Food Pantry Thanks Local Donors

According to the Independent, the Matawan Community Food Pantry is thanking local donors for their support.

FPC History: The Coming of the Second Mount Pleasant Church (1777 - 1820)

In 1777, Tories in Monmouth County burned down the first Mount Pleasant Church, an early iteration of FPC Matawan. Reverend Charles McKnight, the pastor at the time, was gathering crowds on the church's green to speak to them in support of the ongoing Revolution against the Crown. Some months earlier, Rev McKnight had suffered a saber wound to the head at the Battle of Princeton.

The congregation struggled over twenty years without a regular pastor or building, during the entire war and beyond. In 1793, the State of New Jersey authorized a $1,500 lottery to be conducted to raise monies for a new edifice. The lottery was a success. Tickets were sold, funds raised, prizes won, and a building erected by 1798. But sermons continued to be delivered by a steady stream of supplies. Even with a church building, the congregation lacked a permanent pastor for an additional twenty-two years.

It wasn't until August 1820 that Rev Eli Cooley accepted the call to preach at the second Mount Pleasant Church. And that took three letters of petition, including a letter to Rev Cooley's father-in-law asking him to intercede with his son. The letter also offered an increased salary package as an incentive. [NOTE: This could be the Reverend Eli Field Cooley (1781 - 1860), who graduated Princeton in 1806, served as pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Cherry Valley, New York from 1810 - 1820 (source) and the Presbyterian Church in Ewing, NJ circa 1838. (source)]

A Sunday School book found in the church archives that was published in 1818 indicates that Sabbath School began at 9:30 am and involved the reading of catechism and New Testament verses. Notations for teachers said: Each student present at the calling of names to receive one blue Ticket for punctual attendance & one blue Ticket to be given for every 3 ans. in the catechism & every 4 verses in N.T. repeated by memory. A blue ticket to be given or, equal in value to one read ticket -- 20 read tickets to procure a copy of the N. Testament.

Source: Presbyterians Pioneer at Matawan (1682-1959), pp. 19-20, 25-28.

28th Annual CROP Walk - Red Bank RHS, Sunday 18 October

Next Sunday will be the 28th Annual Red Bank CROP Hunger Walk. It is being held at the Red Bank Regional High School at 110 Ridge Road in Little Silver. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Registration is at 12:30 pm and the walk begins at 1:30 pm. FPC members should check with the church office or Mission Commission members if they have questions and/or want to coordinate with other church participants.

Church Coffee House Raises Hands in Praise and Funds for Outreach

The raised voices of praise and fellowship of about 100 people joined with the best area gospel and fellowship talents on Friday, October 9, 2009 in our Fellowship Hall. From 7:30 pm until close (sometime after 10 pm), the hall was awash in the sometimes classical, sometimes pop, rap, folk, but always beautiful songs and poetry from the greater Matawan and Bayshore area. The event raised $200.14 for Mission Matawan, a community outreach program to help the needy with home repair and maintenance.

Special guest visitor was Dave Sturt, recently moved to Austin, Texas. Other guest performers included the poetry of Cheryl Moore, the music of Common Thread, The Church Street Ramblers, headed by Ray Rettger, Barbara Spann playing and singing gospel with piano, the St. Joseph's Women's Gospel Chorus, and the rapping talent of Nico Araco, who performed "I Like Fishing" (Like link below):



Also performing were Peggy Knowles, Don Day, Sheila Dott, Bettie Karlovich, Hart and Liza Divinigracia, the Overtones.

Organized by Graham McKinley, food and fellowship was sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church Choir, while the beverage barista for the evening was Diana Noble (yours truly), who is the project manager for Mission Matawan. (revised 26 Oct 2009)

Peacemaking and Youth Ministry - September 2009

In their September 21, 2009 newsletter from Belfast, Doug and Elaine Baker introduced their newest Youth Adult Volunteers, who arrived on September 1. The students hailed from the states of Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennesse, Florida and Texas. Check out the Baker's site for information on their ministry.

Applications are currently being sought from those, aged 19 to 30, who wish to serve as YAVs in one of the national or international sites from September 2010 to July 2011. The program requires a commitment of one academic year. Young adults serve in communities of need.

The application deadline for international sites is January 20. Full information can be found at the PC(USA)'s YAV Web site.

To view a sample re-entry video on youtube by volunteers click here:

An Interfaith Journey to Turkey: A Journey of Hope

Joe and Sue Ritacco spent ten days in Turkey in June/July 2009, a trip organized by the Interfaith Dialog Center (www.idcnj.org). Joe recently delivered a presentation on their experience that they called An Interfaith Journey to Turkey: A Journey of Hope.

They spent most of their time in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city (about 15M population). They also visited Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Selyuk, and Ephesus; Antakya (ancient Antioch) on the Mediterranean Sea; Konya and Cappadocia in central Turkey, and a day trip by ferry across the Sea of Marmara, from Istanbul to Bursa.

The interfaith experience in Turkey is much different than in the US. The Turkish Republic controls religion in its officially secular country through a Ministry of Religion. Muslim religious leaders are hired, paid, and fired by the state. In the US, a division of church and state keeps the two aspects of society separate.

There have been long periods of peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Jews, and Christians throughout the Middle East and Asia, yet history tends to mark time by conflicts and media focuses on brewing tensions to sell its news. The pattern results in a broad feeling of hopelessness. Zachary Karabell’s book Peace Be Upon You suggests that motives related to the pursuit of power and wealth are more likely causes for conflict than religious diversity. We should celebrate diversity and not abandon hopes for peace.


Turkey’s geopolitical situation puts it in the perfect position to serve as a bridge to peace between the West and the Middle East. Turkey already plays a pivotal role in peacemaking with Israel, and its relations with Syria and Iran make it a natural arbiter between the US and20those countries.

Joe recommends a trip to Turkey as one of the more interesting, yet manageable and affordable places to visit. He hopes to deliver his Journey of Hope presentation to other audiences in coming months.

Photos of Interfaith Journey to Turkey: A Journey of Hope: Photos

Our groups of 10 guests (and one Turkish American host) in front of the magnificent Haya Sofia: 900 years a major church, 400 years a mosque, and now almost 100 years as museum.

Recently constructed by Turkish Government - Garden of Tolerance: complex with synagogue, church, and mosque (left to right).

FPC History: New Year's Eve, 1955

It was Sunday morning New Year's Eve 1955. The congregation of the Matawan Presbyterian Church gathered at the high school for worship that day, an arrangement made only the afternoon before. A rented organ played the introit. The choir wore borrowed robes. The women of the church had hung drapes and arranged desks on the school's stage. And in the center of that makeshift chancel was a table covered in maroon cloth, upon which stood an old brass cross recovered from the communion table during the awful fire that destroyed FPC Matawan's sanctuary on Main Street on Christmas Sunday the week before.

All signs of smoke and ash had been carefully removed from that cross, but the fire was on everyone's minds and in everyone's hearts. Memories of the blaze and the fight to save the edifice were of course fresh and raw. Their thoughts dwelt on an odd mixture of the heroic and the mundane, the corporate and the private, and the spiritual and the worldly. They had borne witness to the heroism and generosity of the firefighters, but also the drilling of holes in the sanctuary floor to drain inches of water from the building. Everyone was grateful that no lives were lost, but most didn't know that a widower had stood vigil the night of the fire over the body of his deceased wife, which had been in the burning building and safely evacuated.

Members had felt the hand of evil in the destruction of their historic church home, but also saw signs of hope in the preservation of the church's records, its pulpit Bible and brass cross, its communion set, and its baptismal font. Many had watched the last symbol of FPC's presence on Main Street -- the old Stanford White steeple -- as it was pulled down from its precarious vigil into the ashen debris below. They were wondering what would be next, so they gathered at the high school for words of encouragement and solace but also of hope in the future.

Most by now knew that the arson's torch had started in the choir's storage room early that Sunday evening, but it isn't clear that all were yet aware that the relatively small Church School fire on Christmas Eve had been his work as well. They didn't know what they as a church would do next, so they gathered to worship that New Year's Eve in odd surroundings but as a communion of faith with hundreds of years of corporate history that wasn't about to fade that winter.


Reverend Chester Galloway rose to deliver his sermon that morning. In his hand was the pulpit Bible he had used for the scripture lesson on Christmas Sunday. The Bible's cover had been charred and its pages soaked through when it was found, but it survived sheltered on the shelf within the pulpit where Reverend Galloway had left it.  The Reverend stood for a new beginning when he opened his sermon with a bit of tough love, saying, "We can sit down and cry or we can pick up the pieces and start all over again."

A separate article will cover the rebuilding of FPC Matawan on Route 34.

Reference: "Presbyterians Pioneer at Matawan," pp. 55 - 60