The Rev. Norma Guerra — diocesan associate for formation and transition ministry since 2020 — has accepted a call to new ministry as priest associate serving as emergent rector at St. Paul’s Church in Tustin. She begins her new position March 1.
Members of the Commission on Ministry and the diocesan Standing Committee joined Bishop John Harvey Taylor in thanking Guerra, at a Feb. 24 dinner at St. Paul’s Commons, for her key work as liaison to the Bishop’s Commission on Ministry (COM) helping to guide processes through which candidates discern and pursue ordination.
“Norma has played a decisive, carefully discerning role in scores of vocations, helping both lay and ordained leaders gain a deeper sense of their invitation from the heart of the risen Christ to glorify God and care for God’s people,” Taylor said. “She does her work with kindness, love, and wisdom. I speak on behalf of a St. Paul’s Commons community that will miss her and yet which commends her joyfully to her new ministry in Tustin.”
In her diocesan role, Guerra worked closely with the Rev. Canon Thomas Quijada-Discavage, canon for formation and transition ministry, and the Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy, canon to the ordinary. [Guerra is pictured above (second from right) with (from left) Quijada-Discavage and COM co-chairs, the Rev. Lyn Crow and Cameron Johnson.]
Before joining the diocesan staff, Guerra served for three years as associate priest at both Santa Ana’s Church of the Messiah and San Clemente’s Church of St. Clement by-the-Sea.
Guerra is currently a member of the board of trustees of the Episcopal Divinity School based in New York City. She also has been active in leadership with Cristosal, an international organization dedicated to defending human rights and promote democratic rule of law in Central America.
A life-long Episcopalian, Guerra was born in Guatemala City and came to the United States in March 2000. She became a member of All Saints Church in Pasadena, where she worked on staff for eight of her 15 years as a parishioner, assisting in several departments and with the congregation’s Spanish-language liturgy. It was at All Saints, Guerra says, that she “listened to” her call to ordained ministry and started her discernment process.
Guerra has served as an interpreter and translator for both local and denominational ministries and has participated as a presenter in the Episcopal Latino Ministry Competency Program.
Guerra is “passionate about multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion.” She points to the influence of her father, the Rt. Rev. Armando Guerra, retired bishop the Episcopal Church in Guatemala, as a guiding light whose ministry shaped her own call to ordination and continues to inform her ongoing ministry.