President Mast and Dean Ashley deliver prayers as we move from to the new building.

September 1, 2014

O GOD OUR HELP IN AGES PAST AND OUR HOPE FOR YEARS TO COME.

We pause for these few quiet moments to give thanks for the faithful visionaries who founded our seminary 230 years ago with the call of John Henry Livingston;

For his early years of ministry in New York City and for students formed for ministry in the congregations of this new nation;

For his move to New Brunswick in 1810, and for sharing space, resources, hopes and challenges with a fledgling college called Queens;

For the vision that led us to move to this land in 1856 in order to create this beautiful campus;

For the vision that led us to construct new buildings fifty years ago, including Zwemer Hall in which we now stand;

For students who discerned their call to ministry in these hallways, for professors who shared knowledge, wisdom and themselves, for staff who called this building their home away from home, and for all who faithfully worked for our sacred and common mission;

For this chapel which has heard our prayers and our songs, our joys and our laments;

For these classrooms which have witnessed our struggles to learn, our growing commitment to love ourselves, each other and our world;

For offices that have been filled with books and ledgers, dreams and disappointments, the sharing of our work and our devotion to this seminary and her mission;

For Hertzog Hall which has been the place where we have fed each other with food and fellowship, with laughter and tears, with quiet conversations and public lectures;

For all of this and so much more that will remain hidden in our hearts to inspire our memories and our future;

WE GIVE YOU THANKS O GOD!

Be with us now as move from this place to a new building with an historic mission- be with us now as we continue the journey- be with us now as we move from Holy Hill to the streets of our city and university. May we walk by faith, act with grace, serve with love and form new generations of women and men for your ministry.

PROCESS TO OUR NEW BUILDING AND CAMPUS

O GOD OUR HELP IN AGES PAST AND OUR HOPE FOR YEARS TO COME….

We pause in these few quiet moments to give thanks for those who envisioned this new campus and building and who worked for its construction and completion:

For planners and negotiators, architects and bankers, and for our partners DEVCO and Rutgers;

For those who have translated lines on a page into the beautiful building in which we now stand: electricians and plumbers, steel workers and carpenters, landscapers and all who have labored in the cold of winter and the heat of summer;

For those who have coordinated and supervised, for those who have worked with hands and heart, for those who have moved us and for all who have loved this structure into being;

For the dreams and visions that now inspire our thoughts and plans: for greater service to you and your church, for deeper love of you and your world, for wider arms and hearts to embrace the invisible, hear the voiceless, care for the marginalized and stand with those rejected by the world;

For growing commitment to learn from the church around the world, our commitment to be in dialogue and service with those of many faiths and no faith for the common good;

WE GIVE YOU THANKS O GOD!

MAY WE WALK BY FAITH, ACT WITH GRACE, SERVE WITH LOVE AND RECOMMIT OURSELVES TO FORM NEW GENERATIONS OF WOMEN AND MEN CALLED TO SERVE YOU AND THE WORLD. AMEN.

Click here to read the article in the Star Ledger.