Donald L. Friederichsen, a resident of New Providence, New Jersey, was ordained and installed as the fifth Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Millburn and Short Hills. The ordination and installation service took place at the church on Sunday, March 25, at 5:00 pm.

Pastor Friederichsen will serve as the new Pastor of the church, following the retirement of the current Pastor, Dr. David Miner of West Orange, New Jersey, who has faithfully served the church as Pastor for the past twenty years.

Having grown up in Chattanooga, Pastor Friederichsen is a graduate of the University of Tennessee (B.A., ’99). His majors were History and Religion. He was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ during his college years.

Following college Donny (as he is called) moved to Minsk, Belarus for a little over a year with Campus Crusade. He was part of a team of recent grads who did campus ministry there. The group included a young woman named Kim who later becane his wife, Kim. Following this, he moved back to Chattanooga. Soon after he and Kim were married. she was working at First Presbyterian in Chattanooga and he was working for a small local government.

They felt a desire to be in full-time ministry and went on staff with Campus Crusade. They were placed at the University of Kentucky and spent 5 years in Lexington. They left Kentucky to work at Campus Crusade’s headquarters in Orlando, FL. During a year at CCC’s headquarters, Donny’s desire to leave CCC and enter the pastoral ministry was solidified. He left staff and moved up the road to RTS-Orlando and graduated with an MDiv in 2011,

During his time at RTS he was blessed to be a teaching assistant for Dr. Charles Hill (Greek), Dr. Bruce Waltke (Hebrew), and Dr. Don Sweeting (Church History). During seminary he also served as an intern at St. Paul’s PCA in Orlando under Rev. Tom Patton and Rev. Frank Cavalli (who is a native NJ).

Donny gave some additional personal information to The Aquila Report:

My wife is fantastic. You can quote me on that. She was on the same small team in Minsk, Belarus. She is tremendous with mentoring and discipling young women. She is a trained vocalist and looks forward to being able to use her gift in teaching and performance. But primarily she is a wife and a mom. My kids are Hunter (7), Millie (almost 5), and Will (15 mos). We currently homeschool, but are trying to evaluate the options here in northern NJ. We will likely homeschool, but have not quite decided just yet.

Kim and I are excited to be here in the Metro NY area. I believe NJ is the most densely populated state in the country. The town in which we actually live (New Providence) was founded in 1720 and the local church (New Providence Pres. PCUSA) is nearly that old. The town was known as Turkey, NJ but in 1759 a crowded church balcony at the presbyterian church collapsed. No one was seriously injured. It was declared to be a divine act of providence, so the name of the town was changed to New Providence (that’s kinda unique). Additionally, the Metro NY area could claim to be the birthplace of American Presbyterianism with presbyterian congregations dating back to the 1640’s, though they weren’t “technically” presbyterian because there weren’t enough churches to constitute a presbytery (according to Hart & Muether on the opc.org website).

The history of the church in this area is deep and rich. And yet, today this area remains one of the least churched in the country. We pray for this area and ask your readers to pray that God would bless our efforts and multiply his church in the Metro NY area. May they recapture their first love, repent of their sins, and turn to Christ by faith.

Covenant Presbyterian Church of Millburn and Short Hills is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Covenant Presbyterian meets in the historic White Oak Ridge Chapel on Parsonage Hill Road.

Editor’s Note: NJ.com contributed to this report