Friends in Christ,
We are overjoyed to share that the Rev. Nurya Love Parish has accepted our call to serve as Canon for the Northern Collaborative and Coach for Beloved Community and Creation Care after many months of search and interviews with multiple candidates. She will officially join our diocesan staff on March 15th.
Born in Las Vegas, Nevada to a nonreligious family, she first felt a call to ministry while attending church for the first time as a college student. While attending Harvard Divinity School as a Unitarian Universalist, she was baptized as Christian and later ordained as a Christian pastor within the UUA in 1997. After ten years as a Unitarian pastor and church planter, she realized she was “sneaking off for prayer with the Episcopalians regularly and frequently.” After completing a Certificate in Anglican Studies at Seabury-Western Seminary, she was confirmed in The Episcopal Church and re-ordained as a priest in 2011. Since then, she served as associate rector with St. Andrew’s, Grand Rapids and as priest-in-charge with Holy Spirit, Belmont. At the end of February, Nurya will conclude nine years of service as the founding Executive Director of Plainsong Farm and Ministry, a new Episcopal community in the Diocese of Western Michigan. Her decision to depart the farm was made last September, recognizing the evolving needs of the organization as it grows into its next season and seeking a role more specifically aligned to her call as a priest. Nurya has exercised extensive churchwide leadership for many years, especially in the areas of creation care and its integration into our understanding of the beloved community. This summer, she serves as the chair of the House of Deputies legislative committee on Environmental Stewardship and the Care of Creation for the 81st General Convention of The Episcopal Church.
She is married to Dave, a retired firefighter, and together they parent two college-age young adults, Claire and Nathan. She is the author of Resurrection Matters: Church Renewal for Creation’s Sake (2018).
As Canon for the Northern Collaborative, Nurya will coach, encourage, and equip congregations in the northernmost area of our two dioceses in areas of congregational development, transitions, and in seeking the mission and vision of our dioceses. Her specialty as Coach for Creation Care and Beloved Community focuses on convening and building capacity for individuals and congregations across both dioceses around the care and understanding of God’s creation, seeking the beloved community by confronting systems of oppression and building relationships across difference.
Acknowledging the special convention quickly approaching, the Joint Standing Committees and Nurya are aware that expectations for this role may shift and adapt, depending on the results of the decision on juncture. She anticipates beginning her ministry living in a series of short-term rentals in different areas of the north while she discerns where to settle long term.
Starting March 15th, Nurya can be reached by calling either diocesan office and listening for the list of extensions, or by emailing nparish@eastmich.org or nparish@edwm.org.
Please join us in welcoming Nurya to this new role in our dioceses!
Yours in Christ,
The Rev. Don Davidson
CR, Eastern Michigan
Jelecia Geraghty
St. Paul’s, Flint
Neil Hargrave
St. John’s, Dryden
Barbara Ilkka, President
St. John’s, Saginaw
The Ven. Linda Crane
Grace, Port Huron
The Rev. Jerry Lasley
St. Christopher’s, Grand Blanc
—
The Rt. Rev. Gladstone Adams, III
Assisting Bishop
The Episcopal Dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan
The Rev. Valerie Ambrose
Retired, Western Michigan
The Rev. Molly Bosscher
St. Andrew’s, Grand Rapids
Freya Gilbert
St. Paul’s, St. Joseph
Carole Redwine
St. Philip’s, Grand Rapids
The Rev. Anne Schnaare, President
Grace, Grand Rapids
Ellen Schrader
Grace, Traverse City
Fred Skidmore
St. Andrew’s, Grand Rapids
The Rev. Eileen Stoffan
St. Paul’s, Muskegon
