Clergy

If pledge payments are down and the roof is leaking again, it’s easy for a congregation to fall into the habit of focusing on surviving, rather than thriving. The Rev. Canon Gregory A. Jacobs, Canon to the Ordinary, hopes to combat this tendency through congregational cultural change.

“We’ve latched on firmly to a theology of scarcity,” Jacobs said. Congregations need to refocus on the fact that church “is not about the building, it’s about the ministry.”

Local performers organize an arts initiative to breathe new life into St. John's Church and the community of Union City.

Responding to President Obama's statement yesterday that "Same-sex couples should be able to get married," the Rev. Bernard "Bernie" Poppe of St. George's Church in Maplewood tells columnist Bob Braun of The Star-Ledger, "...I don’t think love ever destroyed anything."

Thirty years ago Geoff Curtiss was a young, recently ordained Episcopal reverend and eager to minister to an urban congregation. He found one in Hoboken.

Soon after, he also found himself in a fight raging along several battle lines—about politics, poverty, development, progress, gentrification, class warfare and the role of religion in the community—which resulted in the founding of the Hoboken Homeless Shelter, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary on Thursday.

When the raging Rahway River flooded much of Millburn [during Hurricane Irene], Patch reported that St. Stephen’s Church “was one of the first hit as water rushed through, filling the pre-school with four to five feet of water....”

Local sculptors, jewelers and artists from All Saints Episcopal Church in Glen Rock on Easter Sunday will premiere the first parishioner art show.

According to Rector Rev. Timothy Burger, over 80 pieces of art crafted by those young and old, will be used throughout the worship space and the parish hall.

On Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion, the Rev. Melissa Hall, assistant rector at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, led an interactive children’s Stations of the Cross service for about 50 people. Children read short Scripture verses and played various biblical characters as they walked to different locations throughout the church, re-enacting Jesus journey from judgement by Roman governor Pontius Pilate to his death on the cross.