Flag ministers advanced auditing and the highest levels of auditor training in many languages. And because people travel there from all over the world, staying for several weeks or even months at a time, Flag maintains a religious retreat, providing food and accommodations in a strictly religious setting so that parishioners can focus on their spiritual advancement. It also provides a setting where Scientologists from many countries and ethnic origins can form friendships, formulate grass roots plans to forward the religion, and create long-lasting relationships. The staff of the Flag Service Organization includes the highest trained and most experienced auditing and training personnel of any Church in the world. And because of their expertise, which sets the technical standard in Scientology, Flag also serves an important role in the Scientology religion by training and interning ministerial students from all lower churches and missions.
Flag also offers auditing services and training levels that are available nowhere else.
The ship was acquired in the mid-1980s shortly before the release of the highest advanced auditing level now available. Needing a safe, aesthetic, distraction-free environment appropriate for ministration of this level of auditing, it was decided to return to the sea, far from the crossroads of the workaday world. Although originally conceived and established to minister the highest level of auditing, Scientologists at any point on The Bridge may now visit the Freewinds and receive a series of specialized courses in Scientology religious doctrine to further orient one as a spiritual being. The Freewinds also serves as an international meeting place, holding religious conventions and seminars for Scientology staff and parishioners. While there, they participate in specialized training which enables them to assume a greater leadership role in their respective religious communities.