. In 2002, he was deployed to Afghanistan, the next year to Iraq.

By 2004, Trent had left the Army and returned to serving the church as the Associate Pastor for Mission and Pastoral Care at Morrisville Presbyterian Church (Bucks County, PA). For more than 8 years, he served in a variety of roles at Morrisville, as Angela earned a Ph.D. from Princeton Seminary. During this same period, Trent completed the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry. His final project, "Meaningful and Faithful: an Evaluative Study of Funeral Sermons," explores the relationship between the proclamation of the Gospel and the sharing of personal experiences of loss in the context of the funeral sermon.

In 2012, Angela was called to serve on the faculty of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary where she now teaches homiletics (preaching) and worship. After several months of long distance commuting, Trent joined his family in Pittsburgh and began work as the Interim Pastor at Sixth Presbyterian Church in the fall of that year.

Trent serves the national church as a member of the Presbyteries' Cooperative Committee on Examinations for Candidates which oversees the examination process for candidates pursuing ordination in the Presbyterian Church.

Trent is an avid reader - favorites include presidential biographies, American history, current events and New Testament theology. He enjoys baseball, hiking, and making music.

The Hancock family lives in McCandless Township, just a few miles from GPC.