Welcome, the Rev. Kit Lonergan!

Dear Trinity Church and friends,

 

Grace and Peace – and hooray!  I write to share the very glad news of God’s call to the Rev. Kit Lonergan to join our full-time ministry staff as Priest for Welcome and Care.  After serving Saint James-Groveland as Priest-in-Charge and Rector for the last seven years, God willing and the pandemic allowing, Kit will be in the Trinity Church pulpit on December 19, her first official Sunday with us.

 

As Priest for Welcome and Care, Kit will seek to bring those at the margins of our parish, closer to its center.  She will launch a Welcome Committee in support of this movement – reaching out to all those who have newly connected with us during the pandemic and as we have returned to in-person ministry – and will partner with Paige in support of our Community Life Committee.

 

Parcel to these efforts, Kit will also support our Communications staff and ministries – not as an expert in the field (though she is a gifted writer), but as one who can think creatively and strategically about how to reach more effectively those within our congregation and beyond it.  Working with members of the staff and parish, she will lead the essential renewal of our website, with an aspired launch by Lent of 2023.

 

Kit will also support our Pastoral Care programming, not only as part of our care team, but as one who nurtures and commissions our ministers and ministries of care.  Once more partnered with Paige, she will coordinate both our “constancy care” and “urgent care” efforts, from our ongoing support groups, to calling on those in hospital, to the Sunday prayer list and all the many connection opportunities between.

 

A gifted pastor and preacher, Kit will bring to us spark, smarts, and joy, as well as the meaningful experience of having served as Rector of a parish.  A leader in the Diocese of Massachusetts, Kit will bring us closer to the Diocesan community, and the Diocesan community closer to us.

 

With gratitude and in support of all our continuing staff, Kit’s portfolio will allow Patrick to focus his leadership of our lifelong-Formation programs, as well as furthering the staged relaunch of our Outreach and Justice ministries.  Mindful of Bill’s retirement on a nearing horizon (as a reminder, his final Sunday will be January 9, 2022) – and with the openings outstanding since both Rainey Dankel’s retirement and Rita Powell’s transition to Harvard in 2019 – we aim for our budget to support the call of another full-time priest in 2022, fortifying us for these next seasons of enduring COVID impact and beyond.

 

I can’t wait for you to meet Kit!  And, even so, I ask that we all offer her and the people of Saint James both our prayers and the space they need to conclude well their years of fruitful ministry together.  Hoping her letter of introduction (below) will energize you as much as it does me, let us evermore lean together into our loving Life of the World to Come.

 

With gratitude and anticipation,

 

The Rev. Morgan S. Allen

Rector

 

 

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To my siblings in Christ at Trinity Church in the City of Boston-

 

Grace and peace to you!

 

It is a deep joy to join the gathered faithful at Trinity this coming Advent as your Priest for Welcome and Care. In the process of conversation, discernment and prayer these past weeks, the gifts of your congregation, your hopes for kin-dom building in the community, and your faithfulness in God’s grace have been clear and inviting. It is an honor to join the Trinity team, and to serve God in Christ alongside you!

 

I know a bit about serving God with joy from my last seven years serving as Rector of one of your sister parishes, St James in Groveland, MA. Closer to New Hampshire than Boston, and nestled in a residential neighborhood rather than a town square, St James has taught me how God’s playfulness can engage and enliven; to prioritize collaboration and creativity; and the deep grace of valuing joy over perfection. St. James was an excellent partner in trying new ideas on and finding that the courage to take risks—even if not always proving successful in them-- was a sign of faithfulness. Those gifts I will bring with me in my ministry at Trinity, and I am looking forward to doing so.

 

My claim is as a native New Yorker who has now spent half her life in the Commonwealth, and currently resides in Reading, Massachusetts. I am one of those people who came to the Boston area for college and never really left once I sorted out how to correctly order a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and navigate the T. Previously, I served congregations in Beverly Farms, Cambridge, Newton, Andover and Lawrence (Esperanza Academy), and slept on dozens of parish hall floors while serving as Director of Youth Ministries for the Diocese of Massachusetts.

 

I met my husband, Chris Kowaleski, when we were both working at the Barbara C. Harris Camp—my job there was to make church fun, and his was to build fires and treat wounds, so that might be the best description of the two of us we could possibly offer. We have two children—Olivia, 8, and Jack, 6, and one rescue chocolate lab who is somewhere between the ages of ten and 12 years old, and who refuses to give us more details. We are proud members of the Down syndrome community, learning to be better parents of a child with different abilities.

 

Hearing people’s stories is a joy of mine—the stories of how they found their way into a particular pew in a particular church at a particular time; how they have noticed the stirring of the Spirit; how God keeps nudging them. Those stories point to all the ways the Holy One continues to invite us into The Big Story of God’s love, here and now, working in us and through us even when we can’t or don’t see it. I am so looking forward to listening to, and worshipping alongside you, saints of Trinity—and alongside your incredibly talented clergy and staff.

 

In this strange season of transitions and pandemic, I ask your prayers for my family and St James, as we prepare to offer gratitudes and goodbyes. And know that I will lift my prayers for you as well until we lift our prayers together in Copley Square (and online).

 

I remain, faithfully,

The Rev. Kit Lonergan