The Call to a New Ministry

In January 2022, I was sitting on a couch sipping my morning coffee while on spiritual retreat with a few colleagues at Camp Fowler in Speculator, New York. A few months earlier, I had been installed as the full-time pastor of the church I had served part time while completing Princeton Theological Seminary. Now I was getting away on retreat, primarily for a time of rest, and I purposely brought a book with me that didn’t have anything to do with ministry. Little did I know the book would turn out to be important. I’d been encouraged by my wife, Stacey, who is also a pastor, to use my new public library card and borrow a book that wasn’t about the church. For some reason I had chosen The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky by Ken Dornstein. The author’s brother had been killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

As I sat on that couch, coffee just about gone and just about finished with the book, I felt a strong call of the Holy Spirit to plant a church. This is hard to describe. The way I experience this (there have been other moments in my life of Spirit-filled revelation) is with a strong sense of God’s presence, along with a message that fills my awareness. The message that morning was: “plant a church.”

A few weeks earlier, Stacey and I both had a sense on the same day that God was preparing us for new calls (we were serving separate pastorates and continue to serve separate pastorates). A faithful response to this movement of the Holy Spirit for both of us was to begin praying. And pray we did. For upwards of a year we remained faithful to our calls while remaining open to something new. Throughout that year, I spoke to several churches and even received offers, but I had no sense that I was called to any of them. We wondered where God was leading us?

Clarity came first for Stacey. She started interviewing with the First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, New Jersey, in the fall of 2022. As Stacey embarked deeper into the call process, I continued to pray, wondering where God was calling me. I’d done transitional ministry training with the Presbyterian Church (USA) but didn’t sense being steered in the interim minister direction. All I knew was that God gave me that message out of nowhere: plant a church. I’m not a church planter. Where was I supposed to follow this call? With whom? I didn’t know.

Clarity

As Stacey’s call to the church in Pompton Plains became clearer, I began to reflect on what it would mean to live in a new community where Stacey was serving and serve effectively as a pastor elsewhere. I also spent time in prayer around the persistent message to plant a church I felt stirring.

Through conversations with colleagues, I was introduced to the language of “re-planting”—the idea of entering an established congregation and helping to discern and chart a renewed course. At its core, this work centers on broad but essential questions: Where is God leading us? What is God calling this community to become?

I began to wonder and pray if “re-planting” a faithful response to this call?

I thought of the church that I grew up-in, Deerpark Reformed Church (DRC) in Port Jervis, New York. For several years it had been worshiping with the First Presbyterian Church of Port Jervis (FPCPJ). The two church buildings were a block and half from one another.

The history of the two congregations was intertwined. The Presbyterian church was formed in 1851 by a group of Reformed church members who broke off to form their own church. More than a century and a half later, God had brought these two back together again, but they were still separate churches. I was aware that FPCPJ had been searching for a pastor for over a year, but didn’t strongly consider it because I had always been told that pastors don’t go back to their hometowns to pastor.

Despite that, I asked myself: if I was being called to “re-plant,” wouldn’t it make the most sense to do so in a community I already knew well? I wasn’t certain about the status of the two churches that were seeking to become one, but several trusted colleagues encouraged me to apply as an act of faithful discernment. Meanwhile, the DRC building had been on the market for more than four years and it looked like a potential buyer was emerging.

So I applied. I wrote a letter to the FPCPJ Pastoral Nominating Committee (PNC), carefully describing the sense of call I had been experiencing. I referenced Acts 2:17, Isaiah 43:18–19, and Romans 8:31, and shared this simple conviction: if you feel called to this work, I feel called to lead you in it. I entrusted the process to the Holy Spirit, trusting that God would guide the PNC, the session, and the presbytery—if this truly was God’s will.

Timing

FRC’s Consistory called Stacey on a Saturday in February 2023. Two days later, the PNC voted to advance my name to the session. This same day, a Monday, the last item needed for the Deerpark Reformed Church building sale came through. Two days later, the FPCPJ Session met and received and approved the recommendation of its PNC. Stacey and I had two calls within three days in separate processes with separate churches.

As I received the news, the Holy Spirit gave me a familiar scripture, but one I had not read for a while: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6). The next day, a Friday, I was handed a bulletin cover of a church that closed in the area. The front cover had the same verse from Proverbs on it, which I took as a sign that I was indeed being called. 

The “Where” Confirmed

When I sat on the couch that January day, I didn’t know where I would wind up. I followed God on a journey of faith back to Port Jervis through this discernment process. Later that year, months into my new ministry, I officiated the last service in the DRC building, and was leading a committee through the development of a merger plan of FPCPJ and DRC. I was at a Bible study with some church members when one of them casually mentioned that a Port Jervis resident, Theodora Cohen, had been on that doomed plane over Lockerbie, Scotland. Ms. Cohen had been a part of FPCPJ’s community theater ministry, the Presby Players. A plaque in her memory hangs outside my office.

That was the “where.” I made the connection. I didn’t know where I was being called in January 2022, but held a book in my hands that pointed to the place I was being called to. The seemingly “random” book I pulled from that public library shelf to take with me on retreat, a book that I intentionally chose because it wasn’t about ministry, connected to the “where” of the message to plant a church.

The Intervention of God Through an Elder

Like many churches, FPCPJ had approached its membership rolls with grace following the pandemic, and some individuals remained listed who had not attended in quite some time. No one had really thought about that and a congregational meeting was scheduled to vote on merging. Then the meeting was canceled after one of the Elders shared, first with her fellow Elders and then with the congregation, that she had experienced a profound spiritual moment unlike anything she had known before. She had felt what she described as the Holy Spirit “tapping her on the shoulder,” saying, “You need to check the rolls,” and, “I want these people to be together.”

Following this experience, the Elder came to realize that an accurate membership roll was not only helpful but necessary. The merger required approval by three-quarters of the total membership—not merely three-quarters of a quorum. Without updated records, the vote could not faithfully or properly proceed.

Amazing how God intervenes, isn’t it?

Reflections

It has taken approximately three years to shepherd this merger process. In the coming months, I will transition from a contracted relationship with the congregation to a called one as the first pastor of what is now the United Presbyterian & Reformed Church of Port Jervis, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Reformed Church in America.

I have learned much about God, about myself, and about the power and presence of prayer—particularly contemplative, centering, and silent prayer. In 2025, I prayed through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola over nine months with a Jesuit spiritual director, Father Dan. I deeply affirm the foundational conviction of Ignatian spirituality: God is in all things.

Calling happens differently for each person. For me, it is a deeply spiritual experience that I don’t fully grasp, and may never fully grasp, but in which a conviction about God’s invitation for a new season is unveiled. In our Reformed understanding, calling is confirmed by the community, affirming the “inner” call with the “outer” call, to borrow John Calvin’s phrase. In my case, affirmation came from trusted colleagues and friends, and ultimately confirmation came through a search committee, a session, the congregation, the presbytery, and now, the classis too.

The congregation celebrated the inaugural service of the united church on World Communion Sunday 2025—exactly one year to the Sunday when it voted to approve the merger plan. Several things have helped make this happen—the transitional ministry training I completed has proven essential, along with confirmation from a book I thought I had randomly pulled from a shelf. Spiritual direction, small groups, clergy coaching, long seasons of prayer—each was necessary. God used all of it. Surely, God is in all things.

Most importantly, our united and unified congregation has begun to form an emergent identity, and in the coming months we will be prayerfully discerning and setting a shared vision for our future. Our congregation is growing, with average worship attendance now nearly double what it was on my first Sunday. We are celebrating new members, baptisms, and professions of faith.

The congregation is deeply engaged in mission: feeding and hospitality ministries, caring for our unhoused neighbors, launching a thrift shop ministry, supporting a missionary, and tending to God’s children in many faithful ways. Recently, we also elected our first permanent officers — an important milestone in our life together.

Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” continues to call us forward as a congregation, just as it calls each of us individually.

What is happening in Port Jervis is about God. God guided us through a challenging ecumenical merger, and the Holy Spirit has blended, shaped, and inspired this new creation.

It is our hope that what we are learning may encourage and assist others across the country who may be discerning PCUSA–RCA partnerships where such shared ministry makes sense in their local context.

Whatever the broader implications may be, I often share with the congregation the enduring words of the Reformation: Soli Deo Gloria — For the Glory of God Alone.

A modern adaptation of the Gloria Patri, which we now sing regularly in worship as a joyful expression of our unity, proclaims:

Glory to God, whose goodness shines on me,
and to the Son, whose grace has pardoned me,
and to the Spirit, whose love has set me free.
As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be. Amen.

 World without end, without end. Amen.
World without end, without end. Amen
World without end, without end. Amen.
As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be. Amen.