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A NOTE FROM HIGHLAND PARK REFORMED CHURCH

A book has been written that needed to be written. Liz Estes, our dear friend and long-time church member and now pastor in Kingston, NY, has captured the tale of RCHP and the Indonesian community's struggle for immigration justice that played out over a 20 year period, starting just after 9/11.

I had long wished to write down what we experienced together during those 2 decades, but Liz' work out performs anything I could have imagined. I would encourage the church and community friends to purchase this and to remember a period when God gave us a particular boldness on behalf of a particular community. We learned so many lessons along the way. Many of those lessons are told here. This story matters. Faith communities, planted by God in particular places, are called to respond to God in real time and space. This is a story about power rooted in the love of God.

Pick up and read, and be comforted by the power of Love. 

peace, pastor seth

HERE IS AN AMAZON LINK TO PURCHASE THE BOOK

JOB POSTINGS

• 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

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.