In the way of introduction, I grew up at Grace Presbyterian Church, from the Cradle Roll all through Sunday School and youth groups, and I even taught Sunday School at Grace while I was in college. My brothers Wayne and Sandy and I were just three among so many children in that church in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. My husband Rick and I married at Grace in 1971, just like my parents did in 1941. We got special permission from Rev. Wynne, pastor at the time, to allow Paul Leggett to marry us, since he had grown up there with me. I believe we were the first couple he married as an ordained pastor (not then at Grace). A few years later, Rick and I moved to New England where we lived with our children for 15 years, but we’d visit Grace on every trip home to NJ. When we eventually moved back to NJ and returned to Grace Presbyterian as new former members, there was Paul Leggett in the pulpit as pastor! It was a full-circle moment! From my first pastor at Grace Presbyterian, Dr. Frank Hunger, to Rev. Dr. Paul Leggett who had grown up with me at Grace. Our daughter Mandy also was married at Grace in 2002, in a ceremony officiated by her pastor, Dr. Paul Leggett, with Elisabeth Leggett as her maid of honor. I was baptized there, as were both our children, and some of our grandchildren. When we moved back, it was as though the kids had taken over the church! And it was an amazing thing to witness God’s faithfulness at Grace after having been away for so long.
Rick and I both served as elders and deacons at Grace from the late 1980s until 2001, when we launched our kids into adulthood while simultaneously helping both my parents, Helen and Alex Samson, to navigate their last 10 years with us before the Lord called them home. Paul preached at both of their memorial services at Grace, and their ashes are buried in the Memorial Garden. It’s just a lifetime of profound memories and precious moments. When my husband died 10 years later, we were living at the shore and were active members at my current local church. But Paul was there, preaching at Rick’s memorial service at the shore. And I still carry my love of Missions, which was fostered at Grace Presbyterian Church. I finally went to Africa on a mission trip in 2013, after hearing all the stories from returning missionaries supported by Grace. It was so powerful that tears welled up as the plane landed in Malawi.
One of the hardest things I ever had to do was change my life-long membership at Grace Presbyterian Church to new memberships in other churches as we moved from place to place. But I learned then, The Church is God’s People, the Body of Christ, wherever you are. It can be different in style and expression, but if the Gospel is at the core, and the people are faithful, it will feel like Home. Like Grace Presbyterian Church.
~ Judy Samson Haas ~ December 12, 2023
The Stone Church
It’s been a few months since the devastating fire at Grace Presbyterian Church, and I know I’m not the only one still processing my thoughts. But amid the reminiscing, storytelling, tears and laughter with family and friends, I keep recalling this one story that my dad, Alex Samson, loved to tell, about how our family ended up at Grace Presbyterian Church so many years ago — just about 100 years ago, in fact. It speaks to me today, maybe even more profoundly now.
As a Scottish immigrant in 1922, my grandfather worked on new house construction. One day he arranged for his wife Elizabeth to meet him on Dodd Street, Montclair, to see a house he was working on. He hoped they could purchase it for their young family. So, she bravely hopped on the trolley with their four young children in tow, disembarked at Grove Street, and proceeded to walk in from Bloomfield Ave. They walked hand in hand, my grandmother with her four littles, John, Agnes, Alex, and Bill, to be sure they all stayed close together on their adventure. As they were passing by Grace Presbyterian Church, which was still a rather new building, she stopped quite suddenly and stood there facing the church, hand in hand with her little ones. She read the sign on the church’s stone marquee on the front lawn:
“GRACE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH – THE STONE CHURCH WITH A WARM HEART”.
According to my dad, they stood there for quite a while when, suddenly and decisively, she proclaimed to the children that this would be their new church home! Little Alex was only about five years old then, but he remembered it clearly as a defining moment in their lives. It was as though she had consulted with God while they stood there, and knowing my Granny, I’m sure she and God had a full conversation about it. To hear my dad tell this story as an adult, you would have envisioned Moses on the mountaintop. They bought the house.
As with so many others at Grace Presbyterian, it truly did become our family’s “home,” in so many ways. My grandparents, my dad, and all his siblings, served the Lord there in so many ways over the years, as did their descendants after them. There were baptisms, weddings, memorial services, burials in the Memorial Garden. So many precious and life-changing memories — of Missions Conferences, youth groups, Sunday School, youth retreats, the list goes on. As kids, we explored every nook and cranny of that building. As an adult, every time I entered the sanctuary, I could sense the presence of “that great cloud of witnesses” the Bible speaks of. It was a powerful feeling. Our family has now been involved for five generations. But there have been, and are, so very many others from Grace for whom I’m so grateful. Teachers, mentors, leaders, friends. It wasn’t just about serving others, it was about faithfully seeking and serving God, and learning, growing, and maturing in our faith — together. THIS is the Church.
After the initial shock of the fire, like everyone else connected with Grace, I wondered, “What’s next?”
Very quickly, I remembered that ‘the church” is not the building — it is God’s people, carrying out His witness — just like we were taught in the Sunday School and sanctuary of that building. I remembered about the Israelites learning to seek God as they wandered the desert for forty years. (I can still picture Moses on the flannelgraph in Mrs. Lindsay’s kindergarten class). And just like them, I am reminded of God’s amazing grace, repeatedly and often. But I loved learning that God is faithful. He can (and does) use each of us, not because of who we are, but because we are His. I have no doubt He will continue to use the people of Grace Presbyterian Church.
Recently discussing the fire with one of my cousins, I commented, “Well, the Church is not the building”, to which she then quickly replied, “Yes, but it sure is where all those memories were made.” And she is so very right. I cherish those memories, and I grieve for our collective loss. There’s no denying the loss. But the lessons learned in those memories do not fade away. They sustain me. So, I can grieve the loss, but with hope for the future and with gratitude for what God has already done.
The morning Grace Presbyterian Church was burning, I was at Memorial Sloane Kettering Hospital having a biopsy. It was not lost on me that decades earlier, my sister-in-law Julie battled cancer there for close to ten years, and I thought of her as I went under anesthesia. My brother Sandy and his wife Barbara who had brought me there were sitting in the hospital waiting room as they got the news about the fire, but I didn’t learn about it until that evening — no one wanted to upset me while I recovered. But once I knew, I instantly started remembering all the people from Grace, so very many people from so long ago, who stepped up to help Julie, and Sandy and their young children, Heather and Michael — with rides for appointments, some to Memorial Sloane Kettering Hospital in NYC, meals, prayers, visits, love, support, and so much more — help that went on for years. This is The Church. Not the building — but God’s people in action. There are so many more stories like this one, of people from Grace being the hands and feet of God wherever He called them. This is something a fire cannot destroy.
The truth is, the Church is a group of imperfect people who, only by God’s faithfulness and grace, His unmerited favor, are lifted up so we can come before Him to worship, love, and serve each other in His name. This is what has always driven the congregation of Grace Presbyterian Church. There is something so inherently perfect that this church is called “Grace.” As my nephew reminded me the other day, “His grace is more than sufficient.” That it is, Michael. That it is.
It seems fitting now that even though the beautiful interior of the church burned so intensely, the “stone church” structure still stands. In all that destruction, it did not crumble. I cannot help but think of the parable of building one’s house upon the rock. When I had this thought, my head started singing the childhood song about it, with all the hand gestures I learned in Sunday School…. “The wise man built his house upon the rock…”
Matthew 7:24-25: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”
May Grace Presbyterian Church always be “The Stone Church with the Warm Heart” for generations to come, always faithfully building upon the Rock and seeking to follow the Lord wherever He leads.
Isaiah 43:19; “See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”