Bishop's visit - Rector's Rambling for September 23, 2018

Today we welcome our successor to the apostles, our sign of unity of the church in Metropolitan Detroit.  The Right Reverend Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr., is our celebrant and preacher today, as well as the one who will confer the Sacrament of Confirmation. 

When God began to push me towards considering coming to St. John’s to be your parish priest, I went to speak with my then diocesan bishop in Pittsburgh.  He, like the two bishops of Quincy who ordained me deacon and priest, was a real father in God to me.   When I laid out to Bishop Duncan my sense that God may be calling me to consider coming to Detroit, he advised me that I should meet the new diocesan bishop here.  “Make sure he will be supportive of your ministry as a traditional Anglo-catholic” I was advised.

Bishop Gibbs had been consecrated months before, but had recently become the diocesan bishop when I called and asked if I could meet him on the day I would later be meeting with the Search Committee here at St. John’s.  After a short time on hold the Bishop agreed to fit me in that morning.

I later found out that the diocese had not been informed yet by St. John’s that they were beginning to interview candidates for Rector.   After a long interim period the time seemed right, and thanks be to God Bishop Gibbs was willing to let things out ‘of the norm’ occur, and God moved both our hearts (and those of the Search Committee and Vestry) to call me here to be your priest.

Now we fast forward nearly 18 years later and we receive once again Bishop Gibbs for his official visit, which will be his last official visit before he retires in December of 2019.  No one would have ventured a guess when we met on the November morning in 2000 what the next 18 years would hold.   9/11, ongoing war overseas, four presidential election cycles, The District Detroit plan, and the renewal of Detroit though the building of 2 of the 3 sports venues have all happened in the time of our mutual ministry.  And who would have thought on that day that I would now be the priest serving the second longest time in one position in the diocese?

Hopefully we can have The Bishop back to bless the new buildings, but for now we pray in Thanksgiving for labor  with us in this part of the vineyard.