Dear St. Luke’s,

St. Luke’s has had so much transition during the pandemic. Just before we entered into this strange session your long-term Rector, Tuck Bowerfind, announced that he was leaving St. Luke’s. Fortunately, you had a faithful and gifted Associate Priest, Veronika Travis, to keep your ministry going and to provide a consistent pastoral presence. While Veronika was at the helm you hired Chip Russell to help with communications, technology and with all of the other priest stuff. A few months later Veronika announced that she was accepting a call in Pennsylvania , and you called an interim priest, Rick Miles, who was only with you for a few months until I came. In just over a year, you have had five different clergy in leadership roles, and poor George Omohundro (who was serving as senior warden this past year) got to thoroughly understand the ins and outs of hiring a priest!

With all of this transition I want to be sure that we are on the same page. You have been a two-clergy parish for quite some time, and you have had some stellar assistants, including my friend from college, Grace Pratt! These positions were more or less permanent, and the assumption was that if an assistant was called elsewhere, then the position would be filled by someone else. This is no longer the case. Fr. Chip was initially hired through Christmas. His position is now extended through April, and we are hoping to find a way to keep him longer. His technological and priestly ministry has proven to be invaluable to St. Luke’s, and I am personally very thankful that I get the chance to do ministry with him.

I have two major goals regarding Chip and our staff for the next year. Chip has been a tremendous resource for St. Luke’s and I want to be sure that we can celebrate with him when he receives his next call. He is currently looking for another position, and I do not want to leave him high and dry, plus we can use as much of his ministry as possible during this unusual time. My second goal is to discern with you whether or not we are called to be a one or two priest parish. This was one of the stated tasks that the search committee wanted me to do as your priest, and I think it is one we should take seriously.

If you think that this is a lead-in to asking you for more money, you will be pleasantly surprised! Though, we will certainly not reject any gifts, especially to help extend Chip’s time with us, my goal is to take us into a season of St. Luke’s being a one priest parish. From my perspective, St. Luke’s has rapidly growing and vibrant lay-led ministries, such as the Circle of Care that provide crucial pastoral care to our congregation. This season will be a time where we not only discern if St. Luke’s can afford a second priest, but what that position could look like, and how it could complement our existing ministries.

I am not sure what life is going to look like a year from now, but I imagine that we are going to be in uncharted territory, and St. Luke’s ministries will need to be reinvented. It should be no surprise that we will be a different Church next year than we were a year ago, because that has always been the case. We can fool ourselves into thinking that the “good ol’ days” of stability and consensus actually existed, but the truth is the Church has always been a dynamic institution. Unlike the God that we worship, the Church was never meant to be perfect, but instead the right medicine at the right time for a hurting and sinful world. As we start the next chapter in the life of the Church there is a very good chance that things may not always go smoothly, and I am actually counting on it. When sacred disruption happens within our ministry, we can become paralyzed and try to cling onto what once was, or we can lift up new leadership and become the Church that we will need to be. If you hear rumors of change and uncertainty, do not be afraid, because that is just the Church growing and becoming what it is called to be.

Blessings,

Nick