I joined St. Luke’s in 1983, when I moved back to Houston from New York City to continue my career in oil and gas finance and banking.  I am profoundly grateful for the life-changing, spiritual-awakening opportunities St. Luke’s has offered me and for the many life-long friendships that have grown out of the St. Luke’s family.

My early life at St. Luke’s developed along two parallel tracks: administrative and teaching. In the late 1980’s, I was excited to join the church’s finance committee.  That first committee assignment began a long period of service on the finance and executive committees.  The highlights of my administrative years were chairing the 1995 stewardship campaign, the year St. Luke’s celebrated its 50th anniversary, and then chairing the Board of Stewards in 1998.  I made life-long friends during these years and learned from amazing mentors at every turn. These years taught me servant leadership and I received gifts of grace all along the way.

Soon after I joined the church, I started teaching the 9th Grade Sunday School Class, under the fabled leadership of our then Youth Minister, Tom Pace.  I was hooked.  In the early 1990s, Lee McKinzie recruited Richard Ethun and me to co-teach a newly formed class for young singles, The Explorers.  Teaching with Richard was truly a gift and the group was wonderful.  I returned to teaching in the early 2000s when The Lamplighters Class for young couples was formed.  I had known many of these members from our years together in the Explorers Class. Also, in the early 2000s, Peggy Roe organized a women’s Monday Night Bible Study Group, which I had the privilege to lead for many years (we lost count!).  Even though we no longer meet for formal Bible Study, this group of women remains a key source of friendship and support.  These groups, from the Youth Department on, encouraged me, challenged me, and loved me.

Then came St. Luke’s merger with Gethsemane United Methodist Church in 2009.  From the beginning, I had the privilege of getting to know many members of the Gethsemane congregation as we worked together to keep open the food closet until CCSC could open its second pantry at Gethsemane and cleaned out the classrooms and closets of the church to get ready for whatever lay ahead.  We worshipped together, ate together and prayed together, as this new, merged life took its first, sometimes fitful, steps towards the vibrant, neighborhood faith community that is evolving at Gethsemane today.  Houston: reVision was one organization that was birthed in this process. The bigger reVision story is for others to tell.  For me, I was privileged to serve on the strategic planning committee that concluded that “gang-affected youth” were the ones “not being served” in SW Houston.  Justin Coleman, the original site pastor for St. Luke’s/Gethsemane, took the challenge and led the charge to make what became reVision a reality, rooted in Father Greg Boyle’s theology of “kinship” (which is lived out at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles). I was part of the steering committee and then board of directors who joined with Justin and Charles Rotramel, who became reVision’s CEO, to organize and launch reVision.  reVision has offered me (over and over again) challenging work; has surrounded me with many new and valued friends and cohorts; has provided oft times painful lessons in grace, forgiveness, and perseverance; but, most importantly, has taught me to meet each and every person I encounter as a beloved child of God.  I often fall back into the bad habit of labeling people whom I do not know or think I like; however, on a good day, I remember what, over these many years, St. Luke’s and reVision have taught me:  to try each day to love God more dearly than the day before and to do that by having love and compassion for not only myself but for my neighbor (who, as it turns out, is everyone).

Happy Birthday, St. Luke’s!