The Rev. Norma Guerra — diocesan associate for formation and transition ministry since 2020 — has accepted a call to become priest associate as emergent rector of 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.”
“St. Paul’s looks forward to a new season of shared ministry,” said the Very Rev. Canon Kay Sylvester, rector of the Tustin parish and dean of Orange County’s Deanery 9. “With the gracious help and input of Bishop Taylor and Canon to the Ordinary Melissa McCarthy, St. Paul’s leadership chose to seek a period of overlap with the new rector before my retirement in November.
“Because the parish had just completed a year-long strategic plan, there was a strong sense that the usual process of creating a parish profile while an interim rector served the parish was not needed, because the work of a profile had been completed.
“To our great joy, the Rev. Norma Guerra agreed to interview of this role, for which the parish is using the diocesan language: priest associate as emergent rector.”
Guerra will work alongside Sylvester to gain full familiarity with “management practices, finance, parish customs, and above all, to get to know the congregation,” Sylvester said.
In her diocesan role, Guerra worked closely with the Rev. Canon Thomas Quijada-Discavage, canon for formation and transition ministry, and McCarthy as 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.