NOMINATED BY PETITION

The Very Rev. William Willoughby III currently serves as the Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, Georgia.

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Essay Responses

1. What are you passionate about in your ministry, in your personal life, and in the world around you?

I am passionate about my role in the spread of the Christian Gospel and the unique gifts which the Episcopal Church has provided me in this life, work and ministry. In my work three passions dominate: history, liturgy and education. As a priest of the Church I have encouraged the consideration of the broad sweep of Christian thought as received in the Anglican tradition. I have modeled my life and thinking on characteristics encouraged and supported by the Book of Common Prayer. I believe that education is the most effective tool our tradition can wield in support of Evangelism. For a community to grow in Christ and each other, we need to take part in the deep and rich heritage which is ours in the bible, liturgy and Anglican history on a regular basis. Simply put, how can a community of believers become convincing in a skeptical world if the gospel story is not ingrained in the hearts of the believers? Furthermore, how can we recognize the voice and face of God revealed in our daily lives by the power of the Holy Spirit if we are unwilling to immerse ourselves and our loved ones in Word and Sacrament which are the building blocks that Jesus, our cornerstone, has given us for Christian life?

Education, for me, is more than the acquisition of knowledge. Through both formal settings and informal encounters we are given opportunities to enter more fully into God’s conversation with the creation. I have been truly blessed by the various communities of support that have evolved over my long tenure at St. Paul’s. Each week day Eucharist has its own flavor and gifts. Each Bible study has its on needs and challenges. Every offering of Morning and Evening Prayer has the potential to open some new area of concern and challenge. In the Community at large I have been blessed with opportunities to make common cause with people of other faith traditions which address the ancient concerns of scripture for the poor and needy, the suffering and the oppressed. The strands of liturgy, education and history are for me the means to express and communicate the extraordinary depth of God’s love for all creation.

In my personal life, relationships are critical. My wife, Mary and my children, Katie, Colleen and William, have challenged and enriched my life in God with their own questions, insights and witness. Extending to my larger community I also work to build relationship and become engaged as an active and contributing member of our common life.

2. Please elaborate on an occasion or experience, during your ministry, of significant personal growth or change.

In 1987 I received the call to come to St. Paul’s, Savannah. I found a Parish with an average Sunday attendance of 60 that had the financial wherewithal to survive three months at its current support. Its recent tumultuous history over the issues of Prayer Book change and the ordination of the women to the priesthood had left many members of the parish with a deep sense of insecurity, loss and abandonment.  While I had a strong sense of the opportunities and demands of pastoral ministry after five years of challenging cures I felt both overwhelmed and afraid. By immersing myself in the story of the parish and its members I discovered many caring and talented people willing to build a vision for the future deeply rooted in God’s Mission. In the face of both of these insights I decided to make myself vulnerable and cultivate the trust of the people God had given me to pursue God’s mission. The parish had two exceptionally strong and deeply rooted resources which became immediately apparent, a history of community outreach and a committed core that had caught the fourth day vision of Cursillos allowed us to start building a community whose primary focus is love of neighbor and self as a means and path to loving God. The journey begun with the faithful few continues to this day and now the parish engages its life in Christ through: outreach ministries for food, housing and social justice work, a full complement of parish ministries and Christian education and, with the addition of a third Sunday worship service in January 2009, an average Sunday attendance of 225 souls.

The passion and sense of mission found in the heart of this community coupled with an intentional emphasis on hospitality and liturgies with integrity have been the guiding principles of my ministry in the parish, the community and the diocese.

3. What are the touchstones in your faith that will guide your responses to the issues now facing-some would say threatening-the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican Communion?

Each service of Ordination in the Book of Common Prayer assumes that the candidate will cultivate a life of prayer. Rooted in the rhythms of St. Benedict’s Rule, the Book of Common Prayer’s vision of a transforming prayer life is informed, regular, and vulnerable to grace. The whole of the body of Christ engaged in prayer, study and worship shape the language of faith and the continued revealing of Christ’s incarnate presence. As a liturgical Church, we have the happy advantage of a regular and spirit-filled context for learning and incorporating the great truths of the Gospel in a way that is both grounded and open to the charismas of the Holy Spirit. Rooted in the Prayer Book tradition and the wider vision of the Church as defined by the Seven Ecumenical Councils I am deeply committed to diligently seeking ways of prayer, speaking and relationship which encourage and enable all God’s children. Although Christianity is not primarily knowledge, philosophy or a creed, but a life in dynamic relationship with Christ Jesus, I am dedicated to the idea that reasonable theological inquiry must be done in the context of the scriptural witness as amplified by Church tradition while keeping in mind that faithful Christians can and often do disagree about interpretation.

As a cradle Episcopalian, I have experienced division over desegregation, remarriage after divorce, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, women’s Ordination and now the proper parameters of the expression of human sexuality. I am acutely aware of how hard it is to engender an atmosphere of trust that will allow God to lead us into fuller communion. I am clear that the proper constraints of our fellowship in the mystical Body of Christ demand more than we have been willing to give and that it is far too easy to dismiss another’s position. The conflicts of the past decades have convinced me that learning to hold the questions in tension and surrendering to the all too human reality of the conflict for a period of time without dismissing each other can be a place of creativity and holiness. I have found that when people agree to live with each other without falling into the age old trap of demonizing one’s antagonist, but make common cause for those elements of the Gospel about which they agree, the Kingdom of God is extended. Division often begets division and once the bonds of fellowship are cut the reasons for further divisions seem to multiply.I keep two touchstones always before me as I attempt to live in Christian community and communion. The first is that the person before me is loved by God. Second it is in the nature of the interaction as William Blake states so beautifully “where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.”