This Week, My Church Worlds Collided

This week, my church worlds collided.  I received an email from Fr. Bill McCleery, a former bridge priest at Emmanuel, letting me know that a priest in his diocese, the Rev. Dr. Helen Tester, had died.  Before retiring to the mountains of North Carolina, Helen had served in Mississippi, and Bill wondered if I knew her.

I did.

In fact, Helen and my father crossed paths years before I met her, serving on a committee for spirituality and prayer.  The committee’s conference location? Las Vegas of all places.  But, I didn’t know Helen as a praying gambler; I knew her as my predecessor at the Church of the Mediator in Meridian, Mississippi.

From time to time, when she was passing through Meridian, Helen and I would grab lunch.  She was a stickler for the rules, so she never reached out to parishioners directly; instead, she’d get the scoop from me.  We would talk about the church, the neighborhood, the diocese.  She’d share institutional stories only a rector could tell another rector.  I treasured those conversations. 

Being the rector of a church is a strange thing.  For years, you preach, teach, and share your life and stories with a congregation.  You engage a vision.  You work toward goals.  You help shape the culture.  You have the privilege of entering people’s lives in sacred moments.  In those thin spaces you form bonds that run deep.  You hold a community in Christ for a time—twelve years in Helen’s case, seven in mine—and then, eventually, you hand it over to the next faithful steward.

I am always keenly aware that my time at any parish is temporary.  Mediator wasn’t my church.  Emmanuel isn’t my church.  Both are precious trusts that I have been privileged to carry for a season, and one day I will pass along to someone else.

My prayer is to be faithful in that season—to steward well, to love well, and to pass the parish on with grace.  My hope is that my successor will be grateful for the work I have done, just as I was thankful for the work that Helen did.

The truth is, all of us are stewards of something—our work, our families, our gifts and resources.  None of these come to us without the help and generosity of others.  And, if we are faithful, we will one day pass the gifts along to another.  That continuity of stewardship is a beautiful thing.

So, thank you, Helen.  And thank you, to all the rectors who have come before me at Emmanuel.  Your collective visions have led us to this point.  I will seek to continue the path you’ve set.