Adult Education for February 2 – March 2
Sundays, 9:30 am, in the Assembly Room, unless otherwise noted
Explore how faith inspires meaningful action, deepens cultural understanding, and fosters justice and hope. Through hymn singing, historical reflections, theological insights, and community empowerment, these sessions invite participants to engage the world with compassion, courage, and purpose.
Audio recordings will be posted below each class description.
February 2 | Noel Werner
Lord, Make Me an Instrument: A Hymn Sing
Our bodies are instruments tuned for praise, singing with the Spirit and understanding, proclaiming the redeeming work of God, and carrying the Gospel into our homes, community, and world. Come for a hymn sing that celebrates songs of welcome in the midst of exclusion, courage in the midst of fear, hope in the midst of despair, love in the midst of hate, and light in the midst of darkness. Lord, make us instruments of thy peace!
Noel Werner has been the Director of Music at Nassau Presbyterian Church since 2006. Prior to this position, he was the Minister of Music at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, New Jersey. Noel holds degrees from Westminster Choir College, Indiana University (Bloomington), and Christian Theological Seminary (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis. His wife, the Rev. Wendi Werner, is the solo pastor of First Presbyterian Church at Dayton, New Jersey. They have two daughters, Sophie and Emily.
February 9 | Heath Carter
The Sense of Our Small Effort: Faithful Witness in Dangerous Times
The word “unprecedented” is often overused these days. The reality is that U.S. democracy has often been imperiled and that constellations of power in this country have often been deeply unjust. In this session we’ll delve into some examples of how those who have gone before us have engaged faithfully in dangerous times. Far from suggesting that things never change, their example underscores the stakes of even the smallest efforts for a better church and world.
Dr. Heath W. Carter is the Associate Professor of American Christianity and Director of PhD Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. Carter is the author and/or co-editor of 4 books and is finishing another entitled On Earth as it is in Heaven: Social Christians and the Fight to End American Inequality. He is also an Editor at Large for Eerdmans Publishing Company and the senior co-editor of the Journal of Presbyterian History.
February 16 | Raimundo Barreto
Introducing Liberation Christianity though a Latin American Lens
Learn about liberation theology in Latin America. Barreto will introduce concepts from his forthcoming book Base Ecumenism: Latin American Contributions to Ecumenical Praxis and Theology (Augsburg Fortress, Feb 2025).
Raimundo C. Barreto is an associate professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he has been teaching since 2014. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theology from Seminário Teológico Batista do Norte do Brasil, an MDiv degree from McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and a PhD in religion and society from Princeton Theological Seminary. Before coming to Princeton, he taught at various institutions in Brazil and was the director of the Division on Freedom and Justice at the Baptist World Alliance. Barreto is the author of Protesting Poverty: Protestants, Social Ethics, and the Poor in Brazil (Baylor University Press, 2023). He is the co-editor of the Journal of World Christianity and a co-covener of the Princeton World Christianity Conference.
February 23 | Rose Mary Amenga-Etego
Navigating the Tensions of Belonging
Despite centuries of Christianity in Ghana (Gold Coast in 1471), Ghanaian Christians continue to struggle with what it means to be Christian while maintaining their respective family relations and cultural identities. With ethnographic interview data from an ongoing Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) research project on “The interplay between Christianity and indigenous religions in Ghanaian Christian funeral rites,” I wish to share with you some of my findings on how contemporary Ghanaian Christians negotiate their dual/multiple identities whether in the homeland or diaspora.
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Department for the Study of Religions, University of Ghana. She obtained her PhD from the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, after her BA and MPhil degrees in Religions from the University of Ghana. She is a Research Associate of the Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, Ghana’s Representative of the African Association for the Study of Religions and a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. She is also an Extraordinary Minister of the Holy Eucharistic and a catechist, teaching and learning the faith together with adult English-speaking catechumens of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy in the University of Ghana campus. She is currently one of the OMSC Resident Scholars at Princeton Theological Seminary.
March 2 | Jeannette Rizk
WorkWell Partnership: From Prison Pipeline to Stable Community
Founded by the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, the WorkWell Partnership provides life skills and job training to people in Mercer County who have been released from prison, or whose lives have otherwise been affected by the justice system. WorkWell Executive Director Jeannette Rizk will give a short presentation, along with a board member and a WorkWell graduate, followed by a Q&A. Equipping people from underserved communities with skills, enabling them to take charge of their own destiny, removing walls—all this lies at the heart of WorkWell’s mission. Some of our most dedicated volunteers come from Nassau Presbyterian Church, which has also generously provided financial support.
Jeannette Rizk, the executive director of WorkWell, grew up in Egypt and earned an MA in anthropology from the American University in Cairo. After a series of adventures in the field of international development: helping launch a media-production NGO, assisting in the creation of a docu-drama series on HIV awareness in the Middle East, and teaching a directing course in Sudan and Morocco, she took a job with the European Union to set up an ecotourism company for the Bedouin Jabaleya tribe in the south Sinai. This was followed by jobs in which Jeannette developed strategies to turn Egyptian women’s handicraft skills into genuine business ventures.