Feasts and Friends: Meals served at Christ Church

Remembering that the risen Christ cooked breakfast for his friends on the beach, we take seriously the holy work of feeding one another. However, we don't take it solemnly. Everything on this page exists because it is genuinely fun. Even the cleaning up. The Wardens have a simple rule: if we're showing up out of obligation rather than delight, we stop doing it.

Christ Church is now large enough, drawing from several towns and school systems, that knowing one another takes a little intentionality. A shared meal is still the best technology ever invented for that. If an event requires tickets or sign-up, you'll find the details here on the website and hear about it during The Peace on Sunday morning. And please bring friends. Visitors who arrive at a Christ Church event will find themselves welcomed, introduced, fed, and very possibly talked into coming back.

Coffee Hour
Depending on how you count the sacraments, at Christ Church, Coffee Hour is the eighth. Homemade baked goods, juice, and fair-trade coffee and tea are served after both Sunday services. It is not optional. (Of course, technically it is optional. But why wake up this early on a Sunday if you're not going to finish the morning in Parish Hall?!?! Plus, the rest of us will miss you.)

All-Parish Brunches
At least three times a year, we gather for one combined Eucharist at 9:00 a.m. and follow it with a brunch that is staggering in both variety, and quality. The Welcome Back Brunch, held the Sunday after Labor Day, is our chance to regroup after hectic summer vacations. The Shrove Sunday Brunch falls on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and serves as our last hurrah before Lent. And in June, a final brunch celebrates our children and youth.

Parish Dinners
Two to four times a year, our Parish Administrator, her wife, and their daughter, a professional chef, cook pasta, homemade sauce and meatballs,  for a crowd of thirty to sixty. It is an extraordinarily generous gift of love, and the ticket price barely covers the cost of ingredients. These dinners fill up. Watch for the announcement.

The Annual Soup-Off
On a Saturday evening each February, a great many of our members and friends gather for the ultimate culinary challenge. Since 1960, Christ Church has convened to elect the Soup-Maker of the Year. The competition is fierce. The judging is subjective. The leftovers are fought over.

Breakfast with Santa
At our annual Breakfast with Santa, children enjoy a pancake and sausage breakfast and then visit our Santa Shack to shop for gifts for everyone on their list. With kid-friendly prices and plenty of help with selection and gift-wrapping, the kids have a wonderful time stocking up on presents to place under the tree. Once the shopping is done, Santa stops by to hear about holiday wishes and pose for photos.

Easter Eggstravaganza
On the Saturday before Easter, our children gather to color eggs and tear through an Easter egg hunt, with a visit from the Easter Bunny and photos to prove it. Pancake-flipping and other kitchen duties are handled by far more youth and adults than are strictly necessary, all of whom enjoy one another's company and "encourage" Matt and Mike in their pancake-making technique.

Advent & Lenten Dinners
Our weekday evening Lenten study is preceded each week by dinner. Twenty to thirty of us gather first for a meal, sometimes cooked by a priest and sometimes cooked by someone who knows what they're doing, and then settle into discussion. It is one of the quieter, lovelier rhythms of our year.

Parish Fundraisers

Fall Gala Tricky Tray
Our Fall Gala is one of the most anticipated nights on the calendar: over a hundred beautifully assembled baskets, grand prizes, and an energy in the room that is hard to describe until you've been in the middle of it. Get your tickets early. We sell out every year.

Spring Designer Bag Bingo
A small, curated Tricky Tray is followed by several rounds of bingo with designer handbags as the prizes. It is exactly as competitive as you are imagining.

Town-Wide Garage Sale
Community members from across Passaic County and farther descend on the Ramapo Avenue lawn for this enormous sale, where untold treasures await the patient and the persistent. Proceeds support the ministries of the Thrift Shoppe and Shepherd's Haven.