Reverend Diana Brown
Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church

Rev. Brown is a native of Hackensack, New Jersey. Having obtained her formal education through the Hackensack Public School System, she then attended William Paterson College School of Nursing and was granted a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. Her concern for the health and the well-being of others led her to pursue a career in public health and community nursing. As a nurse, God provided her opportunities to minister to the sick, the hopeless and the needy throughout Bergen, Passaic, Union and Essex Counties. It was through nursing that God taught her to advocate for the rights of others.

She grew up in the New Hope Baptist Church of Hackensack. Her parents and the church nurtured her Christian faith, and at the age of nine she confessed her faith in Jesus Christ. The church was the focal point of her childhood. The church served as a place for spiritual nurturing and for socializing. As a young person in the church she was encouraged to participate in Sunday school both as a student and teacher, sing in the choir, and serve on the usher board. While in college she delivered her first Sunday morning message on Laymen’s Day.

Having a passion for sharing the Gospel with the young, she was given the responsibility of developing, implementing and coordinating the New Hope Baptist Junior Church. This ministry was designed to provide a worship experience for children and youth ages 5 through 17. Rev. Brown has said that watching children grow in their relationship with the Lord brings her great joy.

Rev. Brown’s work in youth ministry was essential to her call to the ministry. After working seven years in the youth ministry she began to feel God pulling her into a deeper level of ministry. In the spring of 1996 she answered God’s call to the ministry.

When Rev. Brown entered New Brunswick Theological Seminary she intended to focus on pastoral care and counseling, but she found herself being drawn to the metro-urban ministry concentration. She feels that God has given her a heart for all of God’s people and a desire to live out the Gospel in the community.

On August 8, 1999 she was licensed to preach the Gospel at the New Hope Baptist Church. She received her Master of Divinity May 18, 2002 from New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

Rev. Brown has received several awards from her college as well as the community. In 2003 her sermon “ Faith Plus Persistence Pays Off” was published in a book entitled: Just Preaching: Prophetic Voices for Economic Justice.

In October of 2003, Rev. Brown was called to serve as Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cranford Elizabeth. She is the twenty-ninth pastor, and the first African American female to serve this multicultural congregation.

She has been married to Gregory Brown for 32 years and they are the proud parents of Mark, 27 and Lauren 23. She currently resides in Elizabeth, NJ.

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