April 24, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 3 Glen Rock Reverend Janssen planning fall retirement by John Koster The Reverend Allan Janssen, pastor of Glen Rock Community Church and a familiar figure in local outreach ministries, will be retiring from his post and leaving Glen Rock at the end of September. Pastor of Glen Rock Community Church for 13 years, Rev. Janssen was also one of the prime movers of GRACE, the Glen Rock Assistance Council Endowment, which comforted relatives of the 11 residents killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack and raised emergency funds to support the bereft families until federal assistance locked in. He has also been active in the Dr. Martin Luther King Day commemorations. “Following much prayer and a significant period of discussion with my family, I have decided to retire from the pastoral ministry as of Sept. 30, 2013,” Janssen wrote in a letter to the congregation. “As you might imagine, this has not been an easy decision. We have ministered alongside you for nearly 13 years. This is a vital congregation and it has been my privilege to be your pastor. However, I have completed 40 years of congregational ministry, and the time has come to lay down the work.” Raised in South Dakota and in Iowa, he received a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude at Central College in Pella, Iowa in 1970. He was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament by the Classis Pleasant Prairie, Reformed Church in America in 1973, and later received an MA in philosophy at SUNY Albany and a doctorate in system- chapters in other books, and a large number of articles. He has taught as an adjunct professor at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary since 1998, and was elected a General Synod Professor by the Reformed Church in America in 2012. He and his wife Colleen have three children, Jonathan, Sarah, and Emily, and two grandchildren. Along with his pastoral duties, Janssen said he especially enjoyed hanging out with the Glen Rock Activities Club, a group of retired and semi-retired local men. The group meets at the Glen Rock Community Church for lectures and other activities. “As many of you know, we have a home in Glenmont, New York (just outside the City of Albany),” Janssen wrote (continued on page 19) Reverend Allan Janssen atic theology from Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Literate in Greek and Hebrew as part of his ordination requirement in the Reformed Church in America, Janssen is also literate in Dutch and German and has done research in both languages for his writings, including several books,