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CHANGING LIVES WINTER 2015

Changing lives winter 2015

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Page 1: Changing lives winter 2015

Changing LivesWinter 2015

Page 2: Changing lives winter 2015

Christ ChurChForms a Future Priest

Christ Church’s seminarian this year is Matthew Welch, a senior at the General Theo-logical Seminary in New York City. His job description includes working with our young people, working on our outreach programs, preaching and helping to coordinate the liturgy on Sunday mornings by doing the Bulletin and by working with the groups of lay people that are part of each Sunday.

Matt comes to us with a background that includes working for the State Department, most recently as a liaison for religious affairs in Jerusalem. Although he worked in another parish in New York last year, he says that his job with us presents more challenge and responsibility and an opportunity to engage in programs that he did not have before.

Hired in the Spring to fill in with the Youth Group, he especially enjoys the moments when “all of a sudden in their interaction with one another, one of them stumbles upon the divine and creates a holy moment for everyone else to encounter.” Matt had the opportunity to see such events on the Youth Group trip to Washington, DC this summer.

This Fall he is excited about the opportunity to help create new links between Christ Church and Newark, helping both communities to get to know one another as individuals and hopefully “stitching together” us all to love our neighbors in new and different ways.

Matt has just, on November 8, been ordained a deacon, the first step in his ordination to the priesthood. He wants, while a deacon, to fulfill the deacon’s call of becoming aware of the community’s needs and bringing that awareness back to his parish. Then helping the parish begin to answer those needs.

He says that traveling on the train to Short HIlls from New York there is an “abrupt change between the inner city and the affluent suburbs as you reach South Orange”. Matt is hoping to help us at Christ Church bridge that gap through his work in outreach and with the Youth Group. -Juli Towell

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Parishioners Living God’s LoveEvery Day

the GivinGoF time

Jean Funk, a parishioner for over 25 years and Vestry member, devotes time generat-ing informational materials and organizing educational conferences for unpaid family caregivers through the Caregivers Coalition. “Caregiving is a universal reality that will touch almost every family. While love and compassion come from the heart of a caregiver, the unrelenting obligations can affect a caregiver’s personal health – physical, emotional, even financial,” she commented.

Jean has volunteered on the Steering Committee of the Caregivers Coalition of Morris County since its founding in 2005. The Coalition, now established in five counties in Northern New Jersey, supports family caregivers – individuals attending to the needs of loved ones with aging issues, mental illness or physical disabilities. Caregivers assist family members on many levels -- a few hours a day, several days each week, or full-time, often while juggling the demands of their own families and jobs. Responsibilities typically increase in intensity over time and can create stress, financial hardship and drain the well-being of the caregiver.

“What most people do not realize is that caregiving is really a job, and like any job, a person needs preparation,” Jean stated. “The Caregivers Coalition operates as a hub for information, enabling caregivers to access tools and resources essential for managing a new, often unforeseen, role.”

Jean’s efforts on behalf of the Caregivers Coalition primarily focus on education and guidance. She organizes conferences and speaker events, produces informative videos and compiles directories of area services. Her passion for helping caregivers is unwavering. “The by-product of the Caregivers Coalition’s events and meetings is that caregivers connect with one another. Any caregiver benefits from finding others who know exactly what they’re going through, which helps diminish all too common feelings of loneliness and even guilt.”

The Caregivers Coalition, funded entirely by United Way of Northern New Jersey, has been recognized around the country as a sustainable, effective model for supporting those who care for loved ones. Jean emphasized that, “For today’s family caregiver, the Caregivers Coalition can be life changing.”

-Gaye Torrance

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Those Whose Lives Are CloselyLinked With Ours

Early last year our parish grew by two, with the joining of Nathaniel and Yar Nyok. Nathaniel is a graduate student at Seton Hall University, and he and his wife have been a constant presence with us on Sunday mornings. Nathaniel and Yar are from South Sudan, a particularly troubled country in its infancy, and while they are both now living in New Jersey, their large families are back in South Sudan, and they have continued to suf- fer amidst famine and civil war. Nathaniel’s family alone has this year experienced food shortage, chronic malaria, and typhoid.

Nathaniel last September called us to reconsider our idea of what the Body of Christ is by asking us to help him help his and Yar’s families in South Sudan. It was a remarkable request, but one that brought us back to our baptismal covenant, the oath we took on our baptism, to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” And help this parish did, raising thousands of dollars that Nathaniel was able to direct to his family in food aid and medical assistance. “The donations completely changed their lives,” he said. “I appreciate the commitment.”

Was Christ Church able to make significant and lasting changes to the nature of the conflict and famine in South Sudan? No. But for those “whose lives are closely linked with ours,” as the Prayers of the People reads, the situation is now a little less daunting, and our community here in New Jersey is made more whole in the fresh awareness that people half way around the world are members of our family, a family of faith, a family in One Body, through Jesus Christ.

- The Rev. Matt Welch

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ForminG PeoPle in Faith

Christ ChurCh nursery sChool

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hiGh sChool youth GrouP

Faith seekinG understandinG

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a tribute to

Christ ChurCh in memory oF John CooPer

The Rector, Wardens and Vestry are pleased to announce a generous gift in memory of R. John Cooper by his daughter and son-in-law, Kirsten and Dwight Poler.

As a reflection of John’s love of music and many years in the choir, a portion of the gift will establish the R. John Cooper Music Fund. This fund will support choral and instrumental events at the church as well as making possible the commissioning of musical compositions.

The other portion of the gift is intended to help the church explore the possibility of a new entry-way to the Memorial Garden and restoration of the Memorial Garden Chapel.

This church was built on the foundation of gen-erosity. The land and first building was donated by Stewart Hartshorn. The stained-glass windows and organs, pianos, room furnishings and many of our programs have been given as bequests in people’s wills or as memorial gifts.

The endowment of this parish funds five areas of ministry: Worship, Music, Education, Outreach and Buildings & Grounds. All who love Christ Church are encouraged to support it through your planned gifts both now and through the future.

-Tim Mulder