Nassau Presbyterian Church Adult Education

Nassau Presbyterian Church

We invite you to join us in deep learning and spiritual reflection. Our goals are to create community, teach the biblical story, and respond to the challenge of the gospel in our world today. Come, be fed so that you may be sent.

  1. 12/21/2025

    Stories of Gratitude and Blessings

    As we come to the final days before Christmas, Maria LoBiondo will share tales from the oral tradition that highlight the themes of humility, compassion, and joy found in Mary’s song/prayer in Luke’s gospel, the Magnificat. Come hear tales that reinforce our connections to people around the world and to each other, and offer possibilities for reflection on the deeper meaning of how we welcome the Divine in our lives. (c)2025 Nassau Prebyterian Church. All rights reserved. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email). Storyteller Maria LoBiondo delights in sharing the old tales — myths, folk and wonder tales — as well as literary tales with listeners of all ages. She believes these stories create a world of their own as they unfold in the telling, connecting us with previous generations and with each other today. Her engaging style and lively expressions have enchanted listeners for more than 30 years, including congregation members at Nassau Presbyterian, where she has told folk tales, interpretations of Tolstoy’s works, and Henry van Dyke’s classic, “The Other Wise Man.” Maria’s approach is shaped by the belief that stories—whether ancient or contemporary, simple or profound—carry the power to form us, guide us, and bring us closer to one another and to God. Her Advent storytelling tradition, in particular, has become a beloved part of Nassau’s seasonal rhythm, offering the congregation a chance to enter the mystery and joy of Christ’s coming through the beauty of story.

    48 min
  2. 11/30/2025

    Between Promise and Arrival: An Advent Poetry Workshop

    Advent invites us to dwell in the tension between promise and fulfillment, waiting and arrival. In this session of Adult Education, we’ll read and discuss poems that echo the spiritual practice of waiting — from poets who find holiness in uncertainty, patience, and hope. Through shared reflection and conversation, together we will look at how poetry can shape our Advent imagination and open us to God’s quiet presence in the meantime. (c)2025 Nassau Prebyterian Church. All rights reserved. For permission requests, contact Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, (609-924-0103, email). Thais Carter is the Director for Strategic Initiatives at Princeton Theological Seminary and Associate Director of Iron Sharpening Iron, an executive leadership program serving women across the US and Canada. She serves on the Adult Education Committee for Nassau Presbyterian Church; is the current board president for the Westminster Foundation, the nonprofit that supports Princeton Presbyterians; and is a board member for LitWorld, a nonprofit focused on literacy and social-emotional learning initiatives for children and women. Her love of poetry emerged from her training with the Civic Reflection Initiative and the ways this form of expression enabled meaningful discourse across difference. Virginia Kerr is a Princeton attorney, a member of Nassau’s Adult Education Committee, and a member of the Steering Committee of Nassau’s Mass Incarceration Task Force. She has loved poetry from a very early age and still has fond memories of her sixth grade teacher’s reading of Millay’s The Ballad of the Harp Weaver. As a volunteer for Nassau’s ABC Prison Literacy, she taught poetry classes at New Jersey State Prison and the Mercer County Correctional Facility. In recent years, she has included poetry in story sessions she facilitated at FCI Fairton for the non-profit People & Stories, Gente y Cuentos. She has a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, with a minor in English Literature, an M.A. in the Teaching of English from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

    46 min

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We invite you to join us in deep learning and spiritual reflection. Our goals are to create community, teach the biblical story, and respond to the challenge of the gospel in our world today. Come, be fed so that you may be sent.

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