Pastor's Desk

Pastor Hartmut

Dear Members of First Reformed Church:

I need to share a short biblical story with you, because it has a lot to do with us and our church: To this day we remember the reforms of King Josiah. They began when High Priest Hilkiah found the long forgotten Torah scroll in the temple in Jerusalem. It was not a scroll but the scroll, and it happened in 623/22 B.C. The event provided the prelude to far-spread religious and political reforms in Judah, the southern part of the Holy Land not occupied by the Assyrians.

Why did Hilkiah find the scroll? The ruling king, Josiah, had been upset with his predecessors’ administration and the fact that the temple was in disrepair. So he had ordered a large preservation program for the House of the Lord. In the course of this, Hilkiah found the long lost scroll. When the king studied its content he was reacquainted with the core of the Jewish tradition and realized that his administration required a different platform. Shortly thereafter, change began to take place. [click to continue...]

Dear Friends,

We all have heard this story at one time or another titled Stone Soup. It goes like this: “What are you doing?” a woman asked of the two travelers. “Fixing stone soup. All you need is a little water and some stones,” one replied. “Of course, it would be better if we had just a bit of potatoes,” said the other. “I have some,” she said, and going off, shortly returned with them.
[click to continue...]

Dear Friends,

 We are going through such a productive and positive time here at First Reformed Church that it is a great joy! With that I am, of course, leaving out the national and global financial crisis and the effects it might have on our church as onother important non-profit organizations. There is, however, not much we can do about this crisis but to wait and to be compassionate and sensitive to its victims and to each other.

But look at the same time at some of the other developments here at church: on the last unday of September we received three new members and two children: Crystal and Kraig Wade, their children Devon and Reshan, and Crystal’s mother Marie Knox. This means that we have so far received seven new members this year. 

At the same time, we are finalizing our travel preparations for Turkey in December this year, and our travel group is now thirteen people strong. We had a beautiful iftar-dinner (evening meal that ends the daily fast during Ramadan) on Sep 29th with our Turkish friends at the Madison Hotel in Somerset.

There are many other good things happening at church and I invite you to read about them in the following pages of the newsletter. Among them are the start-up of our fall lunchtime recital series and the opening of the Second Saturday Music Café with Jim Albertson and Spook Handy on Oct 11th. And did I mention the House of Manna? On many nights it now feeds between 40 and 50 individuals in our Fellowship Hall.

I also want to bring up the progress of our preservation project here: the work on the tower of the Church House is now finished and complements the new roof we put on the building earlier on. And we are about to close off the oil tank excavation site with a temporary asphalt top until everything settles and we can pour concrete in the spring.

As you will see once more, we are a very energetic congregation.  But that makes it even more important to remember that, whatever we do, we do it as stewards of Jesus Christ here on earth. This means that we are not trying to serve only ourselves but our neighbors near and far so that God’s love remains a tangible experience in this world. Thank you all for being part of this great enterprise. Together we are making a difference in the lives of many.

With Blessings,

Pastor Hartmut

Dear Friends, 

Sunflowers, one of my favorites, are a mark of the end of summer. Time for vacations to end. Life returns to more regular routines. Schools and colleges open for another year of learning, and it feels as if we all get back to schedules and agendas. Ugh! The exploration of new places and new experiences appear to have ended.  Serious ‘work’ is back upon us. Can’t we just have an endless summer, when we eat too much ice cream and forget to put on suntan lotion? But for everything there is a season; haven’t we learned that? [click to continue...]

Dear Friends,

About a month ago, a visitor came in to speak with Pastor Hartmut. “You’re doing all the right things,” he said encouragingly, “but you’ve forgotten a few places to knock on doors and to meet folks.” So he pointed those places out, suggesting how our church with a few folks could penetrate the oftentimes closed doors of particular apartment buildings. This visitor’s special interest was quite remarkable since he belongs to a local synagogue, but his words brought up a reoccurring concern of our congregation: how do we respond to our community directly? Where do we meet folks, find out their needs, concerns, and offer support while at the same time expressing our faith? [click to continue...]