Brookdale Church celebrating Lent with Clifton churches

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Brookdale Reformed Church and five Clifton churches are meeting as a single congregation for Wednesday services during this Easter season with each of the participating churches taking a turn as host. It is the second year the Bloomfield church has joined with the Clifton Clergy Group for Lent.

Pastor Susan Dorward, of the Brookdale Reformed Church, said she had approached the Christian churches of the Bloomfield Clergy Group with the idea of doing something together during Easter and Christmas but found no support.
“We do things together occasionally,” Dorward said last week at her church. “But they were doing things on their own.”

Last year, Dorward broached the subject of sharing services with a friend who is the pastor of a Clifton church.

“He said he’d see if the Clifton Clergy Group would accept a Bloomfield church just for the 2016 Lenten services,” she said. “We did it last year and this year.”

The participating Clifton churches are United Reformed, Athenia Reformed, First Lutheran, St. Peter’s Episcopal, and First Presbyterian. Dorward said a Clifton pastor was the first to call Brookdale Reformed an “adopted” church.

Joint services began March 8 but the snowstorm cancelled the March 15 service. On March 22, the Bloomfield church was host.

Services were scheduled in Clifton for yesterday, March 29, and April 5.
The visiting pastor for the March 22 service at Brookdale Reformed was Grace Kim, of the First Presbyterian Church. Dorward was expected to deliver the sermon at Kim’s church on March 29.

Dorward said a benefit of having a group of pastors provide the sermon was that it cut down on the workload to organize five services and write five sermons.
“It takes eight to 10 hours to put together a service and a sermon,” she said. “It’s exhausting.”

Also, when five pastors write a sermon apiece, Dorward said listeners have the opportunity to hear different styles of preaching.

But the biggest benefit was that 70 people were in attendance for the March 22 service at Brookdale Reformed.

Dorward said the average worship attendance at the church is 36.
Collections during these Lenten services are donated to a mission or charity selected by the host church.

When her church was visited March 22, Dorward spoke about the non-profit Eastern Christian Children’s Retreat, which provides support services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Dorward is the chaplain at ECCR.

And once the communal service is over, there is fellowship when the congregates get together for coffee, cake, and to exchange information.

“I think it was last year,” Dorward said, “a church wanted to get rid of its hymnals and another church wanted them for its Sunday school.”

Last year, Brookdale Reformed had also been “adopted” by the Clifton churches for Advent. This is the time leading up to Christmas. But for this coming Advent, Dorward said she will approach the Bloomfield Clergy Group Group with the thought of doing something together.

The members of the Bloomfield Clergy Group, she said, are Park United Methodist, St. Thomas the Apostle, and Temple Ner Tamid, in Bloomfield; and Christ Episcopal and the Glen Ridge Congregational, in Glen Ridge.