One cradle Episcopalian from the Newark diocese is taking over for another as head of NEWARK ACTS, the young adult program of service and Christian community that is now entering its seventh year.
Dunstanette Macauley, who became a committed Episcopalian through leadership roles in the active youth group of House of Prayer in Newark, this month is succeeding the Rev. Deacon Erik Soldwedel, who has run NEWARK ACTS since its inception in 2010. Soldwedel, who grew up in and was sponsored for ordination by All Saints' in Glen Rock, and is currently affiliated with Christ Church in Harrison, plans to move on to an interim ministry.
Kaileen Alston, the diocesan Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries, praised Soldwedel’s work over the last six years, and said she looked forward to working with Macauley. “At a time when we’re always talking about young people leaving the church,” she said, she’s excited to have a young woman who was born and raised in the diocese moving into a leadership role.
At the age of 22, Macauley already has an impressive Episcopal resume. Her work as a counselor and day camp director at the Cross Roads Camp & Retreat Center in 2014 caught the eye of the Rev. Bernie Poppe, who hired her as youth minister at St. George’s, Maplewood. She later spent a service year in Davis, California, doing administrative and communications work for the Lutheran Episcopal Volunteer Network. She rattled off the places she had been for various youth events: Virginia, San Antonio, Orlando, Anaheim.
In 2016 she represented the diocese as one of four elected lay deputies at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City. Six years earlier, she had been a youth observer at General Convention 2009 in Anaheim, California. When asked how many of the triennial General Conventions she had attended, Macauley said “only two.” (To the lay people reading this, let’s have a show of hands: how many of you have attended more General Conventions than she has?)
Serving as lay deputy was “an honor,” Macauley said. “It was also really exhausting. It was a lot of work, trying to fit three years of work into 10 days.”
She said the highlight of the convention for her was seeing the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry take the stage after his election as Presiding Bishop. The church selected its first black primate to take over from its first female primate, and Macauley said “this is part of the reason I am Episcopalian… we’re not afraid to put prejudice aside” and pick the best leader.
Macauley believes Curry’s preaching style has an impact. “If you’re not inclined to listen to anybody preaching, he will catch you, and you’ll be forced to listen because it’s so fascinating,” she said. Curry has a gift for “making a message that we already know in our hearts sound like it’s something new. It’s great to light that fire again.”
While many young people have rejected the religions of their childhood, Macauley’s relationship with God has grown stronger, in part because of the environment of the Episcopal Church and the Newark Diocese. When she has questioned certain aspects of the religion or institution, “the church and the diocese have allowed me to ask those questions and not be shut down. … I don’t have to be like any other person in my experience of religion.”
Macauley, who received a bachelor’s degree in public health from Rutgers in 2015, said that her long-term career plans involve continuing to work in youth or adult ministries in the church. Asked if she had thought about pursuing ordination, she said “I’ve thought about it. I’m still thinking about it… I do feel a call to ministry, but whether that call is to lay or ordained ministry is something I need help to figure out.”
Meanwhile, Soldwedel has for the last time chosen the interns who will begin the 11-month NEWARK ACTS program in September. “NEWARK ACTS is part of the Episcopal Service Corps (ESC), a network of young adult programs within the Episcopal Church that work for social change and personal transformation through service to others,” according to the program’s website. The interns live together in one or two intentional communal households, depending on the number of interns. They work separately at various social-justice oriented agencies and organizations, and come together daily for meals, fellowship and discussion. This year, all six interns will live in Union City, a part of urban Hudson County.
As the founding program director of NEWARK ACTS, Soldwedel said he has learned a lot from the 55 young people he has shepherded. “While I’ve always believed that the church extends beyond the four walls where we worship, I’ve learned that the church is everywhere. We are all part of a great cathedral, and the interns have shown me that over and over again.”
“Newark diocese has proudly raised up nine social workers” from among the interns, many of whom want to stay in the area or come back, he said. “We’re blessed to have had six of them hired by their worksites as permanent employees.” Two of the interns have entered ordained ministry.
Soldwedel is preparing “to work in another part of the vineyard. But I’m not leaving the diocese – I was born and raised in the diocese, and I’m not going anywhere!” He’s excited to be “turning the program over to a young adult from within our diocese, who we’ve raised up into leadership.”
Dunstanette can be reached at dmacauley@dioceseofnewark.org.
