Grace Church in Nutley has a New Priest —Meet the Rev. Asa Coulson

NUTLEY, NJ - The Rev. Asa Coulson is serving as the new priest in charge at Grace Church in Nutley. He is about halfway through his first year serving the Nutley congregation. Although Coulson moved to the township at the end of March, he began his preaching journey in Nutley in mid-January. Coulson recently served for over four years at Grace Church in Madison, where he was the associate rector. Prior to Madison, he was the pastoral associate at Saint James Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Although he took over from the former rector, the Rev. Pamela Bakal, who retired at the end of June,

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Coulson doesn’t yet hold that title. According to Coulson, after about three years, the congregation decided to either keep him or begin the search all over again. He explained the only difference between his title, priest in charge and rector, Bakal’s former title, is tenure.

“There's a little bit of a Honeymoon period, always when you first meet people. And so I think most people seem to like me. No one likes changes, I don’t like change, no one likes changes; so trying to make changes [that are] somewhat small,” he said.

According to Coulson, some of the changes that were made were basically a force of habit. “Some of those changes I made accidentally, I didn’t know were changes; they're just how I always did things,” he said.

One of those accidental changes is when he first comes up to the chancel, he reverences (kisses) the altar. He said that not every priest performs that gesture.

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“[The] Rev. Pam did a great job, she was here for almost three decades and that's a testimony to both her and the parish. She did great things. [...] Sometimes, after 30 years people are open to a little bit of change,” he said.

He tried not to change too much though. “I want to give it a full year of experiencing how they do things. Sometimes, things aren’t going to happen just because they went out of fashion [...],” he said.

One thing that changed was during Holy Week — the Last Supper, the congregation had a meal together consisting of Mediterranean food then they moved into the communion liturgy. “Because that’s what Jesus had done,” said Coulson.

Changes have been happening all along, especially since the recent pandemic. “The world has changed since COVID[-19]. The church cannot look like it did 20 years ago; it can’t even look like it did five years ago, truthfully. The world has changed so much,” he said.

Coulson asked how the congregation can meet the needs of the community and be good members. “How are we being a place where the community can find, whether it's that spiritual thing or if we can support them in some other way,” he asked.

Grace church still offers their Sunday services via Zoom, however Coulson said they plan to move back to YouTube and possibly Facebook. Coulson said they may need to upgrade the technology but he claims the camera and sound system are in excellent shape. He’s getting advice from the AV technician in his old congregation. “Zoom is good for Bible studies and meetings [...] it's not really great for church,” he said.

Grace Church has 12 or so people watching online at any given Sunday that are either homebound or traveling and want to stay connected, explained the new priest. “That's also the way people try out worship places now. I know I wouldn;t try out a new church if I couldn’t see it before I went,”  he said.

Another goal of his is in the next few months to update the congregation’s website. Coulson said it's a bit outdated.

NEW PROGRAMS

Grace Church is gearing up for the new congregational year with new activities.

One new upcoming program will be held on Wednesday nights called “Pizza and Prayer.” He shared that children and their families will make pizza, then do a craft or a service project while the pizzas are cooking. After dinner, they will close with the Compline — end of the day prayer. “It's a good way for families to worship together,” he said.

Another program he said would be “Dinner for Eight” or “Table for Six” to just get people together to learn more about each other. Small groups will have dinner together once a month either one person hosts eight people or a group of six gather out for dinner. If it runs a program year each person only hosts once or twice. “There’s no religious component to it, it's more spiritual; about building community,” he said.

He mentioned that he would like to do a musical worship service in the spring, where it's strictly music.

HOBBIES

When Coulson is not performing his minister duties, he is playing with his dog, a Vizsla (Hungarian Pointer), named Asher Dominic which means happiness or blessing of the Lord. The 11 year old dog has been his companion since he was a puppy, only 10 weeks old and was with him throughout seminary.

The reverend keeps busy with some hobbies as well. Just looking around Coulson’s office and seeing his LEGO brick coon display, anyone can tell he is a fan of the plastic building-block toys. Recently, Coulson went to a LEGO event near Poughkeepsie, New York to meet the fourth season winners of LEGO Masters, a competition show. The meet and greet was at a distillery that he invested in.

He’s a big fan of Captain America, in which he has a large figurine on display in his office.

Additionally, he possesses a National Park passport where he has over 100 stamps of parks he has visited. He is also an avid soccer fan and has season tickets to the Major League Soccer games.

Coulson is in the writing and research process of his doctoral dissertation and plans on graduating from Drew University in May 2025.

He enjoys Nutley life, everything is close by including the coffee shop and grocery store. “One of the things that I think is really cool is Nutley has a small town feel but upstairs in the rectory I can see New York City,” he said.

Coulson is a member of the Diocesan Council and a co-chairperson of the Diocesan Youth Commission.

Grace Episcopal Church, 200 Highfield Lane on Sunday mornings at 8 and 10 starting on Sept. 8. For more information, visit gracenutley.org .

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