{"id":273419,"date":"2026-06-21T22:40:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/273419\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T22:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:40:49","slug":"south-bushwick-reformed-church-in-brooklyn-holds-sunday-services-online-after-devastating-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/273419\/","title":{"rendered":"South Bushwick Reformed Church in Brooklyn holds Sunday services online after devastating fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUSHWICK, Brooklyn (WABC) — Two days after a massive fire destroyed South Bushwick Reformed Church in Brooklyn<\/a>, Sunday services were still held – they were just moved online. The pastor insists the church will be rebuilt, and the congregation is asking the community to help.<\/p>\n

The church was right across the street from Musa Freih and Mari Munoz’s apartment building.<\/p>\n

“I told them ‘yo, we’ve got to get our cat, get our belongings, computer and important stuff and just go,'” said Freih.<\/p>\n

Flames ripped through the Bushwick church around 1:30 on Friday afternoon. No one was inside the more than 170-year-old landmark, but a large part of the wood-framed building, the rectory and the steeple were destroyed. Debris rained down on the area.<\/p>\n

“A piece of wood maybe that was on fire landed on our rooftop and kind of exploded,” Munoz said.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s service had a much different feel as it was held online.<\/p>\n

“Obviously it’s still fresh and new, so a lot of people didn’t want to process in the moment,” said Reverend James Steward.<\/p>\n

Reverend Steward has led the congregation for 14 years. He says the goal is to rebuild, if possible, and raise money through a GoFundMe. Anything short of that, he feels, would be devastating.<\/p>\n

“This was a space in which we housed kids’ music and art, food pantries, we did a lot for the neighborhood so it would be a monumental loss, it wasn’t just a space it was a community hub,” he said.<\/p>\n

At least two witnesses tell Eyewitness News that right before the flames took over the church, they saw a person standing right in the area, lingering for a bit too long, then took off running as the fire started.<\/p>\n

“I think faith is everywhere, not only in one place, but definitely this place is a safe space for a lot of people,” said worshipper Jimena Ibarra.<\/p>\n

Those people right now are grieving – yet grateful – for all of the support.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUSHWICK, Brooklyn (WABC) — Two days after a massive fire destroyed South Bushwick Reformed Church in Brooklyn, Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[105281,98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-273419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-105281","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}