A Shining Light in the Darkness
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
Trenton, NJ
by Student Researchers Anne Nelson and Madison DeLuca
When we arrived at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, twenty minutes before worship began on a Sunday morning in February 2023, we initially tried to enter through the front door, but it was locked. We tried other doors and eventually found one that was unlocked in the rear of the building. We became worried – we wondered if this physical barricade to get inside the church building would negatively affect our experience of the church. How would we get in? And what would we find if we did? Once inside the sanctuary, the space was thick with companionable silence. We found seats and began to hear Liberian worship music filling the room, accompanied by kind words of welcome and open-armed embraces as members filtered in. This suffusion of warmth extended throughout the morning. For example, the passing of the peace portion of the service took over ten minutes because everyone took significant time to greet everyone else, including us, with hugs and extended conversation. Shortly thereafter, when a congregant’s birthday was announced, she was invited to the front of the sanctuary and the congregation lined up the aisles to hug her, one after another.
Reverend Raymond Kolison described worship – the Sunday service and the music that the congregants sing – as solace, “Worship is a solace, like a fuel. You fill up the tank, and you drive all week and you run low, and you come back on Sunday, get refreshed and you keep moving through the rest of the week.” Other members found ways to express the same sense of homecoming, which included the way they experienced Sundays, as well as the way they felt about the community they built in their church and in Trenton. Church member John Kollie used the symbol of a candle burning to express the simultaneous solace of Redeemer, but also its preciousness and precarity, “Redeemer for me [is] like a candle … a light is just almost going out – it’s barely surviving to light up a room. But yet I said – you can try to walk by and test [the] light… That light that’s just in the community that when I’m far away and see… I want to come by. And that’s what makes me want to keep coming.”
Each of these descriptions of congregational life pointed to certain simultaneities within the life of the body at Redeemer, a congregation that runs low on fuel, a candle flame that flickers, a congregation facing declining membership, facing significant challenges within and outside of the life of the church. This congregation was inspired to dream of working in community outreach and saw certain needs within the congregation itself, such as the changing needs of elder members of the community, who are no longer able to attend Sunday service and were visited by the pastor and other congregants instead. The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was an enduring light of warmth, rest, and recharge for the congregation and the surrounding area. Yet in our focus group, we discussed a combination of recent stressors. The impact of COVID was significant, causing attrition in attendance and shifts in church programming that the church was just beginning to recover from. Other ongoing concerns included members taxed by long hours at work, the stigma of Trenton as a place that outsiders perceived as unsafe, and vigilance in helping Redeemer’s youth navigate experiences of cultural insensitivity and lack of inclusion.
While discussing the youth ministry, we heard about various events that were life-giving to the congregation. This included trips that the youth attended, but also fellowship retreats that the men’s and women’s ministries enjoyed, as well as current ministries like meal deliveries which occur on Thursdays. These examples gave a sense of the exuberant community that bound Redeemer in fellowship over the years. However, many of these events were spoken of in the past tense, which helped us understand the real impact of attrition, accompanied by a discernible nostalgia for the larger church congregation that existed before the pandemic.
Rev. Kolison described the core of Redeemer’s sense of call as a desire to belong to one another and to bless each other and the surrounding community. He spoke to us eloquently about the pressures that the congregants face, “And with all of that, they still find the time and the space for others. To serve others. And I think that’s – that’s Redeemer.” Moved by this glowing praise, we found ourselves returning to questions about the flickering flame. For instance, Rev. Kolison admirably described a desire for outreach, saying: “Let’s get out there… reach out to the community, partner with others, and not just focus on being here …that’s my vision for Redeemer.” Yet we wondered if more focus on the congregation’s recent ministries might bring renewed energy and vision for everyone.
Two very significant sources of hope and energy existed in the congregation, which we witnessed through visiting and conversation, including the congregation’s rootedness in worship and their active, highly respected youth ministry. The music kept Rev. Kolison coming back to worship before he became the pastor at Redeemer. In an interview, Rev. Kolison shared, “I remember those songs because I grew up with those songs back in Liberia. So, I found myself singing the songs also.” Music was a constant presence in the Sunday service and began with the recordings playing in the background before the service started and prominently included an extended worship set in the middle of the service. The background music played before the service was lively, Christian, sung in English, and West African languages. The lively, vibrant musical culture of Redeemer was a good outlet into learning who they were as a community who worship together. The passion of the performers and the congregants showed a glimpse into the spiritual and communal heart of the members. As we sang, stood, sat, swayed, clapped, and played drums throughout the time of praise, we felt the cares of the week recede as we turned our attention fully and meditatively to song and prayer.
Another element of powerful ministry was the strong youth programming and the immense care which the church family and individual families extended toward the children in their midst. Amid challenges that ran the gamut from decreased funding to an experience with discrimination at a denominational gathering, Redeemer was passionate about raising up their youth in a place of safety and preparing them with a sense of confidence for leadership, whether they decide to come back or to settle down in other locations. Rev. Kolison shared that the congregation was trying “to raise up new generational leaders in the church through our youth and children.” Recently, Redeemer elected youth officers to serve in leadership positions and had the largest representation of youth in the entire ELCA New Jersey Synod. Before being called to serve at Redeemer, Rev. Kolison previously worked in the Trenton School District where his passion for youth initially took root. Rev. Kolison’s prior knowledge and continuing passions, along with the dedicated congregation members, helped Redeemer’s youth ministry enfold into what it is today.
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was a church that was easy to fall in love with. We encountered enthusiasm, generosity, and vision from the pastor and members of the church. However, it appeared that the congregation was also strained, looking back to prior iterations of the body, looking ahead with open questions about the future. Sustaining an immigrant church in a struggling city like Trenton was an enormous challenge that caused the flame of hope to flicker and threaten to fade. However, by leaning into their Spirit-filled worship and youth leadership, the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer has so much to give. May they not grow weary in doing more but let their light shine so that it may become a beacon, even in darkness.
