A Common Bond on Valley Road
St. Timothy Lutheran Church stands on Valley Road in Wayne, New Jersey, a township in northern Passaic County, and has been serving its surrounding community since 1957. The congregation describes itself with a single phrase - "A common bond in community, faith, and love" - and lives into that phrase through a full week of worship, Christian education, music, and outreach. St. Timothy is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), specifically the New Jersey Synod, one of the larger Lutheran bodies in the country. Seven decades in, it is a parish where weekly worship, daily rhythms of service, and a deep connection to the wider Wayne community are all woven together.
Sunday Mornings and the Liturgical Year
Worship at St. Timothy follows a traditional Lutheran pattern built around Word and Sacrament. From September through mid-June the congregation gathers twice on Sunday, at 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., with a Christian Education hour in between. During the summer months of June, July, and August, the schedule condenses to a single combined service at 9:30 a.m. Certain festival days also use a single 9:30 a.m. service, including Reformation Sunday, Palm Sunday, and Pentecost.
Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, is offered at every worship gathering. That intention is stated as a matter of conviction rather than convenience: the church gathers weekly to hear the word of God proclaimed and to assemble around the altar to receive the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Preaching centers on the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the liturgy is supported by music that ranges from traditional anthems to more contemporary settings.
Worship is also open to those who cannot be in the building. Each Sunday the service is streamed live on St. Timothy's YouTube channel and Facebook page, so members and visitors at home or traveling can join in real time.
Christian Education for All Ages
Christian education is woven into Sunday mornings rather than tucked away in a separate hour. Between the two main services, from 9:35 to 10:20 a.m., St. Timothy offers Sunday School for children from Pre-K through sixth grade, Confirmation classes for students in seventh and eighth grade, and an Adult Discussion Forum alongside other Adult Christian Education offerings. Summer Sundays replace the Sunday School portion with a Summer Bible Study for adults, while the children's program continues in its grade-level format.
On Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m., a more informal Bible study gathers with communion at the table. The conversation is held in a smaller circle than the Sunday liturgy and is open to anyone who wants to bring questions. During the summer months the calendar adds a Meditation with Movement session at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, providing space for a slower, embodied practice before the Bible study hour.
Adults seeking more reading can find two regular book groups. The Adult Book Discussion Group meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 10:30 a.m. in the parlor, and the books chosen usually carry a theological component. WELCA's Bookworms circle gathers on the second Saturday of the month at 9:30 a.m. at Barnes & Noble in Woodland Park.
Music and Choir Life
Music is central to worship at St. Timothy. The Alleluia Choir, the adult voice choir under the direction of the Music Director and Organist, sings at worship each Sunday using traditional anthems along with more contemporary music. Rehearsals are held on Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m., and anyone who wants to sing is welcome to come along.
The Jubilate (or Hand Bell) Choir rings throughout the year and rehearses on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m. A Cherub Choir sings for special occasions, and a Youth Choir rehearses prior to Sunday School and contributes to worship at intervals across the church year. Pick-Up and Festival Choirs form around Christmas and Easter and a few other festival days, and instrumentalists are invited to offer musical offerings throughout the church year.
Anyone interested in joining the music program can step into a rehearsal. The wider volunteer team is broad: readers, communion assistants, acolytes, greeters, ushers, members of the Altar Guild, and the Audio/Visual team each play a part in Sunday worship. Two short documents, the Acolyte Manual and the Guidelines for Worship Servers, set out how each of those volunteer roles works.
Faith in Action: Heart n' Hands, Scouts, and the Wider Community
Outreach is organized under the heading "Faith in Action," and the list of ministries is long for a congregation of St. Timothy's size. The most visible is Heart n' Hands Mission, the church's own outreach ministry, which collects and distributes clothing and other necessities to the homeless and working poor of northeastern New Jersey and seeks to keep attention on the needs of that population. Heart n' Hands has its own Facebook and Instagram presence. Donations are received on Mondays from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. through the rear parking lot entrance, with volunteers on hand to help; intake at other times is arranged through the church office.
Troop 107 of the Boy Scouts is chartered by St. Timothy Lutheran Church. It is a non-denominational, boy-led troop organized into patrols, providing opportunities for advancement, leadership, outdoor adventure, and lifelong skills. The troop uses the church as its home base and maintains its own Facebook page.
St. Timothy is a participating congregation of North Jersey Interfaith Cares (NJIC), an interfaith effort that provides compassionate relief to children and families who have been uprooted from their homes or face the threat of homelessness. Recent efforts have focused on Syrian refugee families resettled in the area, with the congregation providing clothing, household items, financial assistance, and volunteer time tutoring them in English.
Each Advent the congregation gathers around the Angel Gifts program, in which members adopt the names of children affiliated with the Center for Family Resources (home of the upper Passaic County Head Start program), purchase and wrap gifts of clothing, and place them under the Jesse Tree. The gifts are delivered in time for Christmas.
The church supports the Wayne Interfaith Network Food Pantry through gifts of non-perishable food, paper products, personal items, gift cards, and cash. Each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, members prepare baskets that are distributed to residents in Wayne who rely on WIN for food and other necessities. Other mission projects include Christmas at Sea (a collection of scarves, hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts, and sweet treats for merchant seafarers far from home) and Valentine Care Packages (cookies baked in January and boxed in February for college students and military personnel). The congregation provides a stew at Eva's Kitchen in Paterson once or twice a year through "Stew Sunday," and supports Lutheran World Relief and the ELCA Hunger Appeal financially.
Women of the ELCA and the Circles
The Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (WELCA) at St. Timothy organize much of the church's service life. WELCA sponsors Christmas at Sea, the monthly Hymn Sing at the Atrium (a senior living community where members gather to sing favorite hymns with residents on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 10:15 a.m.), and the Valentine Care Packages.
WELCA also runs four circles that meet on different rhythms. The Angel Circle meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at noon to cut, pin, and sew quilts for shut-ins and charities. The Miriam Circle meets on the first Wednesday of the month at noon and pairs fellowship with lively Bible study. The Social Issues Circle meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 7:00 p.m. to discuss how faith meets the social questions of the day. Bookworms, the literary circle, gathers on the second Saturday of the month at Barnes & Noble in Woodland Park.
The Building, the Grounds, and Practical Hands
The Monday Morning Crew, a group of retired men, gathers at 9:00 a.m. every Monday to take care of the building: carpentry, painting, plumbing, electrical, masonry, cutting grass, and arranging tables and chairs in Fellowship Hall for events. A gardening group of men and women looks after the grounds; no green thumb is required. Knitters and crocheters from St. Timothy and the wider Wayne community meet on the third Tuesday of the month at 1:00 p.m. to make prayer shawls, chemo caps, infant caps, scarves, and other projects as needs arise.
The building is also open for community use beyond the congregation's own ministries. St. Timothy provides meeting space for several Alcoholics Anonymous groups (the AA Keep It Real group that meets Sundays at 1:00 p.m., the Friday Wayne Valley group, and another Friday AA meeting), Al-Anon, and Head Start. Chair Yoga, led by an outside instructor, meets on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. for a $30 monthly fee; while yoga is not religious in itself, the practice is offered as a way to support spiritual awareness, balance, and clarity.
Sacraments: Baptism and Weddings
Holy Baptism is offered at any age. When infants are baptized, parents and sponsors (Godparents) promise to bring their children to the services of God's house and to teach them the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments, and to provide for their Christian instruction. Parents of young candidates meet with the pastor for instruction and discussion at least once before the sacrament; adults seeking baptism meet for new member instruction. Baptisms ordinarily take place during scheduled liturgies, and except in emergencies are not administered during Lent.
Weddings at St. Timothy are treated as a ministry of the church and a liturgy of the church, and are ordinarily performed for members, prospective members, or members of their families at the pastor's discretion. Requests are made at least six months in advance. Couples are asked to plan three or four counseling sessions with the pastor and to worship regularly during the time of preparation. Because preparing the building for Sunday worship is a substantial undertaking, the church must be cleared by 4:45 p.m. on Saturday.
The Wayne Clergy Fellowship and an Interfaith Community
St. Timothy is part of the Wayne Clergy Fellowship, an interfaith gathering of clergy who meet monthly to support one another and their faith communities. The fellowship includes Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant religious leaders and addresses issues in the wider Wayne community, including hosting an annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. The church is also a participant in the Wayne Interfaith Network, which runs the local food pantry. These ties reflect a congregation that takes its place in the wider religious life of Wayne seriously without losing its Lutheran center.
Pastor Kimberly Schmidt Cooper
The Rev. Kimberly Schmidt Cooper (she/her) was called to St. Timothy in January 2021 and ordained in March of that year. She completed her MDiv at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in May 2020, and during seminary and the waiting period before her first call she did supply preaching and part-time chaplaincy at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Before entering seminary, she served as a children's minister in an Episcopal church in Fort Worth, Texas for four years, and worked in refugee resettlement throughout Texas in a variety of roles, from teaching ESL and citizenship classes to directing the Fort Worth affiliate of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. She and her husband Compton share their home with three daughters, two cats, and a dog.
Her monthly pastor's messages range across theology, the history of American hymnody, scripture translation, women in the early church, peace-making, and the cost of division in contemporary society. She has written about how Martin Luther's understanding of the gospel shapes Christian life today, the way American hymns reflect the diversity of Christianity in the United States, the danger of uncritically equating lightness with godliness, the complexity of peace-making in a fearful world, the importance of speaking to neighbors across divides, and the women of the bible who often go unheard on Sunday mornings.
Listening and Learning
St. Timothy offers space to listen as well as space to serve. Each year the TIPS newsletter gathers congregational news into a single document, and the calendar can be exported to Google Calendar or Outlook. A "Get Involved" survey lets anyone signal where they would like to offer their time and talent, from ushering and reading to teaching Sunday School, chaperoning youth events, coordinating weddings or funerals, helping the Monday Morning Crew, knitting prayer shawls, or singing in one of the choirs. There is room to be part of the music, the education hour, the outreach network, or the building's quiet upkeep, and there is a place in the pews for anyone who wants to come and listen.