The Rev. Nurya Love Parish, Seabury Western Class of 2011, has accepted a call to serve as Canon for the Northern Collaborative and Coach for Beloved Community and Creation Care for the Episcopal Dioceses of Eastern & Western Michigan.
Born in Las Vegas, Nevada to a nonreligious family, Parish first felt a call to ministry while attending church for the first time as a college student. While attending Harvard Divinity School as a Unitarian Universalist, she was baptized as Christian and later ordained as a Christian pastor within the UUA in 1997. After ten years as a Unitarian pastor and church planter, she realized she was “sneaking off for prayer with the Episcopalians regularly and frequently.” After completing a Certificate in Anglican Studies at Seabury-Western Seminary, she was e-ordained as a priest in 2011.
Since then, Parish has served as associate rector with St. Andrew’s, Grand Rapids and as Priest-in-Charge with Holy Spirit, Belmont. She has just completed nine years of service as the founding Executive Director of Plainsong Farm and Ministry, a new Episcopal community in the Diocese of Western Michigan. Her decision to depart the farm was made last September, recognizing the evolving needs of the organization as it grows into its next season.
Parish has exercised extensive churchwide leadership for many years, especially in the areas of creation care and its integration into our understanding of the beloved community. This summer, she serves as the chair of the House of Deputies legislative committee on Environmental Stewardship and the Care of Creation for the 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church. She is the author of Resurrection Matters: Church Renewal for Creation’s Sake (2018).
As Canon for the Northern Collaborative, Parish will coach, encourage, and equip congregations in the northernmost area of the two partnering dioceses in areas of congregational development, transitions, and in seeking the mission and vision of the dioceses. Her specialty as Coach for Creation Care and Beloved Community focuses on convening and building capacity for individuals and congregations across both dioceses around the care and understanding of God’s creation, seeking the beloved community by confronting systems of oppression and building relationships across difference.