Helping a Dream Come TrueBuilding strong communities starts at home. The Trenton Microloan Collaborative knows this, which is why their mission is to provide loans, accounting, and support to entrepreneurs who were formerly incarcerated. In resourcing their returning neighbors, Trenton Microloan invests in a stronger Trenton. Nassau is honored to partner with them in their work.
Follow Trenton Microloan Collaborative online:
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Seeking Freedom for the Innocent in PrisonNassau’s Mission & Outreach team is extending its February focus on justice and peace to celebrate the work of Centurion, one of our mission partners. Centurion is dedicated to the vindication of the wrongly convicted as well as offering supportive services for incarcerated and exonerated clients. The work of Centurion makes real our Micah 6:8 mandate to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
Learn More (link)
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This month, the Nassau Church Mission & Outreach Committee pledged $25,000 to support the construction of a Social, Healing, and Educational Center in Stradch, Ukraine. The Parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Stradch has been working throughout the war to provide spiritual and psychological support to those impacted by the conflict, and established a Resilience Center to that end. The parish recently acquired a new building to expand and continue their work, and requested funds to create a new Center in that space. We at Nassau are inspired by the parish’s work to promote peace and healing!
Nassau Church invites all our community members and friends to support the Neighbor Fund!This initiative of the Princeton community provides financial support to people in our area who are impacted by immigration. Your generosity makes it possible for this Fund to meet the needs of neighbors whose family networks, livelihoods, and stability have been disrupted. You can learn more and contribute to the Fund using the button below.
Whether or not you can make a gift at this time, you can support immigration-impacted neighbors by keeping them in your prayers and hearts.
“I was a stranger, and you invited me in” (Matthew 25:35).
Last summer, in the wake of large-scale immigration operations by ICE here in Princeton, our Mission and Outreach Committee launched the Neighbor Fund alongside our trusted community partners. We began with a seed of $20,000 and a simple, faithful prayer: that we might provide a measure of justice and stability to families whose lives had been upended by ICE detentions.
Today, we witness to an abundance of generosity that has far exceeded our initial hopes.
Through your support, and the radical generosity of the wider community, we have already raised over $150,000. Most movingly, 75% of these contributions have come from outside our own doors. Nassau Church has become a trusted vehicle for the whole community’s desire to do what is right.
We have seen neighbors helping neighbors—many with no formal ties to this sanctuary—who recognized in the Neighbor Fund a clear, equitable, and compassionate way to put love into action.
These funds are working every day. They are paying legal fees that give parents a fighting chance to stay with their children and covering rent and groceries for families who have lost their primary breadwinner to detention.
To date, we have supported 13 families and individuals with nearly $104,000 in committed funds.
But the need is not a thing of the past. We continue to receive new requests for assistance, all related to ongoing ICE activity in our area.
Just one month ago, two more Princeton residents were detained, including a father of four from the Witherspoon Jackson neighborhood who has a child at Community Park School. A week later, a third resident was detained on his way home from work.
These incidents remind us that we are no longer responding to a single operation; we are sustaining a covenant of protection for the vulnerable in our midst.
We are not just a church in the heart of Princeton; we are a heart for the people of Princeton.
As we anticipate what may happen in the months ahead, we ask you to consider a renewed, generous gift to the Neighbor Fund. Your support ensures that when our neighbors call out in a moment of fear or financial crisis, we remain ready to answer.
You can support the Neighbor Fund with a designated gift online or by writing “Neighbor Fund” in the memo line of your check.
Thank you for your continued prayers, your trust, and your unwavering resolve to build a community where every neighbor is welcomed and respected.
This Lent, Adult Education will explore Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, a short yet profound letter written from prison. Reading one chapter each week, we will consider how faith, joy, suffering, and hope take shape in the life of the early church — and in our own lives today.
Together with preaching and Lenten Small Groups, this Linked-In series invites us into a shared season of reflection, study, and conversation.
Audio recordings of the February 22–March 22 sessions will be available only to participants in the Lenten Small Groups, at the request of the speaker.
The March 29 session with Hanna Reichel will be recorded and posted below its description.
🎧 Listen On the Go!
Adult Education classes and sermons are also available as podcasts on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Search “Nassau Presbyterian Church” — follow or subscribe to be alerted when new recordings are uploaded.
Matthew Novenson is the Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. Before that, he was Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His books include Christ among the Messiahs (Oxford, 2012), The Grammar of Messianism (Oxford, 2017), Paul, Then and Now (Eerdmans, 2022), and Paul and Judaism at the End of History (Cambridge, 2024). He is presently writing a commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.
An introduction to imprisonment as a central context for Paul’s ministry and letters.
Written under dire circumstances, Paul’s letter overflows with affection, courage, and trust in God.
A close look at one of the New Testament’s most important passages about Christ’s self-giving and exaltation.
Paul addresses conflict and competing teachings, emphasizing faith in Christ as the heart of righteousness and hope.
A practical and hopeful conclusion, highlighting reconciliation, generosity, contentment, and shared life in Christ.
How do we live faithfully amid rising authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic culture? Hanna Reichel draws on Scripture and historical examples such as the Confessing Church to explore spiritual grounding, communal discernment, and Christian courage in challenging times.
Hanna Reichel is the Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. A ruling elder in the PC(USA), Reichel also serves on the Theology Working Group of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional is their first book for a wider audience.
We are pleased that Dr. Reichel is available to reschedule after being snowed out in December! Copies of their book, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional are available for purchase for $15. Contact Lauren Yeh in the church office (email, x106) or look for the book sales table in the Assembly Room in late March.
Looking for a summer camping experience for children or youth in your life (Grades 1–12)?
Camp Johnsonburg, an easy drive from central New Jersey, has been offering experiential Christian education since 1959 in support of the Presbyterian Church in New Jersey.
With a wide variety of sessions and programs, Camp Johnsonburg is known for its commitment to inclusivity, spiritual growth, friendship, and fun. Summer sessions begin June 21.
Learn more and register at campjburg.org/summer-camp/, or speak with Nassau members Penn Bowditch, Lolly O’Brien, Bonnie Galloway, or Elliot Freebourn.
February 27 – March 1
All men are invited to a weekend retreat featuring Bible study, small groups, outdoor activities on the 300-acre campus, reflection, and prayer. Rev. George Erlandson will serve as guest speaker, with Rev. Mark Studer leading worship.
Register at campjburg.org/events/new-mens-retreat/.
Adult women are invited to a Women’s Retreat, April 24–26, focused on forgiveness: exploring one of Christ’s most pivotal challenges. The retreat offers space to step away from daily routines and find rest, renewal, and connection through worship, scripture exploration, small-group discussion, reflection, prayer, and time enjoying Johnsonburg’s lake and forested trails.
Guest Speaker: Rev. Heather M. Finck
Register at campjburg.org.
Did you know that our denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), has an office dedicated to witnessing to our faith in the public sphere? The PC(USA) Office of Public Witness (OPW) leads collective action and advocacy on Capitol Hill and all over the country – to paraphrase a hymn, using the faith we’ve found to reshape the world around.
Recent efforts have included a national film study on the eviction crisis and a walkout in solidarity with immigrant and refugee neighbors.
Nassau is proud to support the OPW’s work and witness, and we are excited that on April 19, in partnership with Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, Rev. Jimmie Hawkins of OPW will join us for an educational event after worship. Stay tuned for more details!
You can learn more about this denominational effort on their website (button below), where you can also sign up to receive action alerts as part of their mobilization efforts.
Follow PCUSA OPW online:
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Scripture calls us to welcome the stranger among us (Matthew 25:43).
Nassau Presbyterian Church is proud to support the work of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF), whose Casa Bienvenida program provides vital legal services, education, advocacy, and community support for immigrants in our region. Through accompaniment, training, and legal guidance, LALDEF works to ensure that our neighbors are treated with dignity and justice.
If you are looking for a meaningful way to live out your faith by loving your neighbor and welcoming the stranger, we invite you to learn more about LALDEF’s work and consider supporting their mission.
Follow LALDEF online:
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Christian faith has never been static. Across history and cultures, believers have wrestled with difficult questions, adapted to changing circumstances, and found ways to sustain hope and meaning amid uncertainty. Our February Adult Education series, Faith That Endures, brings together three striking portraits of how Christian communities respond—intellectually, spiritually, and collectively—when faith is tested or transformed.
We begin by turning to the earliest Christian stories themselves, asking how we might understand the Gospel miracle narratives with both honesty and faith. We then move to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Denmark, where the church helped shape a nation’s cultural identity—only to face profound questions about relevance in a secular age. Finally, we look beyond the Western world to the Karen Christians of Burma, whose embrace of Christianity became a powerful source of ethnic identity, resilience, and social transformation amid adversity.
Taken together, these sessions invite us to reflect on enduring questions: Where do we see God at work? How do communities interpret faith in their own contexts? And what does it mean for Christian witness to endure—across centuries, cultures, and changing worlds?
Audio recordings will be posted below each class description.
🎧 Listen On the Go!
Adult Education classes and sermons are now available as podcasts on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Search “Nassau Presbyterian Church”—follow or subscribe to be alerted when new recordings are uploaded.
Was Jesus an actual historical person, or a literary figure? What sources offer evidence that he lived—and why is Elaine Pagels persuaded by that evidence? From there, we explore how to understand the Gospel miracle stories: walking on water, healings, raising the dead, and, above all, the two miracles Christians have wrestled with for centuries—the virgin birth and the resurrection. How might we read these stories today with both faith and critical insight?
Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion Emerita at Princeton University, and a widely respected scholar of early Christianity. Her groundbreaking research — especially on the texts of the Nag Hammadi Library — has helped reveal the diversity of early Christian beliefs and challenged long-held assumptions about Christian origins. Her best-known works include The Gnostic Gospels (National Book Award winner), The Origin of Satan, and Why Religion? A Personal Story. Since stepping down in September 2024 after over four decades on the Princeton faculty, she continues to write, lecture, and contribute to the public conversation about faith, history, and meaning.
From the ashes of defeat when Denmark declared bankruptcy in 1813, the Danish church played a crucial role in restoring the nation’s sense of purpose and identity. In the nineteenth century, it fueled innovative educational and social reforms; in the twentieth century, it fostered a shared national culture—especially through communal singing. Today Denmark is often described as one of the happiest countries in the world, with a robust economy, universal health care, and tuition-free universities that even provide stipends for students. Yet Denmark’s churches are now strikingly empty. What happened? Is the church simply asleep, or is it hiding in plain sight? Ed Madsen explores the story of the Danish church across three centuries and what it reveals about faith and cultural life today.
Ed Madsen, a 30-year member of Nassau, has assembled a book inspired by a bundle of his parents’ letters—preserved for half a century under his grandfather’s thatched roof in Denmark. He has written for various Christian publications, has been published in The Bridge, the journal of the Danish American Heritage Society, and has crafted new lyrics for two Danish hymns.
Karen Christians have creatively shaped their ethnic identity on their own terms—contextualizing the Christian faith within their particular cultural setting and using religion to strengthen their collective status. In 1828, the Karen were an agrarian, nonliterate people living in upland villages. By the turn of the twentieth century, they had become a literate and partly urban community deeply engaged in education, the military, commerce, and politics. The embrace of Christianity both accompanied and reinforced the development of a distinct Karen ethnic identity.
Pum Za Mang is Associate Professor of World Christianity at Myanmar Institute of Theology. He earned his M.A. from Princeton Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. from Luther Seminary. He has published widely—contributing book chapters, journal articles, and reviews in Asia, Europe, and North America. His research focuses on Burmese Christianity, and he is currently a visiting scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary.
It’s the coldest time of year – so let’s warm up some hearts!Nassau Church is proud to partner with Arm in Arm for the annual Valentines for Food donation drive. Food insecurity and need has seen a significant increase in our area. With your support, Arm In Arm can continue the work of feeding the hungry, which Matthew 25:35 reminds us is holy work.
Click the link below to see the reach of Arm in Arm’s impact, and learn what and how to donate.
Valentines for Food (link)
