I am excited to welcome the Rev. Pamela Meeks to our permanent staff at Church of the Epiphany!
Mtr. Pamela will begin working as Epiphany’s Associate Rector on May 1. This position will involve a significant step up in ministry for her and for our church as she moves from part-time work maintaining ministry during an interim period to bringing her expertise, energy and enthusiasm to bear on the full time Associate Rector’s position. Look for her to offer Epiphany leadership in equipping our church to be effective in evangelism, and more visible in our neighborhood as well as leading our youth and children’s ministry. Mtr. Pamela is a great fit for our church’s emerging emphases on “Encountering God in beautiful worship and believing prayer, Building a Multigenerational Congregation that loves children and their families and Equipping Every Member to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.”
Also join with me in welcoming the Meeks family to Epiphany this May. Mtr. Pamela’s husband, David, serves as the Training Coordinator for Anglican Frontier Missions. David holds a Masters of Arts in Religion from Trinity seminary in Ambridge and is also a graduate of the Naval Academy. The Meeks family includes Brianna, who is a student at the College of William and Mary, Tara, a senior at Tuscarora High School, and Jonathan a student at Smart’s Mill Middle School. The Meeks family lives in Leesburg.
I am so grateful to God for sending Mtr. Pamela to us. I am also grateful to the members of the hiring committee (Rebecca Bixler, Ross Cummings, George Hamlin, Mark Oliphant, Andy Plummer, Janice Wolfe and Catherine Zimmerman), who over these last eight months have built job descriptions, held interviews, discussed candidates, and most importantly prayed and discerned with me who was being called to this position. When all was said and done, we looked at more than 25 resumes and held eleven interviews (nine video, two on-site). While, under our bylaws the decision to call Mtr. Pamela is mine, I am deeply thankful for the committee’s work, support and wisdom as I made it.
We will formally welcome Mtr. Pamela and the Meeks family to Epiphany this Sunday, May 1. Please join us as we celebrate this milestone in the life of our church.
God bless,
Peter
A note to Epiphany from the Rev. Pamela Meeks
I am delighted to accept the offer to stay at Church of the Epiphany as your next Associate Rector. From the beginning God gave me a love for you, your stories, and the ministries here. I knew all along that the interim job would not be long term, but that serving pastorally is impossible unless we put our whole heart and soul into it. I gladly did that and ached to imagine that I would need to leave. Today we are all rejoicing that the discernment process that we have all been through has resulted in an outcome that sits so close to my heart.
I see God’s incredible faithfulness in the individual stories and the story of the congregation and I really want to give myself in service to the furthering of God’s kingdom at Church of the Epiphany. You have given me hope as it says in Philemon verse 7: “your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother and sister, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.” The vision and direction that Epiphany is going in lines up with my own vision and it is easy to see how we would be able to be fruitful in ministry in the years to come.
Finally, my family is grateful that our past year of having two church families is coming to an end. Although I would expect some transition time, especially for my high school senior daughter who is heavily invested in Church of the Holy Spirit in Leesburg, you will be seeing a lot more of my husband David and Jonathan. We see this call as an answer to a long ago prayer that I could serve in pastoral ministry in a place where the whole family can join in. Thankfully, that day is arriving soon! So, I am grateful for this opportunity to invest even more of myself, my time, and my resources in and through you. “You have refreshed the heart of this saint.”
Thank you,
Pamela