Meet your Neighbors.
11am Sundays
Holy Eucharist
All are welcome!
Currently:
Ash Wednesday - 5 March
7:30am - Spoken Holy Eucharist with ashes (30 minutes)
7:15pm - Compline with penitential order and ashes (30 minutes)
Regular weekly liturgy/prayer:
We meet Sundays at 11am for the Holy Eucharist, and all are welcome.
We pray contemplative prayer (meditation in the Christian tradition) Monday evenings at 7:30pm. A half hour of silence, and other simple practice. Beginners are very welcome.
We pray the brief, ancient monastic service called Compline Wednesday evenings at 7:15pm to close the day in peace. 10-15 minutes in length. Candles! Deep breaths! Bring a friend.
Masks are optional but welcome.
326 Clinton St.
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Clinton & Kane
Take the F/G to Bergen St.
Enter the parish hall by the Clinton Street driveway gate.
Christ Church Cobble Hill is a progressive, accessible & uplifting Brooklyn community space for spiritual seekers who believe all things can be made holy.
We seek creative, simple, transformative community, following in the way of Love.
We are spiritual seekers, agnostics and atheists, long-term Christians, neighbors and friends.
We are seeking to build and reveal the beloved community of justice, hope, and beauty here, for the life of the neighborhood and the world.
Our Values
Our Spiritual Call
Jesus tells his followers, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
What is life-giving religious practice and community building in a post-religious age?
What is ‘good urbanism’ in the early 21st century?
Our tradition phrases this by asking, “What does the beloved community made in God’s image look like when it has sidewalks?”
Come, listen and speak, and build together with us a meeting place for the neighborhood’s many communities and questions, a progressive school for love and justice-building, a community of reconciliation and creativity, a place of joy.
Most Recent Reflections
Fr. Mark Genszler loves bicycling, poetry, gardens, and good urbanism.
Spending his adult years in the Pacific Northwest, the Peace Corps, and southern Vermont, Mark attended the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan, and is happy to be trying to follow Jesus in the way of peace here in northwest Brooklyn.
Mark and his husband Christo enjoy building family and community in such a friendly neighborhood.
“My great-grandparents were all Brooklyn people, and it is a deep rooting to return.”
Meet him for a chat -- whether in need, collaboration, or simple neighborliness.
Quick History
Christ Church was founded on the wave of affluence and confident urban expansion following the opening of the Erie Canal, an economic transformation wrought in both New York City and Brooklyn in the 1830s. The parish organized in 1835, and the church building was completed in 1841-42. The building is one of the older ones in continuing use in this part of Brooklyn.
The building’s prominence is also due to it being an early commission completed by Richard Upjohn - father of the Gothic Revival movement in the United States - designed at the same time Upjohn was working on Trinity Church, Wall Street. Christ Church was Upjohn’s own parish church; he served on the vestry (governing body) and built a house for his family just a few blocks north on Clinton Street.
The church building was equally known for a Tiffany Studios renovation (1916), some of which survived a subsequent fire (1939) -- particularly a simple mosaic/marble chancel and several nave windows.
In recent years, the church has been difficult to maintain, and additionally suffered lightning strikes. A finial on the tower began to collapse in 2012, tragically killing a passer-by. The height of the tower was greatly reduced, a large amount of scaffolding was erected, all by order of the NYC Department of Buildings who also ordered that the nave be vacated.
Christ Church and the Trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island are in the midst of tower/roof repair and initial parapet restoration on the northeast corner of the building. While this is a small step, it is an important one as we look to a future where this historic building may once again serve the needs of the neighborhood.
We gather to pray and worship God in our parish hall, and that part of our building is well used by a variety of community partners (see below for some). Our path as a community these days seeks to live the question: what sort of life-giving community is refounded and expanded, perhaps even amid seeming ruins, as we seek to discern the will and useful work of God for the 21st century?
What does healing and reconciliation for the neighborhood, the earth, and human relationships look like here and now?
Volunteers for BloomAgain Brooklyn sort upcycled flowers and make bouquets for delivery to residents at senior centers and hospitals, residences for former domestic violence and homelessness victims, and other at risk populations.
