When I was unemployed a few years ago, a very wise priest said to me, “The best thing about not being able to keep going in the same direction is that you can now go in any other direction you choose.” I remember those words as I ponder all the implications of a rector transition at St. Thomas. I perceive that our congregation is worried, excited, a little on edge. And that’s to be expected. It’s a crisis. And I mean that in a non-anxious way, because crisis leads to opportunity.

Last month at a Sunday forum, one of our presenters was Joe Ingram, a formerly homeless veteran who now works as an advocate for the homeless. He pointed out that every change in our lives is a crisis; it’s just a question of how well we deal with it. If we can’t imagine that the crisis will lead to better things, then we won’t handle it well.

About a dozen years ago, there was a crisis at St. Thomas. People don’t like to talk about it. A newcomer said recently, “I know that something bad happened here a while back, but I can’t get anybody to tell me what happened.”

In my three years here, I have heard stories come out a little bit at a time—stories of terrible words and deeds, stories of brokenness, stories devoid of healing. Many people credit Father Jeff with helping bring about healing for many of the people who were hurt so badly.

That crisis—“the split” or “the schism”—is part of our history, and it’s a dark chapter. Everyone who was here at the time is a dozen years older and wiser now, with a dozen years of experiences in which God has been at work. Many of the people who left St. Thomas have rejoined our family because they’ve discovered that it’s not the same place it used to be. As I look around on a Sunday morning, I see health, vitality, and true hospitality. I see children running around everywhere, and youth enjoying each other’s companionship. I see parish stalwarts making connections with the newest newcomers. I see parishioners having their needs met by a deeply caring community. Do we realize how wonderful this all is?

My spiritual director warned me recently that when everything is going well, the voices of doubt and fear should be especially shunned, because those voices certainly don’t come from God. If we give in to those fears, we can imagine that the last few years at St. Thomas have been a kind of “golden age,” and that only our rector has prevented us from returning to that dark time. This, my friends, is ridiculous. We are all stronger than that—and luckily, it doesn’t even depend on our strength.

Is God at work at St. Thomas? Absolutely—we’ve seen the results. And most of the good works God is doing here do not rely on the rector. A rector is important, but we must not forget that we, the baptized, are the ministers—and Christ is revealed in our faithful works.

Isaiah heard God announcing, “I am about to do a new thing! Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” If we believe that, we can trust the interim process. And we can feel empowered to listen and imagine the next phase in the history of St. Thomas.