First Presbyterian Church of Philipstown
Our Interim Pastor:
​The Rev. Brian Merritt!

The Rev. Brian Merritt is serving as interim pastor from May 2021 through August 2024.

Pastor Brian has been a Presbyterian minister for over 20 years. He has served churches in Louisiana, Washington D.C., and Albuquerque, NM. He also founded Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center, a worshipping community and community center for activists, artists, and non-profit start-ups.

As an community organizer, he has served as a chaplain for Occupy DC, a member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s Peace Communities initiative, a board member of Christian Peacemaker’s Teams, and set up the Social Justice circle for the Washington Interfaith Network.

Brian helped set up a mutual-aid food pantry in Hackettstown, NJ, and continues his Interfaith work by serving in the Executive Committee on the PCUSA’s General Assembly Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations. He has served as a Transitional minister for years, most recently in Hackettstown. A sermon by Brian is published in The Inclusive Pulpit, and he contributed the chapter "Gospel Visions" for The Church in a Time of Empire in Faithful Resistance (Rick Ufford Chase, editor).

To contact Pastor Brian, call the church office at (845) 265-3220, or email him right here. 
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​Rev. Brian Merritt lead his first service at our church in May 2021, which was also our first in-person gathering in the sanctuary since the COVID-19 pandemic closed churches in New York State.