Rev. Anthony L. Trufant serves as the Senior Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church of Brooklyn, NY. The Brooklyn, New York-based preaching, teaching and outreach ministry of the Rev. Anthony L. Trufant stretches from New York City to New Orleans, from Haiti’s hovels to the up-from-apartheid townships of South Africa and beyond.
His Bible-based worldview and Christ-centered activism have been shaped, in part, by his Chicago boyhood and by spending the balance of his youth in San Francisco. At that city’s noted, community-changing Third Baptist Church, Rev. Trufant interned under the Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.
The apprenticeship further fueled Rev. Trufant’s belief that the church of Jesus Christ must be actively engaged in the liberation struggle and survival of the entire human family, especially people of African descent. That group is predominately, yet not exclusively, comprised of blacks from the USA, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and Africa and is the bulk of his 4,000-member Emmanuel Baptist Church in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood. Appointed as Emmanuel’s pastor in November 1990, he has overseen its exponential growth in membership and programming and raised its profile as one of the most innovative, effective “glocal” churches in the Metro New York area.
A sought-after workshop facilitator, church consultant, and leadership development specialist, Rev. Trufant is the recipient of numerous civic and religious awards. He also was inducted into the Morehouse College of Ministers; profiled by author David Ritz’s critically acclaimed’ “The Messengers;” and had his “Worship That Pleases God” published in Oxford Sermons, Volume 3. He has been active in the Dallas, Texas-based, nationally focused Leadership Network. Additionally, he contributed a chapter on “Creativity In Preaching”, in “Living Under an Imposed Sentence”, a book published in honor of one of his mentors, Dr. Charles Booth, Senior Pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church of Columbus, OH.
He is a graduate of Morehouse College (BA), Colgate Rochester Divinity School (MDiv), and Seton Hall University (MA) and was licensed to preach in July 1981 and ordained in May of 1988 by Third Baptist in San Francisco. Currently a doctoral student in Transformational Leadership at Bakke Graduate School in Dallas, TX, he is a certified Conflict Resolution Mediator. Rev. Trufant has received a diploma in pastoral counseling from Post Graduate Center for Mental Health and has completed coursework towards a doctorate (ABD) at Hebrew Union College.
He is married to Muriel Goode-Trufant, the Managing Attorney for NYC Law Department, and is the proud father of two young adult daughters, Sharise and Toni.