Coffee Hour At The Commons

Today our guests are Eliza Marth, Northwest Region Missionary and Anne Hall, Junior Warden at St. John’s in Pine Meadow. Both Eliza and Anne were both participants in the first region based lay preaching course last Lent in 2018. The second round just finished up on March 3. Twelve people participated from five parishes and communities. The course met for four weeks.    We begin our conversation talking about what is lay preaching. Anne says that it is not only the lay members of a congregation that preach under the guidance of colleagues and the priests, but it is also a deeply formative practice for adults.    Alli asks how the lay preaching class came to be. Eliza shares the genesis of the class from the basement of Trinity, Torrington and the desire for a part-time priest wanting more diversity in the pulpit. As Region Missionary of the Northwest region, Eliza took a leadership role with two other leaders and 12 lay preaching students.    The classes in the first round of the classes first concentrated on