Liberty Church began in June 2010 when Paul & Andi Andrew moved from Sydney, Australia to New York City with their three kids.
With just a few friends and family they started meeting around a park bench in Central Park each Sunday morning that summer. But it wasn’t long before it became clear that God was gathering people to this new community and the began the first “Connect Groups” to help disciple people and build relationships. On Sunday nights Paul & Andi opened up their home for Family Dinners, and packed out their Brooklyn apartment with as many as 40 people sharing a meal.
Soon people wanted somewhere to bring their friends so our first Gathering was held on Sept 12th in a lounge overlooking the city at Wall Street. To our amazement 47 people turned out and 2 gave their hearts to Jesus! So we decided to aim for launching weekly services the following January and reached out to the ARC (Association of Related Churches) for training and support in getting off the ground.
From that first Gathering we started meeting with an incredible volunteer Launch Team on Sunday mornings. These incredible people prayed, strategized and brought their gifts & talents to the table to help us get the church off the runway. And once a month we continued to hold Gatherings which outgrew Wall Street and moved up to our home in the Tribeca Cinemas in November.
The big moment came on Jan 23rd 2011, when we launched our weekly services in the famous Tribeca Cinemas in Lower Manhattan. What a day! The place was packed, God’s presence was tangible and in many ways the church we know today was born.
Over the course of 2011 we got about building the church, investing in the people God gave us and beginning ministries for kids, college students and the women of our church.
In July Sebastian Buffa moved to the city to help us pioneer a second community in Manhattan. After a lot of prayer and consideration we decided to put together a team than would launch an evening service in Union Square with the aim of reaching people who weren’t coming to Tribeca because of geography or the fact that it was in the morning.
So on Sun Sept 18th we launched Liberty Church Union Square with a night service and become “one church, two communities”. It’s early days, but it’s already clear that this new community is helping us reach people we’ve never reached before.
As for the rest of our story, well it’s still being written.
