Rector’s Corner

My Doubters of Great Faith, Downtown areas, the central business districts of major metropolitan areas, are, in many ways, the heart and soul, the very canvas upon which the art of life gets played out. Ticker-tape parades and fireworks accompany victory, signaling joy; angst and sorrow are punctuated by protest and lament. The ebb and flow of the homeless population indicates how we do, or do not, take care of our sisters and brothers. For better or worse, downtowns are statements of our communal life together. And so, it is fascinating to me, as I hold a bit of a unique view of this statement, at this particular junction in history, having chosen to locate my home-life in the central business district of our community, Dallas. My reasoning for this is rooted in my deep sense of calling to urban social justice ministry, these dense urban areas so often being…

Dear Doubters of Great Faith, I write from the beautiful confines of our St. Thomas the Apostle inner courtyard on one of the rare August “chamber of commerce” days when the heat and humidity abate, ever so slightly, a bit of crisp freshness hovers briefly in the air, and the hopefulness of fall begins to stir in my own heart. The promise of new beginnings lifts me upward from the heaviness of “Corona-tide” that so often these days seems to keep me moored solidly earth-bound. A hope found birthed in the simplest of locations has, after all, provided the impetus for an entire faith movement! The advent of COVID-19 has borne witness to the confluence of several crises simultaneously, and our mutual isolation, quarantine time, continues to provide us front-row witness to a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a crisis of social injustice. Each is intimately interwoven within the…

My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, In the age of COVID-19, it is amazing how time seems to move in a completely different way. It was only January that I was making plans to come join this wonderful congregation, St. Thomas the Apostle, as your fifth rector. Yesterday, and a lifetime ago, all at the same time! One of my first meetings as “rector-elect” was with Bishop Sumner, and as a first-time rector, I inquired as to what he would recommend a new rector do in his/her first call to a church to get to know the parishioners. His answer seemed simple, and beautiful. The Bishop said, “In my day, I would have called on each family in their home, having tea with them around their kitchen table, listening to them tell a bit of themselves and vice versa.” He continued, “Christopher, parishioners will probably get mad at you from…

Dear Doubters of Great Faith, It is good to be back among you, my Doubter family, if even only virtually, after some much-needed, much-appreciated time away. The excitement of going away is heightened by knowing that there will always be a joy-filled homecoming, a safe place of landing that is St. Thomas the Apostle! Holiday during the time of COVID-19 is a strange, perplexing thing for us “do-ers.” The adventure of going and conquering some foreign place and space is fully consumed by the reality of what is, “to be.” And so, this “do-er” had a whole lot of time to just “be!” Alone. With God… As a forward-thinker, always planning, my thoughts turned to transitions. In Corona-tide, the season that seems endless, the transitions of life continue in spite of the virus. Lent and Easter came and went. The Church’s program year came and went. We already look toward…

Dear Doubters of Great Faith, Well, we, you and I, have been together for six months. Six months! On Sunday, February 2, you may remember that I mentioned that we had 18 years to do this thing between us, to live out our time together, and that it would go much faster than we all would or could possibly imagine. And now, six months have been chipped away. In some ways, thanks to “Corona-tide” it seems as though it’s been a lifetime, and yet there is so much that I do not know, so much yet to discover, about the beautiful tapestry woven together into what is St. Thomas the Apostle Church. And I know that I want to know more. I need to know more. Because I know that God is calling us, you and me, to do something big here with our piece of the ‘kin-dom’ at Inwood…

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 It’s hard to believe that we are almost to the middle of July, the mid-point of what we typically think of as the summer travel season. There is something about the intersection of COVID-19, and time that is such an odd juxtaposition. In the age of Corona, our traditional ways of thinking about time seem to have become skewed, veering off the usual course. I imagine that most of you, in any other run-of-the-mill summer would already have plans, or be experiencing wonderful adventures past the confines of the North Texas heat, travels taking you beyond your wildest imaginations. And these adventures are important for so many reasons. First, they give us a much needed break from the usual, the routine, and the banality of life. There is…