Our Mission:

Joining in God's redemptive work in our neighborhood.

The mission of the universal Church is to glorify God by making disciples through the good news about Jesus Christ. God’s mission and the mission of His Church are inseparably linked. If God’s mission is to be glorified through the redemption and reconciliation of a people, the Church’s mission must be oriented around the glory of God and seek to glorify Him through redemption and reconciliation.


The mission of the Church is highlighted in 2 Corinthians 5. As those who have been reconciled to God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are now ambassadors of reconciliation to a lost and broken world. We plead, urge, implore, reason, pray, serve, preach, teach and gather to see God glorified through reconciliation.


At First Free, this mission is best displayed in our community, where we daily have the chance of living out the good news of Jesus to those around us.



Reconciliation with God.

We believe worship is a "work of the people" and therefore, our service does not revolve around a few personalities, but depends on the participation of all God's people. Together - through PRAYER, SONG, SILENCE, CONFESSION, GOD'S WORD, and the LORD'S SUPPER - we are called out of passivity and indifference and formed to live in the world as the body of Christ - to embody faith, hope and love.

Reconciliation with others.

Our posture toward the world and toward our city is rooted in the reality that God himself became one of us in the person of Jesus. One paraphrase of John 1:14 reads, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." Continuing God's mission through Christ for the world, we seek to immerse ourselves in the life of our city and live redemptively within it as a sign and witness that God has begun putting the world back together, inch by inch, making all things new again in Christ. This is the kind of engagment the biblical story calls us into: Wondering and celebrating the city's culture, beauty and diversity, while also lamenting its brokenness, and watching for ways God's Spirit is calling us to participate in its renewal (socially, culturally and spiritually).

The First Free Family:

A story of God's amazing grace.

Since 1928, First Evangelical Free Church (First Free) has been a welcoming presence to the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Sunset Park in South Brooklyn. First Free was started in 1897 as a ministry to the large Norwegian-speaking community in Brooklyn and developed an English language services in the 1940s. 


Today our neighborhood has changed, but the church retains a strong presence in the community. While Bay Ridge is still home to a small Norwegian community, it is vibrant and multi-ethnic and includes growing Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish speaking populations. 


In responding to these changes, First Free joins with brothers and sisters from the New York Chinese EFC and the Brooklyn Arabic Bible Church meeting in our church building. We also are connected to Second EFC  and the Spanish Evangelic Church of the Holy Spirit in the Sunset neighborhood. We want to partner together in ministry to the neighborhoods around us, and to form a community of churches that reflects the multiethnic, multilingual dynamic of God's Kingdom.