COLTS NECK – Jeffrey Knol was ordained and installed last month as the 19th Minister of Word and Sacrament of the Colts Neck Reformed Church.
Knol, the 156-year old church’s newest associate pastor, grew up in Michigan and studied history and religion at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich. He graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He and his wife Jamie, also a graduate of Calvin College, married in the summer of 2010.
After living in the same town for 24 years, Knol felt the need to expand his horizons. He applied to and was accepted in the Master’s of Divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2009. During seminary, Knol was drawn to congregational ministry and participated in a number of church internships in Grand Rapids and in New Jersey at Trinity Church in Princeton, and Highland Park.
Knol has worked at Emanuel Lutheran Church in New Brunswick as a part-time youth pastor and during this past summer he filled in as the summer pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park. Along with his work in the church, he recently completed a nine-month course in hospital chaplaincy at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
The thrust of Knol‘s work with the Colts Neck Reformed Church will involve working in the youth ministry and participating in community outreach efforts.
