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POMFRET — The Reverend Alon White is the new priest-in-charge at Christ Episcopal Church. Senior Warden Stephen Adams said “She will be serving for about three years to provide a steady hand as we identify goals for our community that will be matched with new leadership for the long term.”
Since her ordination as a priest in the Episcopal Church, White’s ministry has been focused on work with parishes in transition.
She describes her role with congregations as exploring the best of what they have been and imagining new directions where Christ is calling them.
She earned a master’s degree in counseling to use “for the glory of God and our neighbors.” She worked with college students when she returned to Connecticut. She found the church that sponsored her once she accepted the call to priesthood. After graduation, she served two parishes in Connecticut, before returning to NYC and General Seminary as Chaplain and Director of Field Education and Deployment. She was there in September 2001.
After 9-11, she relied on her training in pastoral work in hospital emergency rooms, as she felt God’s presence among the victims, the perpetrators, and the people working at the site. White helped set up St. Paul’s Chapel as a respite center and attended Red Cross training for chaplains to prepare to meet long-term needs.
The message: “Slow down. There is plenty to do.” That became her primary work for three years. After that she became “an intentional interim minister.”
Each parish has been different, but each has called for similar skills of assessment to determine her role. Christ Church is experiencing the retirement of a long-time rector who built the “relationships that hold the community together.” Changes in society indicate that the church as it has been is unsustainable,” she says. The task of the parish is to recognize what is essential in our lives as it considers becoming the kind of community that answers Christ’s call in a sustainable manner.”
She said she will be teaching about liturgy, but most of all, she said, “a preacher’s role is to tell the Bible stories as part of adult education and in church.” She said her role at Christ Church is clear: to be a good pastor. The youth program is “fabulous and what makes it work is the number of adults who are making a time commitment as leaders and families to work together.”
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