St. Alban's Seminarian

 

 

 

      

 


In a few short days I will be off to what I like to call the great state of Alabama. I will hopefully get a few

short weeks of rest while I am there but many things are on my agenda. During the first week in June, I will

attend a Preaching Excellence Conference in Villanova as one of the representatives from Virginia Seminary.

For most of the summer I will be working part time at a parish in Tuscaloosa doing outreach ministries.

Tuscaloosa is also where my fiancé lives and we will no doubt be doing lots of wedding planning. So I might

be a bit ambitious in thinking that this summer will be relaxing. However, it will certainly be fun, helpful, and

eventful!

It has truly been a gift to serve at St. Alban’s for the past nine months. My time here has certainly been

grace-filled. Your witness to the Gospel has both affirmed and broadened my outlook on what ministries are

possible in the Church. Thank you all for your encouragement and support. I would especially like to thank

my Lay Committee members for their time and energy. They have been vigilant in their duties and most

helpful. The committee members are Cheryl Sinsabaugh (Convener), Dick Craig, Jennifer Dismukes, Tud

Steene, Sally Hanlein, Nancy Harrell, Lois Murphy, and Tud Steene. I look forward to our continued work

next year.

St. Alban’s is blessed with a wonderful clergy and staff. I am sure you will be in good hands without me this

summer!
 

 

– Jack Alvey, Seminarian

 

 
A Note from Summer Seminarian Beth Reed


I grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and I have two younger sisters. I’ve been married to husband Jeff for twelve years, and we have two children, Nathan (9) and Julia (6). We live in Alexandria, close to Mt. Vernon. Jeff grew up in Arlington, and this area has become home to me.

Church has always figured large in my life. My family is Roman Catholic, and I went to Catholic schools from first grade through graduate school. I studied theology in college and received an M.A. in liturgical studies from Catholic University. I worked as a professional lay minister  for about five years in two parishes; one in Gaithersburg and one north of Boston. Then I moved to Chicago to become an editor at Liturgy Training Publications. We created and published magazines and books for lay people and clergy to help them learn about worship, practice helpful related skills and attitudes, and ponder worship’s relationship to daily life. We
paid special attention to the relationship between liturgy and justice.

I loved my work most of the time and felt called by my baptism to do it. But as I moved into my 30s and leaders in the Roman church backpedaled on some reforms and stopped moving forward on others, I felt less and less at home in that communion. I took a break from church and church work for a while, worked as an editor at a nonprofit association, met Jeff, and together we explored some Episcopal churches around Washington, D.C. We landed first at St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill; then St. Aidan’s, near our home in Mt. Vernon. We’ve been active there for most of the last nine years, and I was officially received into the Episcopal Church about six years ago.

As I look back, I see that people at St. Alban’s played a not insignificant role in how I learned about and moved into this communion: Jeff and I sang with the Alban Chorale off and on for several years starting in about 1998, so we got to know parishioners in that group and their family and friends a bit.

That’s some history on what was a long and emotional process of deciding what was essential about God, Christianity, and church for me and my family. The result is that I found a place in this communion and again feel called to use my passions, gifts, and skills to serve people as we search for and respond to God in worship and in life. In 2006 I began seminary full-time as a postulant (person studying for ordination) in the diocese of Virginia. That was a huge change, as I had been mostly with our children since they were born and hadn’t had a full-time commitment outside the home.

For Jeff and me, balancing work and schools and family and house is an ongoing challenge! Our daily family dinner is one practice that keeps us relatively calm and together. For fun and sanity, I cook and knit and read. Our family likes to hike when we can. Jeff and the kids will visit here sometimes while they keep their ties to St. Aidan’s.

I’m looking forward to working and learning (and singing) with you this summer. I will be happy to be among people I know from music, and happy to meet everybody else, too!

– Beth Reed