Under the direction of Dr. Sheng-Hwa Yu, the chorus sang beautifully and with such joy that the audience clearly caught the spirit, appreciating both the skill of the singers and their emotion. We at First Reformed Church have been privileged to know the YueYue group for a long time and on this occasion were privileged to receive its gift of music. All of the donations made by audience members are designated for the church’s Historic Preservation Fund and will be used to help complete the replacement of the slate roof.

Our thanks go to every member of the chorus, to Dr. Sheng-Hwa Yu, and to Artistic Director Maestro Sharon Yuan. Also, one of our members, Julius Fekete, used the occasion to sell his spectacular woodcarvings and to donate profits to the Preservation Fund as well. The soon-to-be-completed roof of the sanctuary certainly covered and united a throng of talented and generous-spirited people on this hopeful Advent night.

• A Grant with Anderson Windows in the amount of $15,000 was applied for.
• A matching grant with Johnson & Johnson was applied for through their employee’s contribution program. Thanks to Lauren Bernhofer.
• The first part of the loan from the Corporation of Supportive Housing was received.
• The position of Project Director was discussed and a job description and payment plan was approved. A meeting with representatives from FRC is being planned.
• Rutgers University approached the TCCDC about another grant called Rutgers Community – University Research Partnership Grant. An application in the amount of $25,000 was made. If we win the grant, it will go toward hiring two RU graduate students to garner information about our neighborhood and report on how the TCCDC informs the community about the Dina’s Dwellings project.

MPG, our general contractor has been extremely caring regarding warranty and damage issues. Earlier last month, they replaced broken leaded glass in a door in the steeple that most of us do not even know exists (please see the attached picture). In addition, their subcontractor for painting the steeple louvers came right back when we discovered a small paint problem. Due to inclement weather, we are a little bit behind schedule regarding the replacement of the church roof.

However, we still believe the majority of the work to be accomplished before Easter. In addition, Paul Nulton will be back for the Sexton’s House this month. The current white color of the façade is just primer and will soon give way to a reddish brown with the shingles on the second floor dark brown. The amber of the trim will stay. In all this, we follow Margaret Westfield’s specifications. Remediation of groundwater following the removal of the underground oil tank is ongoing. We are currently in a phase of data collecting in order to decide on next steps. I am very happy that Lauren and Gary Bernhofer have accepted the appointment from Consistory to join me in a little Remediation Task Force. Lauren and Gary’s background in science has already provided great help in better understanding not only the reports from our contractor PTS but also the requirements from N DEP. I am also happy to report that we received this past month another reimbursement from the state for the work being done.

Unfortunately, as of now, there is no indication on when we might be able to close the case.

Members of our Property Committee accompanied the students. They replaced light bulbs, removed debris in the cemetery and reinstalled repaired storm windows. But most importantly: They passed on the story of First Reformed Church by talking about the founding of Rutgers University, the great overseas missions of the 19th century, and the meaning of socially involved faith today. The students were grateful for the experience, and we could not thank them enough for the beautiful work they provided for us.

Now, he is tackling the Sexton’s House. He started in September, but when hurricane Irene hit, many churches needed his emergency assistance – and so did our retreat center in Warwick, where Paul has his office. However, Paul keeps coming back faithfully.

This time he is painting the exterior of the Sexton’s House. Our architect, Margaret Westfield, provided the specifications as a gift to the church. Since then, Paul has been applying Victorian colors to the house!

We also want to thank Jaime Johnson, the new chair of our Invitation & Outreach Committee, because he, too, has been diligently involved with scraping and painting the house – besides his volunteering for House of Manna on many days.

Enjoy the picture of Jaime and Paul with Robert Longo, our sexton. They all are part of our family here at First Reformed Church.

At the same time, Gary and I used the opportunity of a lunch break to tell the students the story of Rutgers University being founded by our once Dutch denomination. Since the students reflected an incredible scope of ethnic diversity, our presentation felt like coming to the world. It was met with great interest and a lot of questions.

Here is what we accomplished that day:

• Painting of the annex-entrance to the Randolph Room.
• Scraping of a part of the Sexton’s House to support Paul Nulton’s work there.
• Spraying herbicides around tombstones and covering sprayed areas with mulch.
• Complete painting of the upper parts of the rear stairwell in the education building.
• Hang curtains in much of the education building.
• Repair ceiling tiles in the kitchen.
• Remove two broken storm windows of the education building for repair.
• Prepare the replacement of the broken AC-unit in fellowship hall.

The whole day was a blessing, and I want to thank Gary, Lauren, Rod, Robert and Susan for helping supervise our volunteers. The church is a lot nicer for it.

Following all this construction, there was some understandable damage: Tire grooves in the cemetery, broken tile pavers in the front of the church, and cracked handrails at the main entrance. Not all of this was caused by the construction work, but together with the new damages, it has reached a point where action is required. Fortunately both, MPG and D.D.S. proved to be very cooperative. D.D.S. filled in the tire grooves and organized the replacement of tile pavers, and MPG is producing a proposal for the handrails that takes into account the origin of the old and the new damages.
In September, MPG will continue to work on our premises when its teams will replace the church roof.

We hope very much for this to be completed by Christmas, so that we can celebrate our candlelight service in a newly restored environment.

There were more helpers on June 25th: Elian Titre and Josh Bernhofer, and also Lauren and Gary Bernhofer. Our accomplishments ranged from taking down all curtains in both buildings to stripping the floor in Fellowship Hall and pruning the bushes in front of the church.

Thank you all, you faithful volunteers!

Benefit Concert: A Spiritual Crossroads

Tickets

Child ticket $6.00General ticket $13.50Premium ticket $21.00

Progress may feel slow, but it is steady. And what is more important, it has proven to be sustainable! It is truly remarkable how far we have come.
Meanwhile, we have to thank Paul Nulton from our Regional Synod. He used his skills last month to renovate the little entry foyer to the Randolph Room. This means that, whenever we worship again in the Randolph Room, latecomers will not have to fear that the glass door entrance to the education building might be locked. It may very well be, but now we can enter the Randolph Room directly from the outside.

Finally, a thought regarding the often-asked question whether it is not more important to donate towards one of our ministries and programs instead of the Preservation Fund: In conversation with various potential donors, this question has come up again in recent weeks.

Here is my response: Our preservation project is not luxurious at all. It is neither a beautifying project, nor is it primarily something that satisfies historians or people with special aesthetic interest. From the church’s point of view, the main purpose of the project is to protect us from calamities like leaking roofs or more collapsing walls. The old truism applies in our case especially well: If we did not provide dry and safe space for our programs and ministries, we would not have these programs and ministries much longer.

To prove my point, I’d like to point out the brownstone windowsills that fell off the building on the Bayard Street side. There are currently no plans of putting them back in. Why not? Even though they are unsightly, still they do not pose a safety threat. We have filled the holes behind them. Unfortunately, we cannot afford energy or resources at this time to correct the situation.

Truly, even with this huge preservation project, we are doing only what is absolutely necessary to keep our interior dry and safe. We are at a point where every single donation towards the Preservation Fund benefits almost directly our programs, such as our family feeding “House of Manna”, the rotating homeless men’s shelter, or even our great lunchtime recital series. So that’s why our preservation project is so important!

We have added two new board members: John Keller and Ursula Cargill. John, who lives within the bounds of the city of New Brunswick, and thus meets the board’s requirement of having a of its membership from the city. John is also a great connecter to various other organizations, including Collaborative Arts Group. Ursula’s expertise is with finance and will be our board’s Treasurer. Already she and Stef have been communicating
back and forth regarding which financial program would be best to use. We are thankful to have each of them on the board.

We have received from the IRS our official nonprofit status. This was thrilling because of all the paperwork that the application required. We are thankful and glad that it is finally completed.

We have several applications for funding sent in and are waiting for approval – without this funding we are in a holding pattern for the drafting of the plans for the sanctuary re-design. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or anyone else who is serving on the CDC Board.

- A clean fellowship hall and kitchen.
- A newly poured step outside by the playground.
- Progress in painting the walls of the rear stairwell in the Church House.
- A winter-cleaned cemetery.
- A reorganized Randolph Room after the winter-worship season.
- A leveled ground in the garbage corral.
- Safety plates over several light switches in the Randolph Room.
- Safety lids over electric boxes in the basement and in one of the organ chambers.
- A painted bathroom vanity and a painted closet door.

Do I need to list more? It was just incredible what we accomplished. But more than that: we had a Boy Scout troop led by Mary and Frank Eckert with us, thereby building bridges between the generations. We had the Property Committee work side-by-side with the Women’s Guild, thereby adding a fun competition to into the mix. And we had the feeling that, finally, spring had arrived, at least if judged by the fact that this was a tremendous spring clean-up.

So what was good about it? I guess all of the above. And so I can only say “Thank you” to all of us, who helped to make this happen.

On Dec 12th, our Adult Choir performed at the State Theatre of New Brunswick as part of the Irish Christmas show of Eileen Ivers. This gave us yet another opportunity to make the general public aware of our preservation project — the program had an insert with pictures from the construction site.

On Wednesday, Dec 15th, we had an interesting meeting of the City Council. That night, the Council resolved to use the current opportunity of scaffolding around our steeple to restore the four faces and the corresponding hands of the town clock. As you know, the City owns the clock to this day. The restoration is no easy enterprise! There are four faces, and each is larger than a person. The work entails not only painting, but also carpentry, as parts of the faces are in need of repair or even missing. It was very rewarding for Susan and me to attend the meeting of the City Council. It gave us an opportunity to speak and to have more conversation afterwards. Several of these conversations were continued the following day when we were guests at the Mayor’s Holiday Party at City Hall.

All in all, we can only be grateful for the role our church begins to play in town. Why is that important, you might ask? It is because it creates ties that benefit many. This year, we introduced our friends from Pine Grove Nursery School and from the Turkish Interfaith Dialog Center to the world of City Hall, and we hope that their arrival in town will make our wonderfully diverse community just a bit more complete. That’s what maps are all about — they should not have too many blank spots.

It was an ascent into dizzying heights. But I was impressed: together, we represented five levels of quality control. And the test was hard. Back on the ground, Margaret received us with a long questionnaire recording the answers in an extensive chart. It was especially helpful to have Glenn Ceponis as a state representative with us. After all, the State is spending as much money on the project as we are, and will have a natural desire for strict quality control. Similarly, it was good to have Tom Loughlin from the City of New Brunswick there. The City supports the project with $25,000 and restores the faces and hands of the clock in addition to this. Here, too, we can expect a natural desire for checking out the work.

Look also at the rest of the accompanying pictures. See how the steeple scaffolding dwarfs the two carpenters on it? Later, I took a close-up of the man. Too often, we pay respect only to the leaders of a project and not to those who are carrying out the physical work.

Then there is the aerial view of the education building. What looks imposing from street level is dwarfed from this perspective – almost a parable on life itself when viewed from the perspective of eternity.

Then see Christ Episcopal Church. I had to grin when I took the picture: The British may have taken our Dutch colony in 1664, but we are still taller!
Finally, enjoy the area views. The new Route 18 in the distance, the American flag shining through our scaffolding, the cemetery and the church entrance from above.

I also want to point out the angel head and the capitals on the wooden pillars and other details of that heavenly realm. You could not see any of this from the ground. Perhaps, these features were not really meant for human eyes to enjoy, but represent something like a praise offering to God whose house this is.

We are blessed to be able to do something for its preservation.

The Seventh Day Adventist congregation will be using the Randolph Room and a part of the Fellowship Hall on Saturdays starting in February. They are a group of folks from Kenya, but they are affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Livingston Avenue. The reason for them seeking another space is that they want to hold some of the worship in their own language.

Also, Sunday afternoons from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., the Raices Cultural Center will be teaching music and dance. The co-directors are Francisco Gomez and Nicole Wines, both have been living and teaching in New Brunswick for many years now. They have already participated in two Lunchtime Recitals, and we are looking forward to their participation at the January inter-faith, multi-cultural dance event on Jan 22nd from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 pm.

The next steps include: determining which architectural firm to use; securing legal advice about writing a lease agreement between First Reformed Church and the CDC; developing a budget for 2011; securing funding and a pre-development loan; and settling the question about which population we will house in the units– with input from the congregation. There is still much to be done, and we oftentimes feel like we are moving slowly. We hope, though, that this slow pace will allow everyone to get acquainted with the project and its dreams. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask any of us on the board: Liz Hance, Ellen Hamilton, Joan Fekete, Stef Beemsterboer or myself.

The construction of Pine Grove Nursery School made our summer hot. We received a sprinkler system on both levels of the education building, remodeled both stairways in the building, had new carpet laid, new phone lines brought in, and a host of other things. This brought contractors, inspectors, fire officials and a great number of volunteers into our building. We are proud that everything has been accomplished and that the school is up and running. Oftentimes, Susan and I looked at each other and said, “If the school wins, we win as a church.”

But now the hot fall comes. With the receipt of a new grant, the remediation work on the site of our former oil tank will resume in October. We had to negotiate the date carefully, because now we have scaffolding on our education building. This will have to be removed before a large drilling rig can make it onto our premises. The rig is needed to install a DEP mandated groundwater well that records water contamination.

Meanwhile, we have learned how the reconstruction of George Street affects our neighborhood. During working hours, lower Bayard Street is a two-way road, too narrow for a rig that requires piloting through town. But somehow the officials in charge showed heart for our church, and with God’s help, the rig will arrive on October 18th.

I have spent much of the beginning of August negotiating these things. Sometimes I closed with the remark that I lost my notes from learning these things at seminary. This and other remarks prompted Bill Gaventa, director of The Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities at UMDNJ, to suggest a new sermon title to me: “Getting Through the Jungles to Church”.

That would be a funny title! But I hesitate using it for fear that this might deter us from coming to church. We cannot afford the reputation of not being accessible on Sunday mornings. The reason is simple: if worship here at First Reformed is not the most important part of our life as church, then everybody will think that construction is. This would be a fatal error!

In reality, the opposite should be true. Construction should boost our attendance, because it is very special to come to church at such a historically significant time. I know, I sound like a child of the world when I talk like this. As if attending worship could depend on a lure! But I admit to being driven in part by the fact that our numbers were just so low over the summer. Yet, even if my motivation is theologically entirely off target, it remains part of my human emotions nevertheless.

Be this as it may. I think it is important that we all commit ourselves to increasing our worship attendance this fall. Rally Sunday on September 12th will provide us with a great kick-off. It is part of a special Song-Gift Weekend with star musician and composer Lorraine Nelson Wolf, a voice from deep inside the Reformed Church in America.

Lorraine and her family will perform a special concert on the anniversary of September 11th. Please see the poster in this issue of the newsletter. During worship the following morning, she will present our church with the gift of a special song, written and composed just for us. It might become the anthem of our church. Please make sure you’ll come on Rally Sunday.