History

The Briggs Center was founded in 2006 as an outgrowth of the former Briggs Memorial Baptist Church in Bethesda, Maryland.

In the early 2000s, the members and staff of Briggs Church began to discern a call for a new way of being a faith community and a new way of caring for the world. The members of the congregation voted to join a neighboring congregation — Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ. 

Long-devoted to being an inclusive community that cared for the world, the people of Briggs Church created the Briggs Center for Faith & Action to carry out a mission of compassion and justice.

Rev. Dr. Robert J. Maddox served as the founding executive director from 2006 until 2019, decade alongside his wife Linda Maddox.

For many years, the Briggs Center organized volunteers to make meals for Martha’s Table and provided free ESOL classes to local students from around the world. Both of these programs continued strong commitments from the former Briggs Church.

The Briggs Center purchased a nearby house to use as offices, meeting space, and as a guest house and was known as the Carpenter’s House. A displaced family from New Orleans lived in the house following Hurricane Katrina and an asylum-seeker from another country found shelter there.

Parallel conversations among ESOL students and teachers and the guest refugees prompted the creation of the Harvey Immigration Services Clinic in 2019. Later that same year, Rev. Tim Tutt became the organization’s new executive director.

In 2021, the Briggs Center partnered with local congregations and other groups to welcome and house a family of refugees from Afghanistan.

During the pandemic, Briggs Center staff spent time discerning its mission, vision, and values — with the result being a more keen focus on welcoming, supporting, providing services for, and advocating on behalf of immigrants and refugees.

Because all our welcome.