Dear People of All Saints’,

It is a joy and an honor to have been called to serve as your next rector. As many of you remember, my family and I were actively involved at All Saints’ from the early spring of 2015 until late June of 2019. We then moved to Starkville, Mississippi, where I have been serving as the Episcopal Chaplain to Mississippi State University and Assistant Priest at the Church of the Resurrection. What you may not have known is that we first came to Princeton in the summer of 2011 (for me to begin my MDiv studies at Princeton Seminary) and that our younger daughter was born in the old Princeton hospital on Witherspoon Street. Thus, in many ways, it feels to us—Emily, Madeleine, Noelle, and me—as though we are returning home.

Originally, Emily and I are both from Texas; I grew up in Houston, she in the Dallas area. My bachelor’s degree is in music, with a concentration in jazz guitar performance, from the University of North Texas; Emily’s is in psychology, from Texas Woman’s University. When I started college in 1997, I was an atheist. By the time I graduated in 2001, God had changed my life and drawn me to vocational ministry. Emily and I met at a non-denominational evangelical church, in Denton, TX, where I served as the music director from 2002 through 2006. We were married in February of 2006, and the following year we moved to La Plata, Argentina, where we served as missionaries for four years, and where our older daughter was born. We returned to the United States at the end of 2010, and while an MDiv student at Princeton Seminary, I served as the music director at a Presbyterian church in Lawrenceville. Not long after beginning my PhD studies at Princeton Seminary, we found our way to All Saints’.

Both personally and vocationally, I am drawn to All Saints’ because of your appreciation and support of artistic expression. As a formally trained musician (and an aspiring writer), I believe that the performing, visual, and literary arts are meaningful faith-building and redemptive gifts through which divine goodness, beauty, and truth are revealed to humanity. I am also drawn by your commitment to nurturing your curiosity and your spiritual formation through thought-provoking Adult Forums and weekly Bible studies. This commitment is a reflection of my own convictions about the importance of intellectual inquiry as a means of loving God with all the mind—convictions that led me to earn a PhD in the history of Christianity from Princeton Seminary. But most of all, I am drawn to partner with you in ministry because of your sincere warmth in welcoming any and all who walk through your doors. With this combination of characteristics, All Saints’ can only continue to make meaningful and lasting contributions to the expansion of God’s kingdom.

The Wardens and I have planned for my tenure as All Saints’ rector to begin on Monday, December 18 and for Christmas Eve to be the day on which I begin preaching and celebrating the Eucharist with you weekly. Words cannot sufficiently express how delightful and inspiring it has been to work with Bob, Roland, the Vestry, and the Search Committee. All Saints’ is greatly blessed to be filled with many people who are deeply committed to the parish’s future. As my family prepares to move to Princeton, your prayers for us will be strongly coveted. Moving is never easy, and the most challenging part always is saying goodbye to those who have grown dear to us. The Church of the Resurrection in Starkville is a wonderfully inclusive and loving community, and we will miss the many friends we have made here. And yet we are impatient to return to Princeton, to begin a new chapter of life and ministry with you.

There is every reason to be very hopeful for the future of All Saints’, as you continue to participate in the healing and life-giving work of God. As a grace-filled community you have much to offer to one another, to Princeton, and to the world at large. But in the end, it is not we who will change the world. It is the power and love of the one who is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine—the God who forgives sinners not seven, but seventy-seven times, who feeds thousands from just a few loaves and fish, and who, through the Cross and power of the Resurrection, is reconciling all things, in heaven and on earth. May this God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—bless us and be gracious to us and grant us a joyful, long, and very fruitful ministry together.

Yours in Christ,
George+