Diocese of Georgia

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Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about leading congregations that begin to see God’s vision for the creation in the Gospel of Jesus, embrace that vision, and then shape their work to be congruent with that vision. The spiritual energy created by such work is contagious. Once a significant number of people in a congregation begin working together for the Gospel (and not for their own agendas) then miraculous results happen. I have seen this happen in each parish I have served and I am humbled by it. It is a holy ground experience.  This does not happen every day and my experience tells me it takes years of patient work to see it happen, but because I know it is possible, I remain passionately committed to the Church’s ministry. Some might see the Church as inconsequential to what God is up to in the world. I disagree. The Church is at the heart of what God is up to.

In my personal life I am passionate about my wife, Kelly, and our children. Kelly is just amazing. I am more in love with her now than when we were married 25 years ago. She is my rock and a special blessing from God. Our children are smart, funny, and becoming adults and it is quite entertaining (not all the time, mind you) to watch that process. They are good young adults who care deeply about God’s world. Their spiritual and moral centers are strong. 

And I am also passionate about God’s world, even though some might think me naïve, or at least, not paying attention.  That may appear pollyannish to some given all the blood in the ink of the headlines.  I always try to see the world as God sees it, but that doesn’t mean I’m in denial about the world’s reality. God has never been in denial about the world God created. The cross of Jesus is God’s statement of acceptance of the world as it is. And the resurrection of Jesus is God’s declarative statement that the world (as it is) is unacceptable to God. The cross and resurrection help us all keep God’s big picture in mind, which means we can say with Dame Julian of Norwich that “all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

As Rector of St. Paul’s Church, East Cleveland in 1986, the Bishop gave me the charge of transforming the parish from an older white congregation to one that was predominantly black, reflecting the composition of the neighborhood. The congregation 20 years earlier had been over 1000 and all white. By 1986 the city neighborhood had completely changed and the congregation had dwindled to 40 mostly elderly white folk. My first day the Treasurer placed the parish checkbook on my desk and said: “Goodbye.” The parish was in financial free fall. I had to terminate the secretary and organist because we did not have the funds to pay them. Nothing I had ever trained for or experienced prepared me to deal with this situation. A few days later, six members (most of whom were over 65) came into my office and said: “We love God and we love our Church. We want to be a witness in this community. Whatever you need us to do to make that happen, just let us know.” I was amazed at their selflessness and their willingness to give up power and control for the sake of the Gospel and the witness of the Church. And they were true to their word. I have never met a group of people who were so intentionally committed to the Good News and less concerned with their own agendas. Their act and witness made possible the change and growth of the parish. For the next five years, we became a predominantly black parish. The white leadership humbly took a support role and worked diligently with me to build up new leadership within the parish. 

My experience there transformed me personally and taught me a lot about my leadership role in the Church. In order to lead, people have to be willing to follow. In order to follow, people have to trust you and share a consensus with you about where we are headed. And then, we all need to stay focused on the essentials of our shared vision and avoid private agendas. When that happens, the church flourishes. Because this experience happened to me so early in my priesthood, it has stayed with me and been a guide for my leadership in the Church since.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing-some would say threatening-the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion?

I’m grounded by a humble faith in Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior of the world. Because Jesus is Lord and God is sovereign, I believe it is not my role to try to manipulate outcomes, especially during the current unpleasantness. Yes, it is messy now, but God is giving us an opportunity. This is a challenging time in the Church and culture. We are experiencing a massive shift. The “modern world” has given way to the “post-modern world.”  People are reacting to this change differently. Some are resisting it at all costs. They have drawn a line in the sand and said: “no more.” Others are all too eager to adopt whatever the culture offers with no critical perspective.  Still others are just plain stressed out by change.  

Like everyone else, we Episcopalians are along for this ride. But we can bring something important to the public square as our culture endures this sea change. And this is where my personal practice of faith guides me. We can live into our common future by being more Elizabethan, that is by helping one another develop a capacity to attend to one another’s differences with a spirit of love (that’s the Anglican Via Media, that Queen Elizabeth helped create). This may be the most important call God is giving us as a Church right now: to stand between the virulent fundamentalists (no matter their religious stripe) and the cultured despisers of religion by witnessing to the reconciling love of Jesus.

I have no illusions about how challenging this is. It will mean that we will have to take seriously what it means to be people grounded in the Gospel. Such a call will have less to do with just trying to be nicer to strangers or more understanding of those who disagree with us. Rather, such a call from God will ask us to wade deep into troubled waters with both friend and stranger. 

That’s a Church I want to belong to: a Church that takes Jesus seriously when he teaches us about love for enemies, forgiveness in order to be forgiven, and hospitality to the stranger. Being a disciple of such a Lord will be the hardest work we will ever do. Of course, the alternative for us is forget our Anglican roots and identity, hunker down, and become privatized in our religion; doing our religious ritual on Sundays and trying to pretend that what’s happening around us will go away if we just wait it out. We have the opportunity to be witnesses to a different way of being Christian: one that takes discipleship in Jesus seriously, but also one that is open to the new things the Holy Spirit is up to in the world. My hunch is there are a lot of Georgians who think they have only two choices: adopt the fundamentalist agenda hook, line, and sinker or reject Christianity as being irrelevant. Wouldn’t it be compelling to show them a different way of following Jesus?

 

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Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about changed lives.  The more I experience how wonderfully and completely God transforms our lives, the more excited I become.  Last Sunday after worship, for instance, a young man – 35 years old or so – approached me with a glum face and said, “I do believe in the Christian message, I’m just tired of not living it.”  He thought I would take that as bad news, yet I knew from my own life that he was on the precipice of a changed life – one that will transform his marriage, his parenting, his work, and his myriad web of associations.  What he thought was bad news was really the entryway of the Good News – the best news a man or woman will ever receive.

Because I am passionate about changed lives, I am eager and ambitious to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them.  On that accord, my longtime hero is the late Sam Shoemaker, rector of Calvary Church, Pittsburg and one of the silent founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Fr. Shoemaker’s famous poem, I Stand by the Door, begins this way:

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.
The door is the most important door in the world -
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

All of us in the Church should be poised at the door – better still on the sidewalk or on the street or in our neighbors’ homes clamoring to bring others into the transformative faith community in which we have been imbibed.  True, it takes work, a different kind of work than at first is comfortable for our parishes.  Yet I assure you that once we begin opening the doors wide in our churches – from the largest urban ones to the tiniest missions tucked away in the pines – we will fill them.  

The passion I bring to my vocation proceeds from the deepest reservoir of my self.  I am completely and hopelessly in love with my wife – who was my sixth grade sweetheart in Birmingham, AL and has been my best friend these many years of our marriage and before.  On the very day she consented to marry me, we marched right up to the altar rail at Trinity Church, Natchez, MS, where I was serving as a youth pastor.  We knelt down, and I asked God to bless our marriage and family.  God then changed my life wonderfully and irrevocably through Kay and our three children.

That’s why I continually picture the young mother arising on a Sunday morning determined to change her life.  She shakes her toddler daughter into her tights, brushes the cowlick out of her six year-old son’s hair, and prepares herself for church – a threshold she has not crossed in fifteen years or more.  We must be poised at the door for her arrival, painstakingly taking actions on her behalf from that Sunday morning and throughout the next week.  The parish will likely only get one chance to do so, and that’s the only avenue I know to change the world.

2.  Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of personal growth and change.

I was somewhat shocked to discover that my greatest challenge in ministry would occur in what seemed to be a sleepy hill country town, Wimberley, Texas.  When I arrived here to serve as rector four years ago, the parish was still smoldering on the pyre of the Gene Robinson consecration.  Several key families left Saint Stephen’s to join Saint John’s, New Braunfels, and they eventually formed the nucleus of a breakaway contingency.  Saint Stephen’s was left with a $1,100,000 building debt, the entirety of our 2004 diocesan assessment unpaid, and, more importantly, a community that was badly frayed with division and distrust.

No sooner did I step into my new office than the heat of the controversy blasted me.  I first began to get notes by mail insisting that I remove all suspected homosexual persons from service at the altar.  From another quarter, a couple I’d come to respect exited the parish because I would not bless the anniversaries of same-sex couples.  

I was beginning to think I had misheard God and taken a bad call.  Not only was the subterranean tension in the parish stifling, but I felt out of place with the very vocal extremists in both parties.  I am an orthodox, Biblically-centered Christian, yet with a comprehensive Anglican sensibility.  I planned neither to eject people from the Lord’s service nor to revise the central tenets of our faith.  In the face of the pressures I was experiencing, I needed advice and fast.

To that end, I sought out a counselor whom I respected but did not know.  Also, I wanted someone who had no supervisory authority over me.  In a moment of supreme lucidity, I called Bishop John McNaughton.  He graciously agreed to see me, and we met at a San Antonio restaurant.  Between bites of my Chicken Caesar salad, I explained to him my dilemma.  Bishop McNaughton listened attentively, but then he put down his own fork, peered at me, and tersely stated:  “Pat, never forget that the parish ministry is all about relationships.”

I thought silently to myself, “Nice quip, Bishop, but now what?”  I didn’t have to wait long.

Bishop McNaughton continued, “Now you go back to Wimberley and make appointments with all those persons making these demands.  Ask them point blank, ‘What do they want to happen to their parish?’  

I was in shock, but I drove back to Wimberley that afternoon and did exactly what he recommended – concluding all the calls by that evening.  And in the next twelve months the average Sunday attendance at Saint Stephen’s increased by 100! 

The change Bp. McNaughton sparked in me was really begun 30 years earlier at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, GA.  On the day of my commissioning, my commander, CPT James Wolfe, leaned over to me and said, “Remember, Pat, people will only follow you if they want to.”  He was right, and the change has been good.  

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing – some would say threatening – the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion?

At the very first meeting of our Foundations of Discipleship class, our threshold eight-session newcomer’s course at Saint Stephen’s, we always tell the assembled group: “Remember, where you’ve come from is as important as where you are now.”  That’s an important statement for us to make, as four of every five people entering our parish have never worshipped in an Episcopal Church.

When considering the touchstones of my own faith, I should be quick to add – where I’ve come from is as important as where I am now.  For example, at age fourteen, I was invited by the Order of the Holy Cross to attend Saint Andrew’s School in Sewanee, TN.  It was in that place that I irreversibly became an Anglican.  The Benedictine routine of prayers, shared meals, and communal living got into my bloodstream, never to be removed.

Later, when attending Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, I came under the influence of Campus Crusade for Christ and the Navigators.  The good people in those more ardently evangelical groups patiently led me through the Bible and helped me realize the blessed life Christ offers all people.  At that time, I began to discern the marvelous breath of expression within the larger Christian communion.

While in the military, often serving on very lonely deployments, I turned both to the Holy Scriptures and my catholic faith for strength.  I still have the dog-eared, olive drab green New Testament I stuffed into one of my ammo pouches alongside banana clips of 5.56 caliber ammunition.  Furthermore, because the Army only offers Protestant or Catholic worship in the field, I was drawn ever more strongly to the Eucharist…besides the Catholic chaplain made our parachute jumps with us!

The most difficult moments in my past have been the deaths of both of my younger brothers.  Witnessing my mother’s devastation over the losses she could not prevent, has been very painful for me.  Their deaths have also let me see clearly the limits of my own power and the certainty of my own mortality.

Thus, the touchstones of my faith proceed directly from my sacred history.  I have been marinated in our Anglican tradition.  I cannot imagine being anything other than an Episcopalian, living in communion with my brothers and sisters here and in the other provinces.  Among other things, being an Anglican means that I not only can live with but love those with whom I disagree.  Secondly, I am tethered to the Bible.  I have professed publically and signed an oath stating “I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and contain all things necessary to salvation.”  I meant it when I said it, when I signed the document, and I will never retreat from it.  Thirdly, the Holy Eucharist reminds me again and again that I am incomplete with out my Lord and Savior and bereft without my brothers and sisters.  Fourth, I am ever mindful of the most insidious sin in my life and others – the sin of idolatry.  On those daily occasions when I imagine I am God, I confess – most often on my knees – that I am not and without Him I am nothing.

 

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Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about being a co-creator with Christ. This works itself out as I use my God-given gift for creativity in my ministry, my personal life and the world at large.

In my ministry, I push myself to not fall into a rut or pre-existing patterns, but to find new creative solutions. For example, this desire causes me not to settle for writing little speeches each week on the biblical text and its application. Instead, I work to pray through the text and decide how I think God is challenging me and the people of King of Peace to live out that text more fully. Then I try to think of creative ways to teach the point of the sermon. Often, this is a very speech-like sermon on the passage. But it may also take the form of storytelling or a play and may incorporate multi-media and props.

The goal is engaging the congregation with the text in such a way that the biblical story takes root in our lives and in our common life. The objective is not something clever that people will notice, but sparking inspiration with the hearers. In this, I am co-creating with the Holy Spirit who speaks through and in spite of my flawed creations.

This creativity plays itself out in everything from our building and grounds to our events and ministries. When I get it right, the result is not due to my efforts alone, but involves the imaginations of the congregation as well. An example of this is our successful Trunk or Treat which has brought hundreds to King of Peace on the Eve of the Feast of All Saints. The event was the brainchild of a couple in the church. I put them together with the director of our preschool. Then they gave ideas out to the congregation and invited others to create booths and games for the kids. The end result is a big community event pulled off with the combined imagination and work of many. My involvement was minimal, though I do think the approach is one I help foster.

In my personal life and in the world at large I use my gifts for writing, photography and graphic design to benefit other groups from Habitat for Humanity to Honey Creek. As with my sermons and events at King of Peace, I push myself to not rely on easy answers, but to look for creative new options. I find that amazing things are possible when we let creativity spark new ideas.

We have to find the courage to be unafraid to fail and fail boldly, for no worthwhile venture was ever a sure thing. This is why I seek ways to harness the creativity which is God’s gift to the wisdom and discernment which also come from God in deciding the times when it is prudent to step out on faith and take creative risks.

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

Building a first permanent church building for King of Peace was a several year process of personal and professional growth. My wife and daughter and I had said before coming to Camden County to start King of Peace that we wanted to do something so big that if God was not in it, we would fall flat on our faces. The building process challenged that foundational principle as I experienced numerous times when failure seemed more likely than success. I had to change my approach to leadership for the project to succeed.

I came to believe in leadership by self definition. In this, I am indebted to Rabbi Edwin Friedman who wrote about it in his book Generation to Generation. He teaches that a leader must always be accountable for naming where a group is going and why and then staying in touch with the group throughout the process. If the leader does not get anywhere near where his or her vision was heading the group, the person is not a leader. But if the leader always arrives exactly where and how stated in advance, the person is not a servant leader. A servant leader charts the course, but then continues to listen to the group and get feedback and make course corrections.

I did the basic design for our current building, charting out the floor plan and creating the elevations. This gave me something specific to use in casting the vision to the congregation and working with an architect. I wanted the building to look less ecclesiastical and more commercial as it would later house the preschool and fellowship hall while sitting next to a future church building. I hoped that the later building would clearly be the church and so I thought a different look would make that distinction. The architect showed me how the visual vocabulary for the first building would set the tone for all future structures. He taught me what the congregation then echoed, that we needed the first building to look like a church.

During the project, the congregation also helped me to work through some political, engineering, and fundraising issues in ways that I could never have gotten through them on my own. I discovered fully a truth I knew before dimly at best—God does not give the answers to one person. No matter how talented any one person is, God gives the answers to a community and the input and work of many is needed for any great work. I may not have the needed faith, wisdom, strength, and so on. But we do.

Our finished building is not perfect, but the building meets our needs well and is as attractive and useful as it is because of the parts that others brought to the table. The personal change came in learning how and when to let go of my personal vision as a group vision takes shape which is better than anything I could do on my own.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing—some would say threatening—the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion.

A touchstone was used in ancient times to determine the quality of gold or silver. I believe in the primacy of scripture as the fullest revelation of the will of God and so use it as a touchstone for all areas of my life.

I hold a sacramental view of scripture not so different from how I view what happens to the bread and wine in communion. I know the host at my church to be real homemade bread and I know its ingredients. I also know what brand of wine we buy. This knowledge does not replace, but supplements my sure and certain knowledge that God is made fully present in the Body and Blood of the Eucharist through these elements.

In the same way, I know that humans wrote scripture. They were inspired by God, but they were human. I know much about the texts and how they came together to our present collection of sixty-six books. This knowledge supplements my understanding that the human words embody God’s presence to us in the scripture. Scripture was not just inspired in its writing but the Holy Spirit continues to inspire us as we read the words. We are also aided by God-given reason and the voice of the church through its councils and creeds.

Yet, I find that too often we apply scripture wrongly at worst and haphazardly at best due to an improper use of the Bible. Tragedy strikes; then we run to the Bible for answers. The text wasn’t designed to work that way. The Bible is not a troubleshooting guide for life. The Bible is God’s living word created to speak to your heart each day.

This has long been the Episcopal Church’s way to encounter scripture – as part of a pattern of daily reading. With daily scripture reading, you can marinate your life in God’s word. What this will do for one’s outlook over time is revolutionary. Rather than encountering issues in life and running to the Bible for answers, you immerse yourself in the Bible daily and live into the answers from that new outlook.

So my primary touchstone of scripture is not a text in isolation, but a text read and studied in community and as a part of worship. For we do not, after all, believe the Bible itself to be the primary revelation of God. To do so is bibliolatry or worship of a book rather than the God who inspired the book. We know Jesus to be God’s main and fullest revelation.

The touchstones of my faith then are scripture read in worship by a community of faith. I know that I can err in my own interpretation of scripture, but I trust Jesus to guide his Body, the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit. With the ongoing inspiration of the Holy Trinity these touchstones help me discern where God is leading his Church.

 

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Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

The following question came to me from an eighth grader in Confirmation class: “Um, there’s this kid in my class that says that if I, like, believe in evolution, then I’m going to hell. Am I?”   What a gift God has given me to be in a place of ministry where I can teach an Anglican way of knowing Jesus Christ in which the “cruelties of fundamentalism” are absent.  

In my teaching, my preaching, my pastoral care, and my leading of a congregation, these moments of “Gospel clarity” do more than simply answer a theological question. The best answers give pastoral assurance of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love. The very best answers invite the questioner—and teacher—into the drama of an ongoing, lifetime conversation between a child of God and the God who created him. It is in this graceful interplay of human spirit, Holy Spirit, and community that I still continue to find passion for my ministry.  

In my ordained ministry as rector of a diverse parish, this teaching is necessarily done in the midst of incredible diversity, not simply in this town and region of the country, but among ourselves.  In many issues, we have had to hammer out a way to be together, yet hold up the things we believe individually to be right. As I often say to the congregation or to the vestry, “Remember in a conflict that most often, each side has a piece of the truth.” The challenge of community is not only to be faithful to one’s own piece of the truth, but also to have the humility to imagine the sheer possibility that the other has a piece of the truth unseen to you. 

To do this takes leaders who, as Rabbi Edwin Friedman puts it, “define themselves non-anxiously” and chart a clear course forward.  When I played cello in the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, I was acutely aware of the many differences of opinion, and even childish sniping and passive-aggressive “acting out” at the leadership at that time.  The conductor, however, was a skilled leader who knew how to hold up the final vision of the music, and focus on the detailed, specific steps necessary to get there.  And then, even though he listened carefully to differing opinions and honored all sides as much as possible, when the time came, he led them somewhere.  

With God’s people, the “music” is God’s Kingdom. There are detailed, specific steps to get there as well, including prayer, humility, forgiveness, kindness, and a compassion for the least among us and a concern for justice.  Ideally, the leader models two dynamic forces in his or her own life—the hunger for the Kingdom, and the passion for the ways in which we are called to get there together.

In my personal life, I am passionate about my friends, my family, my music and any excuse to get outdoors and exercise!  My childhood hunting expeditions with my father in the farming culture of South Georgia and Alabama have been translated into hiking, canoeing, and biking. To me it is more than simply “time off” from work; it is Sabbath time that refreshes and renews me, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And it reminds me that God is a God of all creation. I identify closely with that moment in St. Francis’ early life when he looked up at the stars and said, “If this be the creation, then what must the Creator be like?”  

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

On the surface, everything on my “Abraham Walk” was going as planned. The Lilly-funded hike on the Benton-McKay Trail began in good spirits with hikers Shiraz Hamir, of the Dalton Islamic Center, Rob Cowan, president of Temple Beth-El in Dalton, and Tom Minor, former Senior Warden of St. Mark’s. The plan: to backpack through the wilderness area of the North Georgia mountains, and, at the “high places,” worship in our own traditions, and maintain a “respectful observance” of one another’s prayer time. 

I had observed such inter-faith exchanges before and had found them most interesting. This time, however, something happened that I am not certain I will ever be able to explain or even describe. I can only say that, as things began to fall apart for us “older than we realized” hikers—rain, pulled muscles, even running into a backwoods general store called the “Confederate-owned” Dixie Depot—we were drawn closer together in a way that I can only call “mystical.”

That first night, when we realized that everyone had forgotten something important, forcing us to share food, flashlights, and “mole skin” bandages, we each said our prayers, each in his own tradition and even language.  We talked about what these meant to us, and then, eventually, how each of us had grown up with these prayer traditions soaked into our souls from our earliest memories.

As evening drew to a close and the campfire turned from flame to coals, a most unusual thing happened, at least for a group of religiously serious folks who loved to talk.  We became silent. Simply, silent.  I have never in my life experienced a silence quite like it.  Was it the Muslim Salaama (Sura 11:69), or the Jewish sound of sheer silence, (I Kings19:12), or Jesus’ Peace I leave with you (John 14:27)?  I believe that it was “all of the above.”  It was a moment that sheered away all that came between us, and left, simply, three children of God.  

I reflect now that I began that hike with much “theological freight,” and much of it, I must say, quite current, intellectually interesting, and theologically valid. I could have told these new friends the newest theories of sacrifice and atonement by Rene Girard versus Bruce Chilton, or the current African perspective on the Trinity by A.O. Ogbonnaya, or even a wonderful vision of the theological “tria-logue” among the three Abrahamic religions by Hans Kung (all objects of my sabbatical study that Spring).  

It is my belief that the Holy One who transcends all our theologies showed up that night.  Or, perhaps more accurately, the Holy One gave us the grace to be still long enough to know that the Holy One had been there all along.  We did not cease to become Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. In fact, in some ways we became even more Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. 

It is paradox that has probably been at the center of my personality and ministry all along, but it takes on new emphasis in this phase of my life. There are profound differences among my fellow Christians, even my fellow Anglicans and Episcopalians.  Theological reflection and sharing are important and even vital, but in our lifetimes, there will always be that which divides us, those divisions that our human minds cannot overcome. Where theology falls short, however, our shared common humanity must lift us up.  What we have together, then, is a longing for peace and justice, a promise of hope, and our own way of prayer that, we believe, will somehow bring us to the Kingdom. And, for each of us in our own way, a profound and very real sense of the presence of God.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing—some would say threatening—the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion.

The most fundamental touchstone of my faith is the belief that every human being is a beloved child of God. Each of us is created in God’s image (Gen.1:27), and it is God’s desire for every human being to discover “who we really are” as God’s beloved child.  That journey for me involves following the person of Jesus Christ, in the Anglican tradition. 

The ethos of via media has been deep in my bones long before I gave it a name and assigned it to the theological philosophy of Richard Hooker.  My own family life was its own kind of via media, between and my father’s love of growing things on our farm, and my mother’s love of language and the arts from her teaching of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Conrad.  (Confession: If I were to slip into a coma, and the Eucharist administered to me, I would probably respond in the Thomas Cranmer words of Rite I. The Lord Be With You; and With Thy Spirit.)  As I began ministry as a six-year-old acolyte, then, the words of the Episcopal liturgy have been a powerful touchstone of faith.

What I love about the Anglican impulse in the following of Jesus Christ to the Kingdom is its insistence not just from being “in the middle,” but also of trying to hold on to both ends of the extremes. This ethos fits my personality very well. In God’s call to join in on the great banquet, we Anglicans simply want everyone to join in.  Just come to the table together, and we’ll work out differences along the way, and even grow from them as well. We are, after all, seeing “through a glass darkly,” (I Cor. 13:12).

It has been one of the heartbreaks of my ministry as rector to have those limits stretched past the breaking point for many.  In my parish, the time after the 2003 General Convention was one of much unrest and consternation. We lost several good families. However, we did not lose twenty families, as we surely could have (and almost did). Why? Because, I am convinced, we had, as a parish, already set our sights clearly on parish goals that we believed God was calling us to pursue. 

Moreover, we decided to use the controversy as a time for us as a parish to look deeper into our identity as American Episcopalians in the worldwide Anglican Communion. We carefully and prayerfully considered the questions posed by The Windsor Report: what things are adiaphora, (things that do not make a difference), and further, what things should follow the principle of  subsidiarity (matters which should be decided as close to the local level as possible)?  We meditated on Barbara Brown Taylor’s call to humility: “Is it more faithful to be right, or to be together?”

As a rector, I personally resonated with its call to “create the space necessary to enable the healing of the Communion” (p.54) Also, we recognized the call to “re-evaluate the ways in which we have read, heard, studied and digested scripture,” as something with which our parish has been engaged in this fundamentalist region of the country for a long time. Finally, it reconfirmed that we have our own calling to pursue as a local parish, even as we are legitimately challenged in our world view by the greater church. 

Perhaps, when all is said and done, my final touchstone of faith is modeled by my father. I am convinced that when he looked over a ploughed field in April, he actually saw, with visionary eyes, a full, complete crop of cotton, three bales to the acre!  No matter where we are, in the worldwide Anglican Communion or Episcopal Church, what we have in common finally is hope, the hope of the Kingdom. And I believe that, no matter what the configuration of the Anglican Communion ends up—no matter which of my parish families leave for now, or stays—that very real, visionary hope of the Kingdom is the common ministry for us all. And we will continue faithfully and even joyfully in its pursuit.

 

Resume.

Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about my role in the spread of the Christian Gospel and the unique gifts which the Episcopal Church has provided me in this life, work and ministry. In my work three passions dominate: history, liturgy and education. As a priest of the Church I have encouraged the consideration of the broad sweep of Christian thought as received in the Anglican tradition. I have modeled my life and thinking on characteristics encouraged and supported by the Book of Common Prayer. I believe that education is the most effective tool our tradition can wield in support of Evangelism. For a community to grow in Christ and each other, we need to take part in the deep and rich heritage which is ours in the bible, liturgy and Anglican history on a regular basis. Simply put, how can a community of believers become convincing in a skeptical world if the gospel story is not ingrained in the hearts of the believers? Furthermore, how can we recognize the voice and face of God revealed in our daily lives by the power of the Holy Spirit if we are unwilling to immerse ourselves and our loved ones in Word and Sacrament which are the building blocks that Jesus, our cornerstone, has given us for Christian life?

Education, for me, is more than the acquisition of knowledge. Through both formal settings and informal encounters we are given opportunities to enter more fully into God’s conversation with the creation. I have been truly blessed by the various communities of support that have evolved over my long tenure at St. Paul’s. Each week day Eucharist has its own flavor and gifts. Each Bible study has its on needs and challenges. Every offering of Morning and Evening Prayer has the potential to open some new area of concern and challenge. In the Community at large I have been blessed with opportunities to make common cause with people of other faith traditions which address the ancient concerns of scripture for the poor and needy, the suffering and the oppressed. The strands of liturgy, education and history are for me the means to express and communicate the extraordinary depth of God’s love for all creation.

In my personal life, relationships are critical. My wife, Mary and my children, Katie, Colleen and William, have challenged and enriched my life in God with their own questions, insights and witness. Extending to my larger community I also work to build relationship and become engaged as an active and contributing member of our common life.

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

In 1987 I received the call to come to St. Paul’s, Savannah. I found a Parish with an average Sunday attendance of 60 that had the financial wherewithal to survive three months at its current support. Its recent tumultuous history over the issues of Prayer Book change and the ordination of the women to the priesthood had left many members of the parish with a deep sense of insecurity, loss and abandonment.  While I had a strong sense of the opportunities and demands of pastoral ministry after five years of challenging cures I felt both overwhelmed and afraid. By immersing myself in the story of the parish and its members I discovered many caring and talented people willing to build a vision for the future deeply rooted in God’s Mission. In the face of both of these insights I decided to make myself vulnerable and cultivate the trust of the people God had given me to pursue God’s mission. The parish had two exceptionally strong and deeply rooted resources which became immediately apparent, a history of community outreach and a committed core that had caught the fourth day vision of Cursillos allowed us to start building a community whose primary focus is love of neighbor and self as a means and path to loving God. The journey begun with the faithful few continues to this day and now the parish engages its life in Christ through: outreach ministries for food, housing and social justice work, a full complement of parish ministries and Christian education and, with the addition of a third Sunday worship service in January 2009, an average Sunday attendance of 225 souls.

The passion and sense of mission found in the heart of this community coupled with an intentional emphasis on hospitality and liturgies with integrity have been the guiding principles of my ministry in the parish, the community and the diocese.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing-some would say threatening-the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion?

Each service of Ordination in the Book of Common Prayer assumes that the candidate will cultivate a life of prayer. Rooted in the rhythms of St. Benedict’s Rule, the Book of Common Prayer’s vision of a transforming prayer life is informed, regular, and vulnerable to grace. The whole of the body of Christ engaged in prayer, study and worship shape the language of faith and the continued revealing of Christ’s incarnate presence. As a liturgical Church, we have the happy advantage of a regular and spirit-filled context for learning and incorporating the great truths of the Gospel in a way that is both grounded and open to the charismas of the Holy Spirit. Rooted in the Prayer Book tradition and the wider vision of the Church as defined by the Seven Ecumenical Councils I am deeply committed to diligently seeking ways of prayer, speaking and relationship which encourage and enable all God’s children. Although Christianity is not primarily knowledge, philosophy or a creed, but a life in dynamic relationship with Christ Jesus, I am dedicated to the idea that reasonable theological inquiry must be done in the context of the scriptural witness as amplified by Church tradition while keeping in mind that faithful Christians can and often do disagree about interpretation.

As a cradle Episcopalian, I have experienced division over desegregation, remarriage after divorce, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, women’s Ordination and now the proper parameters of the expression of human sexuality. I am acutely aware of how hard it is to engender an atmosphere of trust that will allow God to lead us into fuller communion. I am clear that the proper constraints of our fellowship in the mystical Body of Christ demand more than we have been willing to give and that it is far too easy to dismiss another’s position. The conflicts of the past decades have convinced me that learning to hold the questions in tension and surrendering to the all too human reality of the conflict for a period of time without dismissing each other can be a place of creativity and holiness. I have found that when people agree to live with each other without falling into the age old trap of demonizing one’s antagonist, but make common cause for those elements of the Gospel about which they agree, the Kingdom of God is extended. Division often begets division and once the bonds of fellowship are cut the reasons for further divisions seem to multiply.I keep two touchstones always before me as I attempt to live in Christian community and communion. The first is that the person before me is loved by God. Second it is in the nature of the interaction as William Blake states so beautifully “where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.”

 

Resume.

Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about my faith in Jesus Christ, and about the Church that God is building in the world, particularly as I experience it within the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican tradition. I love being a priest, preaching the Gospel, celebrating the Eucharist, overseeing and coordinating the mission of the church, leading people to faith and commitment to Christ, and encouraging them to live their faith in their daily lives, as members of the Church.

I have developed a catechumenal process that helps seekers explore how God has guided them in their lives, and acquire the tools and resources of the Church, including liturgy, prayer and sacraments to discern God’s call to serve Christ in their lives, as Christians in the world today. As a result, I have witnessed the Christian communities I have served reach out to the community and the world by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and witnessing to their faith in their community, and in mission to the world. For example, nearly a dozen members of my present congregation have discerned a call to the priesthood or diaconate. Others have entered full-time professional lay ministry, and we have had numerous mission trips to Latin America, Africa, and Madagascar. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the most decisive, exciting, and present reality in the history of the cosmos, and that living into the meaning, purpose and life of Christ gives meaning, direction and purpose to our life today. I value the traditions and freedom of the Christian faith, as it is expressed in our Book of Common Prayer and in our life together. I can not imagine being a Christian in any other denomination, and I am passionately committed to helping other Christians, as well as Episcopalians, understand our unique expression of the Christian faith that grounds us in the historic faith of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and allows each of us to “work out our own salvation” in the Holy Communion of the Church today.

In my personal life, I am passionate about my wife, Kathy, and our life together. We met in high school, and have been married for thirty eight years. We have a grown son, Jonathan, who is engaged to be married. When not at work, Kathy and I enjoy spending time together. We enjoy reading and watching films, and we have two dogs that keep us entertained and amused. I also enjoy listening to music, and playing my guitar. I belong to several clubs that trade live music, which keeps my interest in “the classics” up. I also reading history and literature, and have an interest in modern science, particularly in cosmology, Big Bang and string theory, but my interest is severely limited by my understanding.

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

Shortly after I had become rector of my first parish in a racially divided town of about fourteen thousand people in Mississippi, a parishioner proposed renovating an old building into a retirement home. I had been rector for less than a year, but I told the Vestry, “We all know this is a long shot, and will probably never happen, we have to let people know that nothing is too big for the Church of Jesus Christ.” At first we explored placing the building on the historic register, but there were no state funds, and federal guidelines put limits on the modifications we could make. Then, at a church conference in Atlanta, I asked someone from “815″ if the national Church office knew about retirement homes. Indeed, they did. A representative visited us, and recommended a federal HUD program. We could not save the building, but the vestry made a commitment to ministry.

So, we embarked on a multi million dollar retirement home project. We discovered that we were not just a little church in a poor state, but part of the diocese and Episcopal Church. Both U.S. Senators were Episcopalians. The national Church guided us through the application process and the diocese put up escrow funds. We were awarded 2.8 million dollars to build the retirement home.

Then, we were sued. Some citizens objected to an integrated retirement home on Main Street. Bible study groups in town circulated petitions. The church split. We were taken to Federal Court. The weekend the law suit hit the news, a senior matriarch of the congregation called my wife. “I want you to sit with me on Sunday,” she said. This quiet act of leadership saved the Church. The retirement home was built, and soon became the pride of the community. The Bishop dedicated the building in the largest public religious service the town had seen, and afterwards, proud residents took newspaper reporters on a tour of their new home.

I learned to rely on the whole Church, and to trust in God. I learned that lay ministry is more than serving as a lay reader on Sunday, but that architects, businessmen, governors and senators are also lay ministers. I learned that the most courageous leadership sometimes comes from the frailest among us.
At one point I told the bishop, that it was painful to see people who loved the church, but opposed the project in the congregation. I hurt for them. The Bishop told me, “I don’t want you not to care about them. And I don’t want you to stop doing what you’re doing. So, just stand there and hurt.”

So, I learned to stand firm, and to love my enemies. I learned that the Church is bigger than the congregation and the diocese, and even the institution. I learned that we contend with powers and principalities, and that as we live into the death and resurrection of Jesus, we experience the power of the Holy Spirit to change the world.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing—some would say threatening—the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion.

The touchstone in my faith is that Jesus Christ is the firstborn of all creation, the Head of the Church, and the author of my salvation. I believe that the genius of the Anglicanism is that it has had the courage to insist on this truth, as the sole source of authority in the Church and hope for the world. This faith that is the source of Anglican liberty, and the constant in every controversy.

When the Reformation asked, “who has the authority to tell you what to do?” Catholics answered that the Church has authority, because Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom to Peter. Protestants said only the Bible -for Luther, because it contained the Gospel, and for Calvin, because it is the Word of God. Anglicans said only Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord.

Luther’s freedom of the Gospel from the Law offered little moral guidance, but to “sin boldly,” (and trust in the mercy of Christ.) Calvin’s insistence that the moral laws of the Bible are still binding on Christians led to were experiments to create societies based on Biblical laws in Geneva and Salem, and London. So, when the Calvinist Puritans came to power in 1649, they closed the theaters, dissolved parliament, and established a dictatorship.

Anglicans resisted the claims of the Church and the Bible, as a law book for society. Only Jesus Christ, who was not only Jesus of Nazareth, but also the Word of God, Who was in the Beginning with God, through Whom All things were made, and Who had not only become flesh and dwelt among us, but also risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where He sits now at the Right Hand of the Father, and intercedes for the Church - only He through Whom the Holy Spirit is poured out on all believers, and not just the clergy, or apostles, could tell Christians what to do. So, the final seat of moral authority was not the cathedra of the bishop, or the pulpit of the preacher, but the conscience of the individual.

Anglicans agreed with Calvin that the Bible, was “the Word of God,” and they agreed with Luther that it “contained all things necessary to salvation.” However it was the Word of God because it bore “witness” to Christ, who fulfilled the Law, and it was the Bible’s witness to the Person of Christ, “whose service is perfect freedom,” that gave the Bible its authority. As a Holy Communion, the Church was larger than a Confession of faith, and included Protestants and Catholics, High Church and Low, Liberal and Conservative.

Disputes were always evidence that the Church had not discerned the mind of Christ. The Anglican Via Media held that Truth was comprehensive, and would encompass the truths of both sides. In the meantime, to settle such disputes, without resorting to schism or Civil War, Anglicans came up with a unique and courageous instrument to protect the conscience and the peace: debate and the secret ballot.