Chapter and Verse

The Presbytery of Highlands of New Jersey Edition

We are a new presbytery!

 

Great! Say more.

On Monday, March 1 the General Assembly Commission for Mid Councils voted to approve the plan for the seven New Jersey Presbyteries to become four Presbyteries.

Officially we are Ecclesiastically a new presbytery as of 11:38 am EST on March 1, 2021

Is there more?

Yes, even though we have received our ecclesiastical status we still have work to do on our corporation. For the time being the Presbytery of Highlands is also the Corporation of the Presbytery of Newton. It will take a little more work to sort out the legal and financial issues of dissolving three presbytery corporations. We will share more info over the next months about the corporation status.

What happens at the first Presbytery meeting?

The Synod Administrative Commission for New Jersey Missional Communities will technically call the first presbytery meeting. Representatives will bring the meeting to order, and lead the presbytery in some introductory steps, including electing the moderator and other officers and the temporary manual of operations.  More information will be coming soon.

What is the Manual of Operations?

Every council is required to have a manual of operations. There is not really a “one book” manual but a collection of Bylaws, policies, documents, guidelines, protocols, and procedures.  The documents for the Highlands Presbytery Manual of Operations are being compiled now and will be available soon on the Presbytery webpage. These documents are going to be considered “working” or temporary documents until we have completed our Presbytery Discernment process.  After which we will review, adapt, or change the documents to fit our Mission and Vision.

Why does the webpage have highlandspresbyterynj.org as the address?

We are able to change some things easily and quickly and other things are not as easy. We are making changes to the webpage that will reflect the new presbytery. We are working with our webpage company (worshiptimes.org) on getting our website in sync with our new domain name. It may take a week or so to get all lined up.

Newtonpresbytery.org email may change soon. We are working on being able to use both the highlandspresbyterynj.org and the HighlandspresbyteryNJ.org at the same time. More information will be available over the next couple of weeks.

Where did the Highlands Logo come from?

The Presbytery of the Highlands logo is a temporary/placeholder logo until the time when a new logo that best identifies the new presbytery can be designed.  Special Thank You to Elder Ken Nickel for the design.

What about Per Capita and Mission giving payments? 

The churches of the former Newton Presbytery will continue to submit their per capita by sending it to the presbytery office in Randolph. Everyone else will be receiving instructions next week after the finance people of the new presbyteries meet with the Synod Administrative Commission.  More info coming soon.

Do we send the checks to Presbytery of the Highlands or Presbytery of Newton?

Until further notice please make out all check to the Presbytery of Newton. There are some steps we need to take before we become a new corporation. Until then we are operating under the Presbytery of Newton Corporation. We will let you know when we change over.

What’s next?

Many things will happen at the same time. The immediate next steps include training teams and committees, developing a Discernment Process, and working through the corporation and financial issues of the transition.