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Dear saints,
Those of you who know All Saints' will know our Director of Stewardship and Development, Ellen Hayes, from at least two or three different vantage points. You may know her as that smiling face who always seems delighted to see you, interested to hear your latest news, and just glad that you are part of her church. You may know her as a member of our staff who is so hard to say "no" to, perhaps someone whom you don't want to say "no" to. You know that she believes in this place, and you do too, and so the only answer to an Ellen invitation surely has to be "yes." Or you may know her as the person on the other end of the phone who isn't calling to ask for your money (!) but is calling to ask after your heart and soul, your person, about what matters most to you in your life right now.
I have had the privilege to work alongside some immensely talented staff in this vocation, but none have I learned more from than Ellen Hayes. It is not merely her deep and broad knowledge of this church. It is not only that she understands what "works" here and what doesn’t. It is not simply that she has seen more than one Brit set up residence in the rector's office and is not for a moment beguiled by the accent. It is that Ellen has a truly exceptional capacity to see what is most important about the life of the church, about this church especially, and crucially for me about the particular calling that belongs to the rector in a place like this.
With all this on my heart and mind today, it is with both a sense of sadness but much more with a feeling of deep gratitude that I announce that Ellen Hayes will be retiring from All Saints' staff at the end of this year. Don't worry, you still have plenty of time to show your appreciation for Ellen by making your 2025 pledge early this year! In seriousness, though, you do indeed have time to find your own way of saying thank you for all that Ellen has been in this place. Gratitude is worthy of all deliberate slowness. I invite you to offer your thanksgiving when the time seems right.
I am working on identifying Ellen's successor and our intention is to have a transitional season where both Ellen and her successor will work together so we have a smooth transition. I will share more about that and about how we will want to celebrate Ellen as a parish in due course.
I cannot think of a better place than the church to learn how to be generous. Here, we coalesce around the story that tells us that the nature of God is to give God’s self away and we learn to do the same. Here, in what the Benedictines called the schola caritatis—the school of love—we learn what it looks like when we love the world as Jesus loves it. Ellen's ministry has invited us to go to school and learn how to love, how to give and how to dwell in the heart of God's generosity. Join me in praying for Ellen's retired life ahead, that she and we may know, ever deeper, the generosity of the God whose abundance is all we will ever need.
Peace,
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