In the News

In a festive day filled with centuries-old religious traditions and pageantry, as well as joyful singing, the Rev. Valerie Bailey Fischer was installed this month as the seventh rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Teaneck following a nationwide search.

The church was overflowing with parishioners, friends, clergy from other churches and family - including the new rector's husband and 3-year-old daughter, Maggie - as the Right Rev. Mark Beckwith, Bishop of Newark, formally installed Bailey Fischer as the congregation's spiritual leader.

Traveling to Israel with Jewish colleagues earlier this month had a transforming effect on the Rev. Susan Sica, vicar of Saint Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Parsippany.

“It would have been easy to go to Israel and have a sanitized experience that only touched on Christian sites — where Jesus walked, and that sort of thing. But then we would never have really looked at what Israel is today,” she told NJJN in a phone conversation a few days after returning.

A small but growing group of gay marriage supporters are staging a rally on the steps of the Statehouse this morning as lawmakers prepare to hold a committee hearing on a bill that would allow gay couples to wed.

[The Rt.] Rev. Mark Beckwith, the bishop of Newark’s Episcopal Diocese, said supporters stand ready to help Christie find a “political way to maintain his views, but to still do what’s right.”

“Support of marriage for gay and lesbians is support for all marriage,” said Beckwith.

As many schools hold food drives this time of year, a group of students at Montclair High School are helping the hungry year-round while studying their plight. They are doing so through an unusual new partnership with Toni’s Kitchen, a 30-year-old Montclair institution serving meals to needy residents with the help of 300 regular volunteers.

Victoria Shao sees a direct connection between the service work she’s doing through NEWARK ACTS, a Diocese of Newark-sponsored program in its second year of accepting interns, and the work she hopes to pursue in the future.

It was a post-Christmas celebration with a Latin flair Saturday night as Sussex County's Spanish-speaking community came together at Christ Episcopal Church in Newton to celebrate "Día de los Tres Reyes," or Three Kings Day. The event, in its seventh year at the church, is organized through immigrant outreach program El Refugio as a means of promoting Latino cultural traditions, Father Robert Griner said.

Rev. Andrew Butler at St. John's Episcopal Church is adamant. "Church should not be an exclusive club," he says.

And that's why St. John's is unveiling a new kind of worship service on Sunday, Jan. 8 designed to appeal to families with children—especially those with some kind of developmental challenge.

Catering to short attention spans, the "All God's Children" service will be a lively combination of music, prayer, movement, and communion.

The small plaque hanging on the wall of the 58-year-old’s office pretty much sums her up:

"It’s a rare person who can take care of hearts while also taking care of business."

For the Rev. Canon Dr. Sandye A. Wilson, rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Andrew & Holy Communion in South Orange, taking care of hearts is her business.