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We write with great joy and pleasure to announce that the Vestry, acting on the recommendation of the Search Committee, has called the Rev'd Douglas Anderson to be the next Rector of the Church of the Advent. Our Bishop has blessed this call, and Father Anderson has accepted. He will join us on Candlemas, February 2, 2020, along with his wife, Traci. The Andersons have three daughters: Celeste, who attends Loyola University, and twins Maddie and Emma, who are completing high school in Canada.
Father Anderson is a native of Ontario. He did his undergraduate degree at Trinity College, University of Toronto, and sang in the Chapel Choir there and the in the Gallery Choir of St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto. He then studied at Nashotah House, graduating and receiving priestly ordination in 1994. Father Anderson has spent his entire ministry in Anglo-Catholic Parishes, including an internship at St. Clement's Philadelphia, a curacy at St. Matthias' Dallas, and his first rectorate at Christ Church, Woodbury, New Jersey beginning in 1997. In 2004, Father Anderson moved to Texarkana, Texas, to take up his current post as Rector of St. James' Church. In addition to leading a growing congregation in a rich liturgical and educational life at St. James', Father Anderson has also been deeply involved in the parish's day school (where Traci serves as Assistant Head of School) and its large homeless shelter and outreach ministry.
We are thankful to the Search Committee, led by Lynda Blair, for their enormous commitment of time and energy to the search process. At the Annual Meeting we will invite members of the Search Committee to speak to the congregation about their work.
The arrival of Father Anderson as Rector means that our interim period is coming to a close. It is hard to imagine that the Advent would have passed through this time of transition so successfully without the graceful and calm leadership of Father Truman Welch. In his year with us, Father Welch has not only earned the respect and affection of the whole congregation, but also secured his place as a lifelong member of the Advent family. His last Sunday with us will be Sunday, January 12, 2020. We will celebrate and thank Father Welch at both coffee hours that day, and wish him well as he resumes his retirement in Maine.
Please pray for our Rector-Elect and his family as they prepare to move to Boston, and for the people and parish of St. James' Texarkana, as they begin their own time of transition.
May God continue to bless the Church of the Advent.
Faithfully your brothers in Christ,
C. Thomas Brown, Senior Warden
Paul J. Roberts, Junior Warden