Staff & Team
LESTER SUMRALL, SENIOR PASTOR
Lester Sumrall is an international minister, local pastor and visionary. For over 25 years, he has shared God’s love, purpose and hope. This Good News of God’s Kingdom has brought real change in 40 nations of the world.
In the early the 1990's, Lester gave up a college basketball scholarship to obey God’s call on his life. His life journey took him to Scandinavia where he attended Word of Life Theological School in Sweden.
Upon graduation, Lester travelled alongside his grandfather, Dr. Lester Sumrall, doing ministry and relief work around the world. Later, he earned a degree from Oral Roberts University’s School of Business. In 1997, he founded Lester Sumrall International, and has since continued in the legacy passed to him of ministry, missions and media.
Lester Sumrall is currently based Northern Indiana, where he serves as Senior Leader of Tri Lakes Community Church.
SARAH SUMRALL, WORSHIP PASTOR
Sarah has been a worship leader for over 25 years. She first started playing on worship teams when she was 16 in her father’s church in Colorado. Sarah traveled with Kings Kids Worship Teams with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Colorado Springs for many years.
She’s been leading worship at several different churches over the years from California, Oklahoma and here in Indiana. Sarah started leading worship at TriLakes in 2014 and then came on staff as the full time Worship Pastor in the fall of 2022.
Sarah is married to Lester and helps lead and teach here at TriLakes. Lester and Sarah have four children: Zoe and Judah, who live in Colorado Springs and are on staff at the same YWAM base she worked at; and Abigail and Shiloh are still at home.
Sarah loves being a wife and mom, she loves drinking tea, she loves the wind and water and being creative.
MELLISA BLACKBURN, OFFICE MANAGER
Mellisa Blackburn is a native of Denver, Colorado, now based in Elkhart, Indiana with her husband and adult children. She has worked at Trilakes Community church as the office manager since October 2024.
She graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2008 with a degree in journalism and has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers. Mellisa wrote web blog articles for Dade Publications for over a year. She now creates SEO driven content for Yellow Horse Media.
Born and raised in southern Arizona, Mellisa fell in love with the Sonoran desert. As a pastor’s daughter, she remembers ministering to the Navajo people where they fed her mutton stew and fry bread.
After high school, she joined the US Navy as a cryptology technician and traveled the world. She met her husband in the Navy, where they lived in Hawaii for the first four years of marriage. They raised their three children in Denver, Colorado, near the gorgeous Rocky Mountains.
Mellisa loves traveling to new places and meeting new people. In fact, she and her family lived in RVs full time for almost 7 years. She has embraced the empty nester lifestyle with her number one fan and husband, Bill, while writing Christian suspense and romance.
