Welcome From the Pastor
Welcome to First Baptist Church in New Haven! Our aim is to worship, know and serve the living God who made us and loves us more that we can imagine. We are committed to sharing the good news that in Jesus Christ, God brings us forgiveness and the power to live a new kind of life, growing in love, peace and joy. We desire to “seek the welfare of the city and pray to the Lord on its behalf.” (Jeremiah 29.7) Therefore, we aim to be of practical service in the greater New Haven area.
Our congregation is very welcoming and includes people from many different national and cultural backgrounds.
You will find a friendly, caring church family at First Baptist. We invite you to join us in worship soon!
Meet Our Interim Pastor, The Rev. David Reed-Brown
Pastor Dave is delighted to minister at First Baptist Church, and in many ways it feels like coming home... He is a Transitional Ministry Specialist certified by the Interim Ministry Network. Before coming to First, he led a successful merger between the Central Baptist and First Congregational Churches in Norwich, CT, and before that was interim pastor at the Old Mystic Baptist Church. He served as pastor of our ABC churches in Essex and Suffield, CT, for seventeen years. Dave has taught ethics certification classes for clergy and lay leaders, and a few years ago he was an interfaith chaplain at Hartford Hospital (Trauma 1) - loving Emergency Room ministry in particular. He loves fostering respect, understanding, empathy and friendship between people of different faiths, cultures, genders, races, ethnicities, etc.
Dave has led many weeks of summer music camp at Camp Wightman, and missions are especially important to him. He led mission trips to Biloxi, MS with Habitat for Humanity; ABCCONN trips to help build the Caribbean Theological Center in Limon, Costa Rica; Ground Zero clean-up with American Baptist Men's Ministries and other domestic trips with youth and adults. During seminary, he studied, visited missionaries and lived in Bangalore, India at the United Theological College in the Church of South India. While there, he traveled to visit with Naga Baptists in Calcutta at William Carey Baptist Church. He thinks of life in terms of before India and after India. In 2009 his church hosted the American Baptist Missions Conference. Pastor Dave's grandparents were founding missionaries of Camps Farthest Out International, and his father was also an American Baptist Pastor. His mother was a psychiatric social worker.
Dave was born in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in Upstate New York near Cooperstown. He attended Denison University in Ohio, earning a Bachelor's degree in computer science and vocal music, but his real love was ministry. Throughout this time he participated in protesting and persuading the college to end its financial support of Apartheid in South Africa. They were successful! This is why his Connecticut Amistad license plate is MANDELA. (It's also why Pastor Dave speaks quite a bit of French, some Spanish for church and many many phrases in a dozen other languages. It lets people know he loves and respects them.) It was during this time on a summer-long mission trip that Dave heard God calling him to ordained ministry. In 1994 he earned his Masters of Divinity degree at Andover Newton Theological School, our ABC seminary in New England. He loves humble inner-city congregations of disciples that grow what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called The Beloved Community. So, one of his favorite passages of scripture is Galatians 5.23:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free;
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
Dave and his wife Cindy married in 1993. She is an Education Consultant for the Board of Education and Services for the Blind with the Sate of Connecticut, serving children with various visual impairments. They adore raising their teenage boys, Matthew and Kirby, in Simsbury near Hartford and are active in much music and scouting with them.
Welcome to First Baptist Church in New Haven! Our aim is to worship, know and serve the living God who made us and loves us more that we can imagine. We are committed to sharing the good news that in Jesus Christ, God brings us forgiveness and the power to live a new kind of life, growing in love, peace and joy. We desire to “seek the welfare of the city and pray to the Lord on its behalf.” (Jeremiah 29.7) Therefore, we aim to be of practical service in the greater New Haven area.
Our congregation is very welcoming and includes people from many different national and cultural backgrounds.
You will find a friendly, caring church family at First Baptist. We invite you to join us in worship soon!
Meet Our Interim Pastor, The Rev. David Reed-Brown
Pastor Dave is delighted to minister at First Baptist Church, and in many ways it feels like coming home... He is a Transitional Ministry Specialist certified by the Interim Ministry Network. Before coming to First, he led a successful merger between the Central Baptist and First Congregational Churches in Norwich, CT, and before that was interim pastor at the Old Mystic Baptist Church. He served as pastor of our ABC churches in Essex and Suffield, CT, for seventeen years. Dave has taught ethics certification classes for clergy and lay leaders, and a few years ago he was an interfaith chaplain at Hartford Hospital (Trauma 1) - loving Emergency Room ministry in particular. He loves fostering respect, understanding, empathy and friendship between people of different faiths, cultures, genders, races, ethnicities, etc.
Dave has led many weeks of summer music camp at Camp Wightman, and missions are especially important to him. He led mission trips to Biloxi, MS with Habitat for Humanity; ABCCONN trips to help build the Caribbean Theological Center in Limon, Costa Rica; Ground Zero clean-up with American Baptist Men's Ministries and other domestic trips with youth and adults. During seminary, he studied, visited missionaries and lived in Bangalore, India at the United Theological College in the Church of South India. While there, he traveled to visit with Naga Baptists in Calcutta at William Carey Baptist Church. He thinks of life in terms of before India and after India. In 2009 his church hosted the American Baptist Missions Conference. Pastor Dave's grandparents were founding missionaries of Camps Farthest Out International, and his father was also an American Baptist Pastor. His mother was a psychiatric social worker.
Dave was born in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in Upstate New York near Cooperstown. He attended Denison University in Ohio, earning a Bachelor's degree in computer science and vocal music, but his real love was ministry. Throughout this time he participated in protesting and persuading the college to end its financial support of Apartheid in South Africa. They were successful! This is why his Connecticut Amistad license plate is MANDELA. (It's also why Pastor Dave speaks quite a bit of French, some Spanish for church and many many phrases in a dozen other languages. It lets people know he loves and respects them.) It was during this time on a summer-long mission trip that Dave heard God calling him to ordained ministry. In 1994 he earned his Masters of Divinity degree at Andover Newton Theological School, our ABC seminary in New England. He loves humble inner-city congregations of disciples that grow what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called The Beloved Community. So, one of his favorite passages of scripture is Galatians 5.23:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free;
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
Dave and his wife Cindy married in 1993. She is an Education Consultant for the Board of Education and Services for the Blind with the Sate of Connecticut, serving children with various visual impairments. They adore raising their teenage boys, Matthew and Kirby, in Simsbury near Hartford and are active in much music and scouting with them.
Pastor Dave also shares God's love as a spiritual illusionist. As an actor, he uses the theatrical tools of illusion to tell the beautiful, deeply meaningful stories of God's love in Jesus Christ. His routines are very much like parables. This helps bring the Good News to the wider culture - people of all ages in fact - in a way that is attractive, delightful and full of joy! Please make no mistake, this is merely a special form of acting, which points toward the very real unconditional agape love of Jesus Christ. In 2019 Dave was made an Instructor at the Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas, where he has studied for over twenty years. It was founded in large part by Eugene Burger, a world-renowned graduate of Yale Divinity School in New Haven, and Dr. Robert Neale, a former professor of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.