During Shabbat Services on Friday, January 17, 2025, Reverand Philippe E. C. Andal, Ph.D., who serves as the senior pastor of the Community Baptist Church and as President of the Hananiah Community Foundation Corporation in New Haven, Connecticut will join us. Under his leadership, several ministries have been developed and re-organized to meet the needs of a changing intergenerational and hybrid faith community in the heart of the Newhallville neighborhood. With a heart for the community, Pastor Andal established a partnership with Lincoln-Bassett Community School that provides for the social and learning needs of 25 students and their families, a monthly grocery giveaway distributing over 2,000 pounds of food to 100+ families, and has raised significant funds to support disaster relief locally and abroad.
Leading beyond the church, Dr. Andal serves as the Co-Chair of Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, an interfaith collective of 37 congregations representing over 30,000 people who work together through building relational power to effect change for the common good on the local, state, and national levels. Under his leadership, the CONECT has adopted an anti-racist commitment, has doubled both membership dues and grant income, and continues to lead in advancing a grassroots policy agenda on issues of equitable education funding, reducing health care costs, affordable housing, and automatic expungement implementation. Additionally, Dr. Andal serves as a member of Agora Strategy Council of the Dr. N. Joyce Payne Center for Social Justice of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a nonprofit national think tank and research center, rooted in the Black American community with the intent of convening scholars, public policy leaders, social advocates, and solution-makers.
Dr. Andal earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Fisk University, a Master of Divinity from Yale University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy from Southern University and A & M College. Additionally, he is a 2017 Fellow of Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics and completed a Certificate in Executive Church Leadership from the Howard University School of Business. Dr. Andal holds appointments at Yale Divinity School as Lecturer in Pastoral Leadership and Church Administration, founding member of the Black Church Study Certificate Program Faculty Committee, and as a member of the Alumni Board.