IN GENERAL NEWS ITEMS ARE ABBREVIATED AND CAN USUALLY BE CLICKED ON TO FIND MORE INFORMATION. THIS IS OUR QUICK NOTES PHILOSOPHY THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SCAN WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST TO YOU.

Ponds has a baby grand piano it is willing to donate to a church. Any interested church can call the church office 201-337-6744.

There will be another round of zoom calls for feedback on the current proposals. If you scroll down on the webpage linked from the image above or below you will find them. Please sign up for one of the available dates.

Dear Siblings in Christ,

As a part of Black History Month, the Dismantling Racism Prayer Team is honored to welcome the Rev. M.I. Khambule from South Africa as our guest. Rev. Khambule is a pastor, therapist, specialist counselor, and mediator. He is an officer with the Uniting Reformed Church in South Africa that first adopted the Belhar Confession.

In 2010, the Reformed Church in America adopted the Belhar as one of our standards. The Belhar originated in South Africa as the church’s response to Apartheid.

The Belhar calls us to unity, reconciliation, and justice.  

The Belhar states: “the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged; that in following Christ the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others.”

If you haven't already registered, please plan to join us on February 13, at 1:30 p.m. ET for our next Dismantling Racism Prayer Gathering when Rev. Khambule shares with us his experience with racism in his country.

Together with you,

The Dismantling Racism Prayer Team

Rev. Nancy Boote Rev. Dr. Joanne VanSant Rev. Dr. Gordon Wiersma

Rev. Micheal Edwards, D.Ed. Elder Gerri Yoshida  Rev. Liz Testa

Rev. Jeremy Simpson  Elder Cynthia Peters  Elder Lorraine Parker

Earth Day 2024 is Monday, April 24. Creation Justice Ministries has taken up the theme from EarthDay.Org to consider the environmental effects of Plastic.They have prepared materials that your congregation can use to bring this forward. Thanks to Robin Suydam, elder at Six Mile Run Reformed Church, for bringing this to our attention. She is a board member at Creation Justice Ministries as a representative of the RCA.

LOVE LIFTS US UP is a project that seeks to provide underprivileged children facing hospital stays with encouragement. It was begun by Rev. George Kaden and continues with his support. They will be holding a major Bingo Fundraising Event on April 14. Watch for more details or visit their website or social media by using the linked image above. It will likely be in the Jersey Shore area.

2023-2024 Albert A Smith lecture. Titled “Hidden Stories of RCA Women,” will be presented on Thursday, February 15, 2024, from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm Eastern Time

All too often, when we look for people’s stories in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), we end up telling stories of men. This is because the obvious places to look for RCA history focus on ministers and sometimes elders and, for almost 350 of our nearly 400 years in America, those offices were exclusively held by men. The few women’s stories that have risen to our notice—stories of people like Dina Van Berg, Sojourner Truth, Ida Scudder, and Frances Beardslee—are overused, because their source material is easily found.

Mary Risseeuw, the 2023-2024 Albert A Smith fellow at NBTS, wants us to look beyond all that:

“There are, obviously, a great many women’s stories yet to be uncovered and each one has some significance to our history; our individual church communities as well as the broader story of the RCA. As time goes by it will become more difficult to uncover the stories if there is little to no documentation being done. I cannot tell every woman’s story, but I can help facilitate the stories that need to be expanded and help develop an initiative to locate and preserve the source material.”

Risseeuw, a genealogist and conference organizer, seeks to do just this in her fellowship work, and will share her progress as well as what else remains to be done in the 2023-2024 Albert A Smith lecture. Titled “Hidden Stories of RCA Women,” it will be presented on Thursday, February 15, 2024, from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm Eastern Time. She hopes to identify and discuss materials in the RCA Archives that could facilitate continued research into women’s stories in the RCA, and perhaps identify materials that could be digitized. She writes, “I think far too many people aren’t aware of how many stories there are to pursue – much less where to begin the pursuit.”

After Risseeuw’s presentation, there will be a response by Anna M. Jackson. Anna is co-pastor, with her husband, Dwayne, of Second Reformed Church in Hackensack, New Jersey. She was the 2020-2021 Hazel B. Gnade Fellow in RCA Women’s Studies at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where she studied the phenomenon of matriarchs in Black RCA congregations and the larger church in the 1970s and 80s. She was also one of the Gnade lecturers in 2023. Prior to going to Hackensack, Jackson was pastor of Queens Reformed Church in Queens Village, New York, and has served as a member of various denominational committees and commissions as well as the General Synod Council.

Please Register:

This presentation, like all Reformed Church Center programs, is free and open to everyone. It will take place via Zoom, Click here to register.

JOB POSTINGS

REVITALIZATION AND DIVERSITY RESOURCE MODERATOR

Classis New Brunswick has approved a new part time position for a person to work with classis congregations on revitalization and diversity initiatives. CLICK HERE to view the job description. Interest and/or applications shold be address to clerk@classisnb.org.

CHURCH POSTINGS

• The Community Church in Harrington Park, NJ seeks full-time pastor. For more information see RCA website https://www.rca.org/jobs 
• OLD NORTH REFORMED CHURCH SEEKS PASTOR (posted November)
• MINISTER OF MUSIC, TRINITY COLLEGIATE PLAINFIELD (20 HOURS)
• CLOVER HILL REFORMED CHURCH, SEEKING PART-TIME PASTOR (ABOUT 24 HOURS/WEEK)

Clover Hill Reformed Church, a traditional, homey congregation with an active core of about 30 congregants, is seeking a part-time pastor.

Like many churches who have had a long-time pastorate (ours was almost forty years), our path forward has had many twists and turns. Almost eight years after this pastor’s retirement, we have completed a full self study and are looking forward to our next season. We have active ministry teams that oversee all the work of the church led by a group of committed servant leaders. We are committed to each other, our community and God, and need the support of a pastor who will help translate these commitments into action, growth and ministry.

The part-time position would be about 24 hours and involve leading worship, pastoral care, and working with our teams to develop new strategies for outreach. The pastor will be president of our Consistory. The candidate should be ordained, or eligible for ordination in either the RCA or one of our denominational partners (the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Christian Reformed Church in North America.)

Clover Hill Reformed Church is in Hillsborough New Jersey, which is in central New Jersey, almost equidistant between Philadelphia and New York and about 30 minutes from both the Princeton and New Brunswick Theological Seminaries. The church is located in a rural/suburban area with one of the top school systems in the State. The current parsonage is a vintage farmhouse and is adjacent to the church. 

Workload and compensation will be negotiated with the successful candidate.

Our church profile can be found here: https://www.cloverhillchurch.org/job-opportunities

To apply, please email our Search Team Chair, Marilyn Fineman, at m2fineman@gmail.com (posted Sept 22, 2023)

• Lisha's Kill Reformed Church, in the small upstate NY city of Schenectady, seeks a minister of Word and sacrament. They hope their new pastor will be excellent preacher of bible-based messages who is also is a good spiritual leader with a focus on church growth. From their profile: "We believe God has a plan and will lead us to the right person to not only be a wonderful pastor leading church worship services, but also focusing on strengthening our members and overall health and well being of our congregation." Interested candidates should email the search committee chair, Robert Farquharson, to request the church profile. rfarquharson77@me.com (posted September 19, 2023)
• Plainview Reformed Church is seeking a full time Minister (posted Sept 15, 2023)
• RCA Chief Financial Officer (posted Sept 7, 2023)
• Grace Reformed Church, Edison NJ (posted August 25, 2023), Pastor, part-time

Aleta Shepler recommends the following recording as it relates to church growth and multiplication in the Regional Synod

THIS INFORMATION COMES TO US THROUGH A CONNECTION AT PONDS REFORMED CHURCH

Do you know couples who would consider a career opportunity in which they could work together to positively impact youth from disadvantaged backgrounds? Milton Hershey School (MHS), in Hershey, PA, is seeking married couples for a career opportunity called Houseparenting. Houseparents live on-campus and care for eight to twelve students – providing them both structure and nurturing so students can thrive. The School employs over 200 couples and has over 2,000 PreK through 12th grade students enrolled. MHS pays for relocation and training.

The positions are salaried, with benefits, plus housing, utilities, and meals while on duty. 

Learn more at https://www.mhskids.org/houseparents/ 

Robin Suydam, a member of the Regional Synod, is a board member at Creation Justice Ministries as a representative of the RCA. There are many resources available on their website.