Mass on the Grass…with Brass! – Jun 14th

We will have our Annual Mass on the Grass…with Brass on Sunday, June 14th at 10:30am at the gazebo on the Glen across the street from our church. After the…

Gail Moaney Jackson To Receive David Hegg Award

On Sunday, June 7th, at 3pm join with us to celebrate the life ministry of Gail Moaney Jackson at the annual Diocese of Newark David Hegg Award at St. Peter’s…

Park Avenue Concert Series at Christ Church – June 7th

Mother Diana’s Last Sunday Before Her Sabbatical – June 28th

Mother Diana will be on a long overdue sabbatical from July 1st-October 15th. Her final Sunday with us before she goes will be on June 28th. We will pray for…

Palm Sunday Photos

Check out these photos taken by David Drislane (the procession) and Tom Reynolds (the Passion performed by Dzieci Theatre).

“Let There Be Light!”

Read, or listen to, Mother Diana's latest sermon…

Park Avenue Concert Series at Christ Church – June 7th

Mass on the Grass…with Brass! – June 14th

We will have our Annual Mass on the Grass…with Brass on Sunday, June 14th at 10:30am at the gazebo on the Glen across the street from our church. After the…

Mother Diana will be on a long overdue sabbatical from July 1st-October 15th. Her final Sunday with us before she goes will be on June 28th. We will pray for…

When we say we welcome all – we mean ALL! As our sign says, “Love Is Inclusive, Not Exclusive!” This year, as we celebrate LGBTQ+ Sunday on June 28th at…

Gail Moaney Jackson To Receive David Hegg Award

On Sunday, June 7th, at 3pm join with us to celebrate the life ministry of Gail Moaney Jackson at the annual Diocese of Newark David Hegg Award at St. Peter’s…

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Mother Diana In Minneapolis March!

Last Friday, January 23, the Rev. Diana Wilcox braved sub-zero Minneapolis weather to join clergy across the country for A Day of Truth & Freedom march and rally. From Newark…

Check out this article about our inclusiveness to all God’s creatures, and that of other congregations too! https://www.northjersey.com/story/life/pets/2026/01/23/nj-dogs-cats-other-pets-church/88063290007/

“Let There Be Light!”

May 31, 2026 – Trinity Sunday – May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Trinity Sunday, when priests usually pass off the sermon to unsuspecting seminarians or assisting clergy. Kidding. Sort of. This is one of the Church’s principal feast days, and the only one that celebrates a doctrine, rather than an event or a person. The doctrine itself is the work of the earliest Christian theologians, who were trying to find a way to understand the nature of God, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Each being part of our scriptures, but their relationship to one another was not in our sacred texts. The Trinity, as a construct, came later. And this mystery of 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 can often end up leading even well intentioned people of faith down a theological rabbit hole. So, that’s why I…

The Feast of Pentecost (WhitSunday) – May 24, 2026: Today’s Preacher is the Rev. Deacon Jackie McLeod: Let us pray. Blessed God, who gives us light in darkness! Amen. It’s Pentecost!!! Also known as Whit Sunday, Pentecost is a major Christian festival celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the birth of the Christian Church. It is also the day the disciples became apostles. Disciple means “follower or learner,” and apostle means “messenger or missionary.” These men now had the special assignment of spreading the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Held 50 days after Passover, Pentecost was also called the Festival of Harvest. It was one of three major annual festivals of thanksgiving for the harvested crops. Jesus was crucified at Passover time, and he ascended 40 days after his resurrection. The Holy Spirit came…

May 17, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Happy Easter! I shared a meme on my Facebook page this past Thursday. It was the Feast of the Ascension, and it depicted the scene we heard about this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus is heading up to heaven like he has those rocket packs we were all promised as a kid – and below are the apostles looking up at him. Anyway, the meme said – keep scrolling, Jesus needs to ascend. Which, if you do, Jesus just keeps moving up, up, and away on your screen. You gotta love the ingenuity of whoever thought that one up. I personally would have added sound – you know, Rocket Man by Elton John or something like that. At any rate, I love the part of the Ascension narrative when the two messengers –…

May 10, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Happy Mother’s Day, and many good wishes to those celebrating. It is a joyous occasion for most – offering a time to appreciate the love of their moms with maybe flowers, a visit or a call, or some other way to thank them. For others, this is also a difficult day, or one that brings about mixed feelings at least. For they are those whose mother’s have died, or those whose mothers are absent – in whatever way that may mean – or those mothers who have lost a child, or those women who could not have one. For these people Mother’s Day can be troubling, awkward, or even painful. And if that is you, know that we, your parish family, are holding you in prayer. And so, as I say each year, that is that…

April 19, 2024: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Happy Easter everyone! Yes – it’s still Easter. In fact, while we celebrate Eastertide for 50 days, in reality we are always a resurrection people. Now, the New York Times had a headline this week about the Vice President that read “Vance Says The Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology.” Does anyone else feel like the real news these days sounds more like something the parody news outlet, The Onion, would put out? Seriously though, the Vice President said about the Pope, I kid you not: “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to be sure it’s anchored in the truth and that’s one of the things that I try to do and that’s certainly something I would expect from the clergy…” Says the…

April 5, 2026 – Easter Sunday: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Well, I had hoped it would be a bit more Springy today. Still, even if the weather isn’t sunny and bright, Spring truly is here – flowers are blooming, birds are singing, everyone is sneezing, and move aside basketball on TV – baseball is back! And Lordy, do we need all of that now, don’t we? It’s been a tough winter, and an exhausting year. Weather wise, this winter has chilled us to the bone, and drenched our spirits in the snow and icy rain. And the gloomy clouds matched a lot of our spirits with all that we were experiencing in the world around us. On Good Friday, we remembered when empire crucified Jesus. And this year, it seems we have been in a perpetual Good Friday. Day after day after day,…

Good Friday – 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Tonight we continue our three day service. We really began two nights ago – at our healing Eucharist – when we remembered the betrayal of Jesus. But the three part service that makes up what we call the Paschal Triduum started last night, when we remembered the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples. There he washed their feet, an example of servant ministry, and commanded all who follow him to love one another as he loved us. And after praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he was arrested. And, so we are now here on Good Friday to stand at the foot of the cross, to experience the pain of grief and loss, to bear witness to the cruelty of empire, to feel the darkness of the tomb. Why would we willingly choose to…

Palm Sunday – March 29, 2026 – May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Now, if you’ve been coming here awhile, than you already know that this should just be Palm Sunday, with the passion being our Holy Week journey. Still, we do include it because Easter without the passion is an empty experience, and some will not be able to attend on Maundy Thursday & Good Friday. And as in past years, the Dzieci Theatre company will push our imaginations, engage our senses, and challenge our assumptions in the second half of our service as they envelope us in the experience of Christ’s passion. But, let’s not go there yet. Let’s give the reading from Matthew, about the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, its due. It’s a rather odd telling of this moment. There are cloaks and branches, not palms. Which was also almost our…

March 22, 2025: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. These are troubling times for us all – the world, our country, our communities, and our families. We are at war with Iran, and at war in our country. Violence and oppression, bitterness and anger are part of our daily lives. It is exhausting. So, perhaps the stories today in Ezekiel and the Gospel of John are hitting a little too close to home – filled with death and dying, darkness and dust. In Ezekiel, we get a tale that sounds like a Zombie movie. It is the story about God calling him to prophesy to a whole lot of old dry bones lying in a valley. He does, and they come alive. The bones, he is told, is a metaphor for the people of Israel – a message of hope that God will revive them…

March 8, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen. Now, whenever this gospel text comes around, I always need to address some misconceptions about what is going on here, so that we can understand the original meaning, and then get to how that will help us today. First, how many of you, when Jesus approached the well, thought “Awesome – I love a good rom-com!” You didn’t? Well, those who heard it told in the first century definitely would have thought that, because they had seen this story set up before. A man travels through a foreign country and encounters a woman at a well. They get married and have many children. Why would they think that? Well, it’s the biblical equivalent of a scene where a smart city woman accidently bumps into a good looking guy in a flannel shirt on a Christmas tree…