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News 12 Staff

89spotlightnj2_2025-08-09-09-18-21

We are featuring Zion Tabernacle of Praise here on Spotlight New Jersey. Reverend Ruth A. Harley Boyd is pastor. Jeannette Keyes is a member, and ladies, I love that opening shot with your logo. Pastor Ruth, you started this church when and how, and you got the calling at age 12. Age 12, yes, I grew up in a house full of ministers. My grandmother came into Jersey from Pennsylvania, founded a church in Summerville, New Jersey. My father then became pastor. My mom took over when my father passed. So a long line, a long legacy of pastoring churches. I founded based on the call from God, Zyan Tabernacle of Cras in Piscataway, New Jersey, and we began on January 1st, the year 2000. Um, believe it or not, it started with just 3 members, and it started in my home, so God has blessed us and he is continuing to grow us and mature us at Zion, we, uh, from the inception we strive to reflect Jesus Christ through. An uncompromising attitude of excellence, holiness, and love. We are here to serve and we live out loud. Most people don't do that today, but we like to live out loud everything we teach and preach. What does it mean to live out loud? Live out loud means to, even though we are not perfect, we're striving to mark the perfect man who is Christ Jesus, so we live out loud. I can't talk about something and preach something unless you can see me give the example out loud to the world and to the community. How big is your body of members? We are, I can't, we're big in Christ, small in membership, uh, we've anywhere from 50 to 70 people over the years, uh, which is really good for me personally. I think the smaller the congregation, the more the pastor can get and be in tune to what the members need. I can talk one on one with them, bring them to a maturity in Christ, and then send them out to do exactly the same. So within Zion, even though we may have members who have gone out, we've got members who actually started their own ministries. They're evangelizing throughout the community here in New Jersey.

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89spotlightnj3_2025-08-09-12-19-15

I'm speaking with Reverend Ruth A. Harley Boyd who is pastor of Zion Tabernacle of Praise and member Jeannette Keys. Ladies, let's talk about some video that we have of a mini conference that you all have going on at the church. So in May we held a mini conference and it was health conference actually it was on mental health. It showed we talked about elder care and we also talked about education. The theme was raising the bar and what we did to just. Live out loud our theme for lunch and for breakfast, and I should say breakfast and lunch. We actually had bar stations so that you got our theme throughout the day, no matter where, what room you were in, whether the sanctuary, the chapel, the hall, you saw our theme being lived out loud. So that was to benefit not just Zion, but we had a lot of visiting guests as well. Um, Zion also internally host and actually have many events, uh, that those events promote and actually forward our ministry. One such event was Scholastic Achievement, and that's a celebration we have annually to reward and honor all of Zion's scholars. What we do is it focuses on their education, it teaches our youth and our young adults. That education both natural and spiritual is not an option. It is definitely required Zy also is generally concerned about the welfare of those less fortunate over the years and currently we continue to host and support many outreach events, uh, we do in a feeding ministry where we actually prepare lunches and dinners for 100+ people. We actually support Fish Incorporated. We give them clothes when they need it. We give them gift cards to supermarkets and gift cards to families as well from other stores. We actually put bags of cleaning supplies together when fish asked for that, but we don't forget about charity begins at home. So even within Zy, our own congregation, we are constantly helping those in need. All the time, not just, you know, today and not tomorrow, but throughout the year we actually support internal our members as well.

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810spotlightnj4_2025-08-10-09-15-24

We are putting the spotlight on Zion Tabernacle of Praise Inc. in Piscataway in Middlesex County. Reverend Ruth A. Harley Boyd is the pastor. Jeannette Keyes is a member. Let's talk about the fact that education, Pastor Ruth, is important for you with your parishioners. You have a degree in computer science. I do have a degree in computer science. I think it's very important because. Education to me is not just teaching them about the Bible. The natural side is first. Even the Bible says first that which is natural then the spiritual. So naturally our children and I have a lot of children incion, they need educations to keep them moving forward in the world today without that. They're not going to find decent jobs or they're not gonna be able to support themselves and I like to be able to see even the youth be able to support themselves as they become mature young adults so education, we promote it, we push it, we award them. I even this year had the college students talk about who they are. Where they are, what schools they attend, and even what they're studying just to get them into the mode of, you know what? I gotta promote myself. I gotta pat myself on the back at times. So we got to learn who they were just by listening to them talk about education. It's important. I see you smiling as she says that. How do you feel about the college kids getting involved too? I love it. It is something that we're actually living out, like she said, living out loud. We are experiencing our core values every day. Education is important. It's a lot of our activities when we talk about Youth Day. You'll see how it's incorporated, um, of educating the youth around, you know, doing events and the like. So I do, I agree, I see it firsthand as being a member of the church, so I enjoy it. What drew you to Pastor Ruth and this church? Wow. um, so in 2020, things were crazy, but you know what, a member of Zion invited me to call the pastor. And instead of her just speaking with me over the phone, she said, come to my house, and she invited me to her dining room table, and she spoke with me using the word of God, and from then on I was just attached with her because I could see how much she cared for me and for the people in her church, but I saw it firsthand at her dining table, so I was attached to her since then.

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810spotlightnj5_2025-08-10-09-20-47

Reverend Ruth A. Harley Boyd, pastor of Zion Tabernacle of Praise Inc and Jeanette Keys, a member, are my guest here on Spotlight New Jersey. Let us talk about your upcoming events. Oh, upcoming events in September and actually on September 6th, we are actually celebrating Jesus. Unlike a lot of churches and people, they celebrate Jesus' birth in December. We believe you should celebrate him anytime. So we're having an event calling it's called Celebrating Jesus September the 6th. It features our Emmet players which are our drama team and also. So our Levitical praise team, they will actually be ministering the word through praise and motion and drama. On September 14th, we've planned an Apple and Eve fall festival for those who love to eat. It's a full meal with numerous apple desserts. We have apple desserts galore, so any kind of apple dessert you may think of, we probably will have on September 14th. And in October, we have Youth Day, so going back to our core value of education and working with the youth and building them up, we will have the youth actually lead and facilitate that particular program, and that gives them an opportunity to actually build their leadership skills, their coordination skills, their communication. Skills and actually in real time work with mentors and be mentored as they develop the program and work towards executing that particular program. So Youth Day in October is a fun event. We get to see the creativity of our youth. We get to answer their questions, their concerns, and actually bring the light, pull out from them the leader that's within.

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Pastor Ruth A. Harley-Boy and church member Jeanette Keys joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss their mission.

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