DOYT
L. CONN, JR., WHO GRADUATES FROM Virginia Theological
Seminary this spring, knew exactly what kind of job he wanted
as a new minister. He described it on the job resumes he sent
out: “Seeking a position as Associate Rector under the leadership
of a skilled supervisor and in a congregation where I can experience
a broad ministry and mature as a teacher and preacher.”
And he found it at All Saints’ where he will become the
new associate for pastoral care on 1 August.
“This is a community where people are living out their Christianity,”
he said. “I wanted a position doing innovative things under
strong leadership, with great preaching and great teaching. I
think All Saints’ is a leadership church that other churches
will emulate. As a guy coming out of seminary, I’m excited
to be jumping on this moving train!”
Doyt and his wife Kristin, a pediatrician, made a quick trip to
Beverly Hills a few weeks ago to explore housing and schools (their
daughter Margaret is almost four), and took a break at the end
of a busy day to talk about their upcoming move to Los Angeles.
“It’s the great unknown to us,” said Kristin,
with a smile.“But we knew we wanted an urban place.”
Although she has relatives, including her only sister, in San
Francisco, she was seeing southern California for the first time.
And Doyt, 36, whose degrees include a master of business administration
from Case Western Reserve University, has visited Los Angeles
on business, but never in anticipation of moving here. He grew
up in Rochester, MN., where his father was a doctor at the Mayo
Clinic, and Kristin’s hometown in Chevy Chase, Md. They
met at Northwestern University in the late 1980s where she was
a film major and he got a bachelor’s degree in communications.
Both have taken totally different career paths since.
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Kristin,
who has been working in a family practice group, thinks she may
want to focus on free clinic work in Los Angeles. “I’ve
been in the practicing in the suburbs and it has honed my skills,
but I’d like to get back to the under-served,” she
said. Since it will take several months to get her California
license, she’ll have time to look around. “Also, I’m
also going to learn Spanish, once and for all,” she said.
“It’s at the top of my list.”
Doyt (“It’s an odd name, for sure, and I have no dea
where it came from,” he noted) grew up in the Episcopal
Church. “It wasn’t an option not to go.” Married
in 1994, the couple moved a lot during the 1990s as Doyt pursued
assorted business roles including managing a factory, as a director
of marketing, as manager for a start-up company and as a project
director for AmeriCares Foundation which develops global humanitarian
relief programs.
He learned a lot about leadership styles. “The best business
environments I’ve worked in—the most productive—were
incredibly collaborative. We would buy companies, sit down and
talk it out, try different ideas.”
“College was all about understanding God in my head, the
logic,” he said. “As I got into the world, God become
more incarnational, especially when we were working with relief
groups.”
His call to seminary came through their involvement with St. Paul’s
Church in Cleveland, OH. “First we would slip in and out
of the 8 am service, but the rectors and people there slowly got
us involved,” said Doyt. Eventually they were involved in
youth groups, various committees and other ministries. Doyt spent
three years in the weekly Education for Ministry study program
and served as a co-mentor.
“I’m a Peter apostle, as opposed to Paul,” he
said, of his spiritual journey. “Paul had a flash of light
and three years in Arabia, and was on track. |
Peter
would take two steps forward, and one back—it was not a
straight shot. That’s my story, but I believe the Spirit
has been at work throughout my life, in meeting my wife, in the
work at AmeriCares and in going to seminary and now coming to
All Saints’.”
He fills a post that has been empty since last October when the
Rev. Anne Tumilty was assigned by the bishop to an interim position
at St. James’ Church, South Pasadena.
“We are redefining the pastoral care position here, partly
in response to growth,” said Rector Carol Anderson. The
new goal is to have somebody in each clergy position whose primary
gifts are equipping lay people to do pastoral ministry, she said.
“We can’t do it all ourselves with this large parish,
and we shouldn’t. We want to fulfill the New Testament mandate
for all parishioners to use their skills for the work of ministry.”
Essentially that means a paradigm shift, as the parish moves from
being a clergy-dependent congregation to one whose members are
exercising all the gifts of ministry here, she said. “Doyt
has the leadership ability and gifts of encouragement to carry
it out.”
His work will include training and equipping lay people in many
varieties of ministries, she said. “Some examples are small
groups organized around special needs people have such as being
sexual abuse victims, people living with HIV/AIDS, and people
going through grief. The prayer teams and the SAGES are already
an example of lay people ministering to each other.”
Doyt says that’s the challenge he wanted. “The early
church is a real model, even today. If a priest does all the pastoral
care, we’re falling into a patriarchal model. This will
be the ministry of the entire church, and I hope I can help people
grow into that spiritual friendship.”
“It’s a big change, but we are ready,” said
Carol. “I am constantly surprised by the readiness of this
parish to do new things.” |
