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History Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church is recognized as an important historical and architectural landmark within the Brooklyn community and the City of New York. It has participated in the growth of the community from its rural beginnings up to the current richly diverse community of the twenty-first century. The neo-Georgian Church, the picturesque and architecturally unique shingle clad Old Church, the stately Parish House, and the handsome neighborhood parsonage are well and prominently sited focal points in the community.
Our Church traces its roots back to a group of Congregationalists who held their first meeting in a schoolhouse on Tompkins Avenue near McDonough Street on June 6, 1875 to organize a new Church, the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church.
The immense campanile that dominates the neighborhood is reminiscent of St. Mark's in Venice; brick is everywhere. The building is now home to the First AME Zion Church. Once the nation's largest Congregational congregation, the Tompkins Ave. church was often referred to as “Dr. Meredith's church”, after its well-known preacher.
The Church flourished to the point that many of the members, as well as members of other Congregational Churches in the area felt a new church was needed with a Sunday School that was closer to where they lived. In the spring of 1899 a home meeting was held which led to the formation of the Flatbush Congregational Church. The first meetings were held in a Masonic lodge on Flatbush Avenue and later in a store, before land was purchased on Dorchester Road. On October 14, 1900 the Flatbush Congregational Church dedicated the first building,  the Old Church.
Services and Sunday School were held in the Old Church from 1900 until the erection of the current red brick and limestone building fronting on Dorchester Road. The New Church was officially dedicated on October 2, 1910. On May 27, 1942 the Flatbush Congregational Church and the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church voted to merge creating the Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church of Brooklyn. During the middle of the 20th century, Flatbush-Tompkins was the largest Congregational Church in the United States, with over four thousand members on the rolls. |
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