The world-famous Westminste
r Choir will be joined by the early-instrumental ensemble, The Sebastians, for a free concert (in-person only). Celebrating 100 years of the choir in New Jersey, they return to their original home in our church, where the college was located while their Princeton campus was being built. You won’t want to miss this spectacular concert!
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.
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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)
Monday, February 2, 2026
6:30–8:30 pm
Assembly Room, Nassau Presbyterian Church
61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ
Join us for an evening with Jeffrey Abramowitz, J.D., CEO of the Petey Greene Program, as he shares his personal journey through the criminal justice system—from his early career as an attorney to his leadership of national nonprofit organizations.
Jeff will also introduce the work of the Petey Greene Program, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting education and career support for justice-impacted learners, and highlight meaningful ways to get involved, including volunteer opportunities.
A light supper will be provided at no cost for those who register in advance. Walk-ins are welcome.
👉 Sign up here: https://bit.ly/4qEiHcq
Sponsored by the Mass Incarceration Task Force of Greater Mercer County and Nassau Presbyterian Church’s Adult Education Committee.
Jeffrey Abramowitz is the Chief Executive Officer of the Petey Greene Program and the Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice. He previously served as Executive Director of Justice Partnerships and Executive Director of Reentry Services for JEVS Human Services and founded the Looking Forward Philadelphia Reentry Program. Jeff serves on several nonprofit education and workforce boards and was appointed to the Pennsylvania Reentry Council, where he chairs the Employment Committee.
Join us for a full day of learning, service, and community as we honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and live out our Christian commitment to human flourishing in all places. All are welcome—come for one part of the day or stay for as much as you’re able.Monday, January 19, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Sanctuary of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Begin MLK Jr. Day with a morning of learning and reflection as we explore the powerful, intersecting stories of the Robeson family and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and how their witness calls us to faithful action today.
Registration Required: https://tinyurl.com/PRHPTeachIn26
Monday, January 19, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, Assembly Room
Join us for hands-on service projects for all ages! We’ll make pet blankets for orphaned animals, pack sack lunches for Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK), assemble Creativity Kits for HomeFront, pack personal care products for Arm In Arm clients, and create calendars for ABC Literacy. Bring donations to the Assembly Room through January 19.
Donation list: https://nassauchurch.org/an-advent-moment-of-mission/
Contact Ingrid Ladendorf (email, x105)
Monday, January 19, 1:00-3:00 pm, Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve, 57 Mountain Ave, Princeton
Spend the afternoon caring for our local environment alongside Friends of Princeton Open Space. Volunteers will help remove invasive species in riparian restoration areas and install deer-exclusion caging to protect young tree saplings.
Registration Required
https://bit.ly/NPC26FoPOS, choose the 1:00-3:00 pm session.
Contact Mark Edwards (email, x109)
Monday, January 19, 7:00 pm
Princeton United Methodist Church, at the corner of Nassau Street & Vandeventer Avenue, Princeton
Join us for a Multi-Faith celebration of the life, faith, and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., sponsored by the Princeton Clergy Association and the Coalition for Peace Action.
You are also invited to join the pick-up community choir: the rehearsal is Monday, January 12, 7:00-9:00 pm at the PUMC, and warm up is 6:00 pm on January 19.
Choir Sign Up https://bit.ly/44X3Cdq
As we enter a new year, we renew our commitment to serve with compassion, courage, and joy.
We give thanks for the mission partnerships that anchor our ministry and for the generosity that flows so freely from this community. Your faithfulness truly makes a difference. Partners like @churchesformep are working for hope and peace around the world – true lights in this sacred season.
Tomorrow is Epiphany, the final day for Alternative Gifts—a wonderful way to support mission partners as we begin 2026 with gratitude and purpose.
May this first full week of the year inspire hope and renewed dedication to loving our neighbors.
Follow Churches for Middle East Peace online:
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As the year draws to a close, we give thanks for the many ways God has been at work through our congregation’s mission and outreach.
Your support—through gifts, volunteering, and faithful presence—has touched lives both near and far. We are grateful for each act of compassion offered in Christ’s name. With partners like Cetana Educational Foundation, the members of Nassau Church are able to share and connect across the globe.
Alternative Gifts remain available through Epiphany if you’d like to make a year-end gift in honor of someone special.
Blessings as we turn toward a new year filled with possibilities.
Follow Cetana Educational Foundation online:
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Luke 2:1-20
December 24
David A. Davis
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“This will be a sign for you.” One morning this fall, on my way to the church office from our home in the Littlebrook section of Princeton, I ran into four detours for road closures. It took me 40 minutes to get to the office. We live 3.3 miles from here. The frustration was that there was never a “road closed ahead” sign. Arrive at the intersection, and a police car is blocking the road where you intend to go. A sign would have been helpful. When you find yourself traveling on an interstate, have you experienced those sometimes misleading blue signs that list the gas, hotel, or food options at the next exit? I know I am not the only one to experience this. You see a little icon on the sign for the gas you need or the food stop you would like. You exit a mile or two later. Drive slowly down the ramp. Come to the stop. The more honest sign says gas or food to the right in another 4 miles. The better sign at a highway exit is the huge fast food or gas sign towering up in the air with the destination right at the base of the sign. There is a refreshing clarity in that signage.
“This will be a sign for you,” the angel said to the shepherds. The angel of the Lord who stood before them with all that glory that terrified them. The angel was not the sign. The heavenly host of angels that appeared praising God and singing “Glory to God in the highest” had to have been breathtaking. But the heavenly host was not the sign. The shepherds, though they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen,” had nothing to do with the sign. For that matter, neither did Mary and Joseph, post-partum, post-swaddling, post-lying the babe in the manger. “This will be a sign for you; a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger…So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”
The preacher in the Book of Hebrews tells us that some of us have probably entertained angels unaware when showing hospitality to strangers. Most of us, however, have not come upon an angel with the glory of the Lord shining all around. But we have all seen a baby. We haven’t had a band of shepherds come and preach the good news of great joy for all people. But we have seen a baby. “This….will be a sign for you.” Not a burning bush. Not a cloud by day and pillar of fire at night. Not stormy sea brought to a dead calm. Not a withered hand healed. Not a few fish and loaves of bread feeding thousands. Not a lame person walking. Not tongues of fire falling from heaven and everyone hearing the gospel in their own language. Not prison chains falling off of their own accord. “This will be a sign for you.” A sign we have all seen. A sign we can all understand. A child is swaddled and lying there in front of you.
Generation after generation of students down the street at Princeton Theological Seminary have worked on their worship leadership skills in the required Introduction to Speech Class. Those classes are currently taught by faculty very familiar around here at Nassau Church: Michael Brothers and Nancy Lammers Gross. I am absolutely certain that they continue to carry the mantle when it comes to how to properly read Luke 2 before a congregation. It is the most common example used to teach a pastor the importance of a pause and the purpose of a comma when it comes to oral interpretation. I can still hear the speech teacher in my intro class after a student read “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger.” “No, no, no! The three of them are not in the manger.” “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph….., and the child lying in the manger.” “The manger is not overflowing”.
Of course, it is overflowing. For that which is divine, “the one born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”, is swaddled not just in bands of cloth but wrapped in all that it means to be human. God and flesh. Divine and human. God with us. Look for a sign. The manger is overflowing both with the presence of God and the flesh of our humanity. A child lying there in the manger. Swaddled for warmth and security like a parent wraps every newborn before and ever since. Eyes yet to open. Skin color is yet to recover from the trauma of birth. And therein lies God. This so an understandable and relatable sign of our humanity; this newborn baby bears in this tiny flesh the awesome holiness and otherness of God. All of the mystery of the transcendent Creator of all now nurses at Mary’s breast. It is the scandal of the incarnation, God in human flesh. The manger cradles the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It overflows with the very humanity of God.
I was meeting a new friend for coffee one morning last week. We met at the place where he works, but over a period of only a few weeks, we kept running into each other. We both took it as a sign that we should grab coffee. He suggested meeting at Sakrit coffee, which is always too crowded, but I kept that thought. That morning, there was no place to sit. I suggested we go back to my office in the church. He said, “How about we take a walk?” For the next hour, on a brisk but sunny morning, we walked all over campus, up and down Nassau Street. As we walked and sipped, we shared our lives, our hopes and dreams, and complained about traffic in Princeton. We both ran into people we know and introduced each other. I introduced him to Len Scales, a few blocks down Nassau Street. We said hi to John, the unhoused man who spends a lot of time in the seminary library and on a bench in front of the Nassau Christian Center. We both know John. Wished him a merry Christmas. We split up, and both went back to work at 10. I found it to be a God moment, even a holy one. A reminder to me of God’s presence in the everyday, earthiness of it all. That’s when God still comes.
“This will be a sign for you.” It is a simple sign; the child, the manger, and the fleshiness of it all. The earthiness, the smelliness, the prickliness of humanity’s manger still receives the presence and promise of God, God with us. Because it is here, not “here” of this room but the “here” of our lives. Here in humanity’s stable of heartbreak and grief and disappointment, where God still comes. Here, when you and I are trying to keep our heads above water with the flood of the news of the world and the daily drenching downpour of humanity’s sinfulness, God still comes. Both in joyful family gatherings and in family struggles, in the realities of college admissions or difficult job searches or increased job stress or dignity torn away by unemployment, God is still there. As weddings are announced and new babies met for the first time, and medical tests shared and empty places at the table scream too loudly, God is there. Here, as parents seek wisdom in raising children and children seek wisdom in caring for parents, as young people search for courage in adulting or discerning what’s next in school and life, here, as someone we love is being treated for cancer, or struggling for a peace of mind, or a relationship now broken and over, God still comes.
“This will be a sign for you… a child lying in a manger.” Not a throne, not a cushy bed, not a bassinet crafted for royalty. A manger in a barn surrounded by animals and night air. Just so God rests in the rickety frame of our lives, and all of creation stands ready to burst into song. For the manger overflows with the humanity of God. And on nights like tonight, as the world groans with the suffering of God’s people and the darkness of the powers and principalities seems to be darker and heavier, our hope for peace and goodwill again rests in the scandal of God’s love. Out in the darkness, surrounded by other than the fleshiness of our humanity, the night air, and the world’s chaos, God is still with us. God is still for us.
My favorite children’s Christmas pageant story tells of the director deciding to mark the places for the angels and the shepherds. A circle for each angel and a cross for each shepherd. Unfortunately, there was no rehearsal in costume. When the angels took their places during the pageant in their flowing robes and halos, they covered up the marks for the shepherds. “The shepherds, driven by God knows what demonic impulse to indiscreet obedience,” William Muehl writes, “began looking for their places. Angels were treated like they had never been treated before. And at last one little boy, who had suffered about all such nonsense he could handle, turned toward….the teacher in charge…and announced angrily, ‘These damned angels are fouling up this whole show…They’ve hidden all the crosses.”
“Needless to say,” the writer continues, “his mother and I were greatly embarrassed.” But then offered this reflection on the life of faith. “We are, indeed, ‘damned angels’, possessors of gifts and insights which we turn to works of destruction, victims of burdens and infirmities which become occasions for glory. The rich pageant of life is often fouled up by our rigid moralism, and the cross is hidden beneath the flimsy fabric of our piety…Our flesh drives and afflicts us from birth to death. But we have the gall to affirm that it once sheltered the Eternal.
Or said another way, we dare to believe and affirm that the manger still overflows with the humanity of God.
“Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people, to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you.”