2015may frc

Inside...

Benevolence of the Month Rutgers Protestant Campus Ministry .......................... 2

Int. Day of Prayer ...................................................... 2RU Students Help FRC .............................................. 3Resurrection Sunday .................................................. 4Music Notes ........................................................... 5Seder Fellowship ....................................................... 6Temple Music .................................,........................ 6TCCDC Update ........................................................ 7Value of Women ....................................................... 8Lunchtime Recital .................................................... 8

From Pastor’s Desk

As always, this issue of our Newsletter is like a chronicle ofthe past month. There are articles about themes as diverseas our Lunchtime Series, the involvement of Rutgersstudents, congregational life on Good Friday and RalphVaughan Williams’ music on Resurrection Sunday. As incountless newsletters before, this one is a witness to thegreat variety of activities that characterize the fellowship ofFirst Reformed Church.

But where is all of this leading? Since Resurrection Sunday,we have been exploring some facets of this question insermons as well as in the discussions of the Bible Study onMonday nights. Where is all this leading? The question ismuch in tune with the post-Easter texts of the NewTestament.

It is also a question that many of us ponder in their heartsas we try to see together God’s promise and transformingpower in this world and the general signs of decline inmany mainline congregations. Our own small membershipand the annual budget deficit are not easy to reconcile with

our self-understanding as a community called andsustained by God who created the universe.

It is about time, therefore, to bring the discussion to a newlevel. In four weeks, on June 7th, our First Wednesday’sAdult Education Class will start to read and discuss PhyllisTickle’s trailblazing book The Great Emergence. In it, shecompares our current time to other similarly transformativeperiods in history, like the Protestant Reformation, or theGreat Schism with Eastern Orthodoxy 500 years earlier.

The book will not only make us aware of the trajectories weexperience in our private faith as well as in church. It willalso provide us with some vocabulary to bettercommunicate these experiences. Finally, it will enable us todraw conclusions regarding where this train is headed.

I hope very much that many of us can enter the discussion.Based on participation and interest, the group will decideon the number of sessions devoted to this exciting book.We’ll start on June 7th at 7:00 PM.

With fond wishes,Pastor Hartmut

Newsletter of FRCMay 2015

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Benevolence of the Month

RPCM is an INCLUSIVE community providing a radicallyloving and welcoming community of Christian faith forRutgers University

If you are Asian, Hispanic, Black, or White…

If you are male or female...

If you are transgender, queer or intersex…

If you’ve never stepped foot in a church; or if you areBuddhist, Catholic, Protestant, or agnostic…

If you are single, married, divorced, separated, orpartnered…

If you are straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual…

If you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist,or not registered to vote…

If you live in a dorm, commute, or live with your parents…

If you hang on the Busch, Livingston, Douglas, Cook orCollege Ave campus

If you are fully-abled, disabled, or a person of differingabilities…

YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME HERE!

Interfaith National Day of Prayer and How MuslimStudents Help at First Reformed Church

–by Pastor Hartmut

It is one of the blessings of our city that it has a longtradition of bringing believers from many different faithtraditions together, and to do so in peace. How often doesthis occur in the current world? Initiated by Mayor Cahilland City Hall, we will even celebrate a unique interfaithapproach to the National Day of Prayer this year. The eventwill take place on May 7th at 12:00 noon in Mt. Zion AMEChurch on 39 Morris Street.

As if it were a prelude to this, our church was fortunate onApril 24 to receive eleven students from Rutgers UniversityMuslim Student Association for volunteer work on ourpremises. The students came from Bangladesh, Pakistanand India and were very motivated. They liked ourinterfaith approach and listened to the story of Dina’sDwellings. They also heard about our long shared historywith the University. May God bless them in their endeavorsand further respect and understanding between ourcultures!

I also want to thank Lolly who headed the project part ofthe afternoon. Lolly was also the one who had invited thegroup in the first place.

Newsletter of FRCMay 2015 3

Students Replacing Greek Life with Church Life—by Pastor Hartmut

Where would we be were it not for the large groups of Rutgers students that come regularly to volunteer at the church.On Saturday before Easter, the Student Volunteer Council sent us a large contingent to help us prepare for the HighHoliday. For three hours, the students painted, cleaned, moved chairs, pianos and harpsichord, and even planted thecontainers by the glass door entrance. We want to thank especially Meghan Hsu, who coordinated the event. Gary,Bruce, Susan, Lily and I lend support from the side of the church. Together we were a fun team, and the generosity ofthe students was just incredible.


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First Reformed at Its Best–by Pastor Hartmut

There are moments in everycongregation’s life when theexperience of the Holy becomesespecially evident. When this occurs,we are blessed when we have the rightcontext in which this can unfold. Buteven so, we cannot make thesemoments, and they are not our doing.Rather, they come as gifts from God.

Resurrection Sunday this past monthoffered several such moments whenour space became “thin” so that wecould become sensitive to thepresence of God. It began perhapswith the baptism of Ashley Kaplan.The celebration included a reference to the 10 other adult baptisms we have celebrated here in recent years, and manyof us who had received baptism as adults joined Ashley at the font. Following this, we welcomed three more newmembers: Brendan Kaplan, Meghan Trivett and Pete Connolly.

With six children, the following childrensermon was unusually well attended. Itwas quite humorous to see themstruggle when I asked them todistinguish between two pots of tulips,one artificial and the other one alive. Fora moment I saw our Dutch heritageseriously threatened!

Finally, we lifted our voices in the EasterCantata “Five Mystical Songs” by theEnglish composer Ralph VaughanWilliams. It was simply incredible howthe music transformed the room. Theinsufficient acoustics of fellowship hall,

the occasional restlessness of our children, our nervousness about hitting the right pitch and entrance – nothingseemed to have mattered anymore as this glorious testimony to our Lord’s resurrection took form in front of us.

Did it matter that Vaughan Williams was an atheist? That his personal life was not free from fragmentations anddifficulties? It made it only more real. Moments earlier, we had heard from Scripture how Paul had referred to himselfas the least among the apostles, literally a “miscarriage”, now entrusted with proclaiming the gospel of Christ.

May these experiences stay fresh in our memory for a long time! It’s the stuff that can nourish us when otherwise wewould run dry.


Music Notes– by Benjamin T. Berman

The First Reformed Church Choir was joined by guests on EasterSunday, April 5, 2015, for a musical celebration of theresurrection. We sang the song cycle-turned-cantata by RalphVaughan Williams, Five Mystical Songs, set to texts by theAnglican Priest George Herbert. Last year the choir performed acantata by Heinrich Schütz called “Weib, was weinest du,” in anEnglish version.

Whereas last year the Easter cantata focused on the narrative ofthe Marys missing the body of Jesus at his tomb, and then theappearance of Jesus to them in the flesh, our cantata this yearwas a celebration of the mystical communion of Christ’s body,especially as a meditation on the Lord’s supper: “Come, MyLight, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast:Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes hisguest.”

Guests from the Highland Park Community Chorus, friendsfrom the community, and a very talented Mason Gross baritonesoloist, Stephen Saharic, joined our choir for our annualcelebration of Christ’s victory over the grave. See in thepicture how music can bring people together through thepower of the Holy Spirit to praise the Son of God. Christ isrisen indeed!

Come Praise the Holy Spirit in our Pentecost service on May24. And bring a friend to church! There will be lots of joyoussinging that day, from Iona Hymns to Taize chants to Spirituals,etc.


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Seder Fellowship—by Pastor Hartmut

With 37 guests, our Seder has never been better attendedthan on Good Friday this year! The pictures also show howmuch younger our congregation has become. As always, itwas a meaningful liturgy that reminded us of our Jewishroots. It helped us at the same time to ponder the lastsupper of our Lord. Joy and sorrow were therefore closetogether. And since the event was organized as pot luck,we had a taste from many ethnic traditions.

Following the meal, we joined in the Randolph Room forthe Tenebrae liturgy that ends in utter silence. Instead of asermon, it was moving to hear Fawn and Thakshila givetestimony of their faith. They spoke about Jesus providingsanctuary in their personal lives..

Carnatic TempleMusic—by Pastor Hartmut

If you attended thelunchtime recital onApril 22, youlearned thatHindustani musicpertains to Southern

India, whileCarnatic musiccomes fromIndia’s north. Asdifferent as thenames were theinstruments,rhythms andmelodies weenjoyed that day.

The musicians came from The Academy of Indian Music inSouth Plainfield. Smt. Gowri Ramakrishnan played theviolin, Mrs. Saraswathi Chandrashekar a large pluckedstring instrument called “veena”, and T. ShankaranaryananNandakumar the percussion instrument mridangam. Allthree had quite an international résumé and were extremelyskilled on their instruments. I am always amazed about thequality of music our series can feature.

The otherness of the music, however, was interesting for allwho were in attendance. For many, it took a while todiscern the beginnings and endings of pieces and when toapplaud, etc. The music we heard was like a foreignlanguage – beautiful but mysterious. We learned that it wasprimarily temple music composed to praise the Lord.

Among us were 18 first graders from the LivingstonSchool. Most of their families are new to the country. Ifound it fortunate that we could introduce them to musicforeign to all of us. It was evidence for the children that aforeign heritage is normal, and that we can enrich eachother with our different backgrounds. In this sense, theconcert was good ministry.

We want to thank the support team for the lunch: MargaretCoakley, Susan Hance, Lolly Schenk Lillie Suabedissen,Marlana Moore, Ben Berman, Susan Kramer-Mills and herinterns Tahmina Sultana and Eunice Nho.


Town Clock CDCBy Susan Kramer-Mills, Executive Director

Walking from a meeting in the city to the Church Office, I got pulled byseveral of the construction workers into the sanctuary, “You got to seeit!” they exclaimed.

Inspired by their enthusiasm, I did indeed go and look at their work,which they are so proud of. Isn’t that amazing! They wanted me to seethat they have put up the framing for the first floor rooms. What Ienjoyed most, though, is that they are so enthralled with their work and,in a sense, this particular job – building ten apartments for survivors ofdomestic violence.

“We know that you need to get this job done before the end of theyear,” they continued, “so we are moving quickly for you guys.”

In truth, their sense of urgency is a good thing because we found outthis month that we need to begin interviewing for potential residents.Yes!! We are that far along – in some regards. We are looking to put upabout three of our selected residents into temporary housingsomewhere within the vicinity until the apartments are complete. Theschedule says that completion will be January, however, at the lastconstruction meeting, there was some hope that the construction mightmove along now that they are “out of the basement floor.”Hauling tons of soil and shale took a lot of time! Now,though, the workers are really flying and enjoying whatthey are building.

Other good news is that our almost monthly fundraisers,such as: theTABLE event, the Spa Day, the Hope Chest,and much more are gaining interest and support. Just thisweek I had a phone call from the Women’s Guild Presidentof the Old Paramus Reformed Church, who had receivedthe postcard about our project, which Joan and I handedout at the Crossroads Retreat (April 18). They are excitedto support our endeavor of stocking each apartment withall sorts of household items for our new residents.

Hopefully next month I will be able to share with you thatwe have issued the first couple of vouchers to survivors ofdomestic violence. Now, isn’t that thrilling!!!

First Reformed Church9 Bayard Street,New Brunswick, NJ 08901phone: 732-545-1005; fax: 732-545-1139email: [email protected] site: www.FirstReformedChurch.net

2015may frc

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