The Beacon: Acton's Church of the Good Shepherd welcomes new rector

Welcoming The Rev. Eleanor Applewhite Terry

Good Shepherd is delighted to announce that our new Rector, The Rev. Eleanor Applewhite Terry, starts on October 20, 2020. Her first Sunday will be October 25. Please join us for worship on the 25th, either in person in our parking lot or via zoom!

Ellie comes to us from Old North Church in Boston, where she was Associate Vicar and then Bridge Vicar. Her previous clergy positions include Vicar of a small parish in Plainfield, Connecticut and Associate Rector of an urban parish in Portland, Oregon. She received her M.Div. at Yale Divinity School and was ordained a priest in 2003. Her experiences have been varied, including serving in an Anglo-Catholic parish, involvement in a parish-based Celtic spiritual community, and several diocesan positions. Before her ordination she worked as a lay staff member of a social-justice oriented parish in Connecticut, where she focused on pastoral care and support of older members of the congregation.

Ellie, her husband Bronson, and their three children have lived in Acton for eight years. Ellie’s parents recently moved to Bedford from Connecticut, and Bronson’s family is still in Concord where he grew up, so this area is very much home to them. Coming to us during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ellie faces special challenges getting to know us all. In addition to sharing the collection of autobiographies that many parishioners wrote to introduce themselves to Ellie, the Transition Team will be organizing Zoom meetings with all the different church groups and committees to help Ellie learn what our various ministries are and who is involved. We hope that everyone will take advantage of the opportunities to meet and talk with Ellie. We are very excited to welcome her to our parish!

The Rev. Canon Martha Hubbard

Sermon and Postscript for Morning Prayer on Sunday, October 11, 2020

recorded via Zoom by

The Rev Canon Martha L. Hubbard

Canon for the Northern & Western Region

The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

Farewell from Rev. Melissa Buono

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart;

I will tell of all your marvelous works.” (Psalm 9:1)

Dearest Friends of Good Shepherd,

Thanks be to God for each one of you! I am blessed beyond measure for having had this time of transition with you. You opened your hearts and your sanctuary to this Lutheran pastor and her family, and I am forever grateful to God for having provided this opportunity for shared ministry!

Thank you for the wonderful send-off on Sunday — from the chocolate covered oreos, and the “We will miss you banner” to the presentation of gifts (and toys for Anika) as well as the in-person and drive-by farewells — it was a grand morning! My heart is filled to overflowing with the expressions of love and signs of appreciation that you shared with me, John and Anika. The photo book, “With Grateful Hearts from the Parishioners of Good Shepherd” is full of beautiful memories of our time together - treasures for a lifetime! You will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Thank you for your partnership in helping to prepare CGS for Rev. Ellie Terry’s rectorship. Together we have accomplished a great deal! In addition to worship, we’ve studied God’s Word and sought to live it out in the relationships with our many and varied mission partners. As members of the Body of Christ, may you continue to be known for your good works and service to all who are in need.

I leave you with a charge to continue to care for each other, especially remembering those who are unable to sign on to zoom or come to the church for worship. I encourage you to use your new church directory to keep in touch. Consider praying over the names and faces each day. Send a card to say, “Thinking of you,” “Greetings from Good Shepherd,” or “How can we pray for you today?” These small acts of kindness will go a long way to keep you connected during this challenging time of COVID-19.

In the next phase of your journey, may you continue to be blessed as you are a blessing to others. Keep your sense of humor intact and remember to look for the good in each day. Know that you are deeply loved by God! Farewell and God bless you!

Yours in faith,

+Melissa

News from the Transition Team

Hello. Emmanuel Aronie here, a member of the COGS Transition Team. We are responsible for meeting and greeting our new rector, Rev. Ellie Terry. Secondly, of saying goodbye and good luck to our dear Rev. Melissa Buono, who has beautifully shepherded us all through these many months, some of them quite difficult.

During our first meeting while discussing what might make the transition easier for Ellie, I came up with an idea which will be nourishing and possibly inspiring for any church member. We are asking all who feel moved to write a little bio about yourselves or your entire family in whatever way your creative self directs introducing yourself, so that before we even meet with Reverend Ellie, she may feel some comfort about all the people she will come to know. This could be short; in print, 300-500 words, or a short introductory video, or perhaps paint a picture of welcome, sing a song, play an instrument, etc.

Does that get your creative juices flowing ? I hope so. And, in these times of Covid, it’s a real way to get close, while we cannot be close in the old ways we are used to, so, this may help convey our collective joy at receiving and communing with our new Rector.

Please send your various forms of biographies by Sept 27th.

The Search Committee stands adjourned!

The Search Committee is pleased to report that we successfully completed our work and recommended the Rev. Ellie Terry to the vestry to be our next Rector. Ellie impressed us with her lively personality, intelligence, warmth and sincerity, and we very much look forward to her joining us in October. We can move forward with confidence knowing that we are in good hands!

The Search Process was complicated, of course, by the COVID-19 pandemic. While our diocese suspended search activities for an extended period in the spring, search processes in other dioceses proceeded apace. The committee felt a sense of urgency to complete our work, knowing that the highly qualified candidates that we were considering were almost certainly looking at other opportunities. We are grateful that the Holy Spirit led us to Ellie, and we’re excited about what God has in store for us together at Church of the Good Shepherd.

The Church was very well served by this group of 10 faithful women and men. Without exception, this was a group of passionate, articulate, insightful and faithful people. We discussed energetically and argued respectfully. Each offered his or her opinion and perspective effectively and challenged the points of view of others on the committee. We worked extremely hard, prayed faithfully, laughed easily and may have shed a tear or two. It is important to stress that all our decisions were made by consensus; not everyone may have agreed, but everyone supported the final decision.

The committee would like to thank the Parish for your faithful support and patience! We knew that there were members of our prayer team holding us up whenever we met. We felt the presence of the Holy Spirit guide and encourage us. We’re grateful for all of the feedback, phone calls, letters, conversations, emails and points of view. Your voices were heard and guided our discernment.

And with that, the committee stands adjourned! Thanks to the members of the committee. Well done all! Search Committee Members: Kristen Bates, Wendy Fedderson, Debby Flint-Baum, Ellen Harland, Tom Hoch, Neal Ogle, Chris O’Leary, Rafael Pupo, Bev Ridpath, Elgin Summerfelt

Announcing our new Rector!

The Reverend Eleanor Applewhite Terry

The Wardens and Vestry are delighted to announce that The Reverend Eleanor Applewhite Terry has accepted the call to become the 5th Rector of our beloved Church of the Good Shepherd, Acton! Ellie will be joining us on or after October 1, 2020. Ellie comes to us from the Old North Church in Boston, where she has served on the clergy staff since 2013, first as Associate Vicar, and then in 2019, as Bridge Vicar. In this current role, she has sole responsibility for parish services, ministries, and administration, all the while supporting that parish during a transitional period as they prepare to welcome a new Vicar.

Our new Rector also served for seven years as the Vicar of St. Paul's Church in Plainfield, Connecticut, and began her ordained ministry as the Associate Rector of Saints Peter & Paul Church in Portland, Oregon. These two parishes gave her diverse experiences: one a family-oriented, small community parish where she was instrumental in growing average Sunday attendance by 86%; the other an urban congregation with exquisite liturgy and a strong commitment to outreach.

Ellie earned a M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1997 (Diploma of Anglican Studies, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale) and a B.A. from Smith College in 1991, with a Major in Religion and Biblical Literature and a Minor in Government.

Ellie has actually been among us in the Acton community for some time: she and her family have lived in Acton since 2012! Some of you might already know Ellie and her family from school and other activities.

The Wardens and Vestry are extremely appreciative of the dedicated and discerning work of the Rector Search Committee over these past months and years. Thank you for your good and faithful service! Please join with the Wardens and Vestry in sharing a big WELCOME to Ellie as she prepares to join the Church of the Good Shepherd faith community!

September update from the Rector Search Committee

The Rector Search Committee has been working faithfully and steadily since last spring. Our group is made up of people from both the 8 AM and the 10 AM services. We range from relative newcomers to seasoned parishioners. But most importantly, we are committed to being open to the Spirit in all that we do. We are almost finished with one of the biggest steps in the process, namely writing the Parish Profile. This is an important part of the process, as we want to give prospective candidates an accurate sense of who we are as a community, and how we try to live out the Gospel beyond the Sunday Services. The next step will be to have the document published on the diocesan website and nationally. Then when applications start to come in, we will begin to review them and move towards interviewing candidates. Our hope is to begin interviewing by the New Year.

We are very hopeful and confident that the Spirit will lead the right person here. It is very important to the entire group that the whole parish feels included in the process. To accomplish that we had a parish wide meeting and have recently put up posters on which people could add their input on such topics as why Good Shepherd is important to them, and where they see this parish going in the future. If you have any comments or questions, please contact us.

The committee includes: Chris O’Leary, chair, Elgin Summerfelt, Rafael Pupo, Tom Hoch, Ellen Harland, Bev Ridpath, Deb Flint-Baum, Kristen Bates, Wendy Feddersen and Neal Ogle. Please continue to keep the committee in your prayers as we move forward in this process.

For the committee,

Ellen Harland

Update on the rector search

The Search Committee continues to work hard preparing the parish profile, and has made good progress over the summer months. The Committee has decided to adopt the Strategic Visioning work that was done by the parish last year as a way of structuring the profile, and the document contains sections on each of our core values - Caring Community of Faith, Engaging Outreach, Compelling Worship. This structure has proven to be very helpful in our work.

All but one section of the profile has been drafted, and almost all have undergone an initial review and edit by the Committee. We have asked Danielle Reese to help us with a "pre-layout editorial review" prior to having our Layout Team, headed by Margaret Geanisis, select pictures, choose fonts and design the final document. I can tell you that we have seen the initial design for the first few pages and it looks tremendous! It will be a compelling and attractive introduction of Good Shepherd to prospective rectors!

In terms of timing, I expect that we will spend the rest of the summer finalizing the profile, which is about what we expected. We'll share the document with the vestry in September, and are planning to publish the profile by the end of September.

From the publication of the Parish Profile through until the end of the process, our work will be highly confidential to protect potential candidates.

Our goal continues to be that we will call a new rector in the spring, which will allow them to sell their home in the peak season and relocate to Acton well before the beginning of the new school year, if either of those is a consideration.

One of the design suggestions from Margaret and team is that we adorn the profile with quotes from parishioners. This approach has been used effectively in previous profile documents. To that end, you will see posters in the church starting this weekend on which you can write a short statement that reflects how you feel about Good Shepherd and our church family. We'll have several posters, each of which will have a separate theme, and you are invited to write something associated with that theme.

If you will not be at church, please write to any of us on the committee with your thoughts and reflections on what makes our church family so special. Think about how you would complete one of the following sentences: "Our church is at its best when ..." or "Good Shepherd is special to me because..." or "In the future, I would love Good Shepherd to ...".

Finally, we all want to thank you for your diligent prayer support. We know that we are wrapped and protected in prayer both when we meet and when we work independently. It is not easy to take something as organic and dynamic as our church family and capture it in a profile document. Please know that it is your prayers and the movement of the Holy Spirit that have allowed us to make the progress that we have.

Interim priest named

Well, it has been four months since Gareth left. During that time the Vestry has been working on stabilizing and building the life of the church. As you know, it hasn't been easy times, but we are working through the obstacles and taking things one day at a time. Melissa has been our Bridge priest which has truly been a blessing.

Last week I received an email from the Diocese that we had a candidate for the Interim position. Well, to my surprise our own Rev. Melissa Buono was asked by the Bishop to be our Interim. Melissa took the time necessary to talk with her family, and with lots of prayers decided to accept the call. The Wardens then met with Melissa and after our discussion, we agreed. The discussion was then brought to the Vestry last night and all present voted to hire Melissa as our new Interim Priest! Thank you for all of your prayers and thank you to God for answering them in such a wonderful way.

Please congratulate and support Melissa as she guides us through our transition.

Faithfully,

Anthony Geanisis
Sr. Warden