Ministerium Places Interfaith, Intertown Outreach and Support at Top of Agenda

Building a bridge to the Muslim community and hosting more programs to help local religious leaders top the agenda for the Westfield/Mountainside Ministerium for the coming year.

The group of local religious leaders, who meet monthly during the school year, have been planning their agenda going forward with a chance to branch out into new areas. The ministerium recently said goodbye to one of their co-leaders, Rev. DeeDee Turlington, the recently retired pastor of the Baptist Church, who led the group with Deacon Tom Pluta from Holy Trinity Church. Pluta is joined on the group's new leadership panel by Kathy Dulan, the religious education at St. Helen's, and Milt Faith, the executive director of Youth and Family Counseling Services.

Faith said one of the group's top goals is to reach out to leaders of the local Muslim community to have them attend one of the group's monthly lunch meetings. He said they would like to build a bridge between the group and the Muslim community to help build more of an interfaith community in the region.

"That's what we're aiming for," Faith said.

He said one of the goals will be to help provide more service opportunities and interfaith programs to the members of the various houses of worship in Westfield. Pluta said this remains one of the key goals of the ministerium.

"We feel a dialogue could open up with other religious groups," Faith said.

Providing more of a support system to local religious leaders remains a top item for the group. Dulan said the group serves as an informal support system for members, many of whom provide counseling and social services functions to local residents. She said there is a need to provide an outlet for the members to express their own needs.

"We are asked to fill their needs and we have needs too," Dulan said.

The group's monthly meetings rotate between a speaker meeting and more of a social meeting. Pluta said the social meetings focus as a way for religious leaders, along with the non-profit members, to become friends and get to know each other outside of the work context. In addition he said it allows for the needs of the members to be addressed.

The lecture meetings include bringing in the leaders of various groups in the community to discuss ways the organizations can work together on common issues. The business meetings for the year kicked off in September when the ministerium met with Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan to discuss education. Pluta said the group has had a regular meeting with Dolan and her predecessors for a number of years.

The ministerium, which has been around for 50 years, also serves as an informal social services department for the town. Pluta said he and other members have developed a mutual referral system between the various non-profit social services groups on issues and problems. The group had been working with the former town Department of Human Services before it was merged with the county human services agency during a round of budget cuts in the spring. The ministerium has filled some of the coordinating role of the former department since its elimination.

In addition to setting up a meeting with the Muslim community and continuing the social meetings and standing meeting with Dolan, the ministerium is looking to conduct more outreach to similar groups in neighboring communities. Pluta said the group is in the process of reaching out to the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Ministerium and the Cranford Clergy Council. He said these meetings would help allow for a sharing of ideas on support systems for religious leaders and social services in the region.

Continuing existing programs is a top agenda item with the ministerium planning to continue to support include the food pantry at Holy Trinity and the Habitat for Humanity projects. The group may revisit local work on revisiting issues in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and other work they've done with Habitat outside of the Westfield area.

Pluta, a former town councilman, said the ministerium's role can be summed up with the work the group does with Habitat. He said the head of the Greater Plainfield Habitat for Humanity is a former Westfield/Mountainside Ministerium member from his time as an assistant pastor of the Baptist Church.

"We don't need to build relationships with the people who are the heads of these organizations since we already know them," Pluta said.