2006
Jo Ann Barker
A Place Prepared: A People Prepared
As their new rector I led St. John’s Episcopal Church in Harrison, Arkansas into new life by simultaneously helping them to build a new sanctuary and leading them in building lay ministry. The parish lived into the exodus experience when they made the decision to begin anew: leaving behind the old tiny church and their parochial thinking and beginning to trust God’s guidance into the wilderness. There the congregation tried new ways of ministry as they commenced building the new church. Together we discovered that it both took hard work and a deep commitment to the mission of being Christ to the world. Amazing grace carried us through as neither this new sanctuary nor the new commitment to ministry in the world could have happened without the right leadership both clergy and lay.