From the Rev. Monica Burns Mainwaring
Greetings Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles,
I am grateful to be on this journey of discernment with you as together we seek God’s will for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. You have been in my prayers for a long time. Thank you for choosing me to be on this slate.
My mother recounts that she barely made it to Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, I was so eager to come into the world. My ministry, over the last twenty-five years vocationally, and the last ten years ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church, has likewise had a similar sense of urgency for the Church and her future.
I see ourselves in a liminal moment, that is, a time in between what was and what is yet to be revealed. Our familiar structures and patterns have led us to decline, and we wonder about viability and sustainability. Though I perceive that there is in the Church a great deal of loss and grief and fear, I also perceive a great amount of curiosity, hope, and earnest expectation in EDLA about what God might do among us.
I imagine that in the years to come, should we remain open, and faithful, God might call us out just as God called Abraham, and so many of the great cloud of witnesses, asking us to go to a land God will show us. The Holy Spirit will chart for us a course yet unknown to us. As I state in my response to your question about my vision for the diocese, I have an inkling that this pathway will take us beyond our churches, requiring us to be nimble and adaptive, as we seek to connect with the people and issues outside of the Church. Our purpose is to shine Gospel light upon a world in need of hope.
In your diocesan profile and in the conversations I have enjoyed with your Bishop Search Committee, you have articulated well the path you have trod since your first Bishop Joseph Johnson arrived in Los Angeles in 1896 exhorting you to “fear not.” Every time Jesus and God’s messengers arrive with that imperative – “do not fear” – they ask something courageous and important for the sake of God’s kingdom come. We would be wise to trust, as they did, that we do not have to know where we are going to remain faithful to the One who calls.
My father, who was born and raised in Siler City, North Carolina, made his way to Los Angeles via the Navy, which took him first to Japan, then to California, and there he remained. My mother, a Lithuanian immigrant, born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany, made her way to UCLA as a college student after adolescence in Northern California. My father never knew a stranger, and my mother never put her feet up, as there was always work to be done or adventure to be had. By choosing Los Angeles as home, they gifted me the regional context where God met me, and I met God. I am grateful for the playground of R.D. White Elementary where I had my first amateur mystical experience, and for Manhattan Beach, where I learned to pray while swimming, and I practiced this gift in Lake Mojave and Lake Havasu, the frigid waters of Lake Arrowhead, while attempting surfing in San Clemente, and lots of public pools. I was formed in this place I love and call home.
You should know that I was formed also by the Church, though my family meandered denominationally – first Catholic, then Methodist, then Presbyterian. Ecumenism remains a part of me. Becoming an Episcopalian was a choice later in my twenties when I encountered the good liturgy and “broad tent” of the Anglican tradition first as a graduate student, at Harvard Divinity School, after having served in full-time youth ministry at a large interdenominational church immediately upon graduation from UC Davis. Fast forward through to ministries, lay and ordained, in the Episcopal Church’s churches, schools, and camps, and hospital ministry. This while enjoying a very happy marriage to Simon, an Englishman who is also an Episcopal priest, and three delightful children – now teenagers, the eldest a freshman in college. We have moved across the country, serving in dioceses on both coasts. That experience of the breadth of the Episcopal Church domestically and extended visits to various parts of the Anglican Communion overseas have expanded my imagination for what is possible in Christ’s Church.
I work very hard serving the church, currently in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, initially as vicar of Church of the Common Ground, an outdoor church with people who live outside, and now as rector of St. Martin in the Fields, a parish in the city with a school through eighth grade and a large outreach center. I work hard but I also play hard, exercise regularly, and rest well by getting outdoors or spending time-in with family. My prayer life is important to me and sustains me for ministry. In the parish I currently serve, together we have birthed several opportunities for laity to play central roles in ministry and have established a new worshiping community that has brought vitality and young people to the church. We have navigated the complexity of the church-school relationship, bringing health, clarity, and transparency. We are wrapping up a capital campaign, and the parish has achieved financial sustainability.
As happy as I am in my current role, I have experienced the Holy Spirit beckoning, setting me on the path to this moment. I offer myself, alongside the other candidates, and am deeply glad for this season of mutual discernment. I look forward to being with you in October and am holding you in my prayers, just as I request yours for me and for my family.
Faithfully,
Monica