Patton Boyle, conversation with Jan Herman at her home on a sunny Thursday morning.

Good morning Patton.

Good morning.

I understand you aren't a Lutheran pastor but a retired pastor in the Episcopalian church. So what drew you to become part of a Lutheran church?

I was the Priest in Charge at St. Luke's Episcopal Church here in Wenatchee for nearly four years and then retired but continued to live in Wenatchee. The general rules are that after you retire you should not continue to attend the church in which you previously served. Not honoring that can cause problems for the current pastor of the church in a variety of ways in part because it can prevent people from forming a pastoral bond with their new minister. So we went church shopping. My wife, Eija, was brought up Lutheran and I Episcopalian so we both wanted a church that had a liturgy we were comfortable with. Actually it was a little more involved than that because I was asked to do supply services about five times at Grace before James arrived. The church started feeling like home. Grace also had a good choir and I like to sing. I might add that singing in the choir also meant that I could sit up in the balcony and, like the Pharisee, I could “look down on everybody else.”

Do you think your experiences as a kind of Interim Pastor is what led you to Grace?

It was a contributing factor but I may have ended up here anyway. The theological understandings and liturgies in the Lutheran Church are fairly similar to the Episcopal Church, but having attended Grace from time to time and done services at Grace made the transition easier.

The Episcopal Church and the ELCA are now in communion with each other so clergy can swap churches. It was a fairly comfortable fit.

How was Grace important to you, maybe during a time of trial, something that happened in your personal life? Was Grace supportive, helpful and a place you could turn to?

As far as something traumatic, changing churches after I retired was harder than I expected. It was difficult to find a church that felt comfortable, especially in a different denomination. it took about 1 ½ years for us to settle in. Retiring from active ministry was no problem. I felt equally comfortable conducting a service or sitting in the congregation.

Was it the personal attachments in the church?

Actually I still miss the Episcopal liturgy. The Episcopal church is a little more formal, a little more mystically focused, and communion is approached a bit more as a mystical experience than it seems to be in the Lutheran church. They are small differences but I feel them. Grace does feel like home now. But, it would be nice if you used the Episcopal prayer book for everything just to suit me, such a small thing to ask.

Sure, maybe we could slip that in occasionally. Besides joining the choir, did you become involved in any other part of Grace's community?

I'm on the Faith Enrichment Committee and we meet once every few months. Also, I am part of the Pastoral Support Team to watch out for James and make sure he's being well taken care of by the congregation. He needs his time off and rest, etc.. There's a saying in the church that “if you don't feed the shepherd he'll start eating the sheep".

At the beginning of the pandemic and lockdowns I was concerned about how the church was going to carry on. In your opinion, do you think the committees, the church, stayed active and was it a big struggle?

The Faith Enrichment committee continues to function but the in-person classes didn't happen. I did things online like the Zoom class I held on a book study. A book my mother wrote. It was a six part class of about a dozen people. Before the shutdown I had done a series of classes on mental health, helped out a couple of times with the confirmation classes for children and a class or two on spirituality. The choir shutting down had the biggest effect on me. The music program was central to Grace, along with the youth program. Certain areas were more affected by the shutdown than others. Another important program at Grace that was significantly impacted by COVID was the Intern Program. I see Grace as a gift, an ideal place for interns. James is an excellent supervisor for interns. He has a sensitivity and presence that some pastors don't have. Grace was desperately in need of a pastoral presence when James came and he has provided that. Although some more than others, all of the interns have bloomed in this environment at Grace. The congregation accepts them quickly, and is very tolerant when they struggle. Some of the interns struggled a lot, others seemed right at home at the start, but all of them grew during their time here. There are three areas that have long been a powerful part of the life of this congregation – the music, the youth and the intern program.

During COVID my wife and I have regularly attended Grace’s Sunday service on Zoom and I have occasionally attended the Zoom coffee hour. We also regularly attend the Episcopal service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Most Sunday’s we attend both.

What are your thoughts about the reopening of the church?

I want Grace to be careful. It has been and I appreciate that. Some churches have ignored this and I'm not sure how they survived. I want our church to be careful, especially for older people like me because I'm 78, in the high risk area. I'm looking forward to having our regular services again and having the congregation present for them. James is proceeding with care and is following the synod's recommendations. The Zoom services are good but they lack something. The service does not feel the same when the people are not physically present.

What are your ideas for the future of Grace besides the reopening and getting the choir back? Because we've been gifted with the Fox trust, what do you see as possible uses for this gift?

You took the words out of my mouth, regarding the importance of getting the choir back. There is so much talent in our congregation. There are few churches that sing as well as Grace does. In some churches the people are looking around, falling asleep or singing off key but Grace sings very well as a congregation partly because of the history of our music program and the choir directors who have brought that out in people. I think getting the music, youth and intern programs – the trinity – present and fully active again in the church is very important. The endowment is an issue of importance. I was concerned when the gift was first received because a gift of that amount can be very destructive to a church if it's not handled well. Often what happens with a large endowment, is that congregational giving goes down the tubes. People think, “Why should I give when the church has all this money?” But part of spiritual health is financial health in the sense that we all need to give. I need a refresher course at least once a year about why and what amount I give. I was relieved by caution many expressed about not spending the money recklessly. I think it's dangerous to put the gift into the general budget. The congregation needs to be supporting the general budget out of their own giving. That's a pastor's perspective. I think this size of an endowment needs to have a major part of its focus on outreach for the needs of the community. Churches don't do well when they focus too much on themselves.

When you think about the Fox gift, what's the one thing in the back of your mind you would like to see happen for the church?

I don't have something on the tip of my tongue. I would like to see most of the money used for needs in the larger community and for programs outside the church.

In the surveys we were asked for our personal ideas for improving or maintaining the church.

I think the church plant functions very well. It meets our needs and more, and there are classrooms that don't get used on Sundays. The lighting was upgraded significantly during the last two years. I noticed this because we're an older congregation and a lot of us have a certain level of cataracts, but even without that it was too dark. When the choir sang standing around the edge of the congregation it was almost too dark to read the music. The parking lot seems adequate for the size of the congregation and the columbarium is completed. Air conditioning and heating seem to work well. I don't see that physical plant needs much. I think it's important to create an income stream from careful investing of the money and use the interest income instead of the principal. A music program could be funded this way. But if you do that you need to be careful that the program serves the community as well as the congregation. Maybe it would be possible to use the musical talents of the staff (music director?) to instruct students who can't afford private, high quality instruction.

If you were meeting a person new to Wenatchee, what would you tell them about Grace Lutheran?

Let's move this in to the future about six months. It has a great music program that's an offering not only to choir members but to the congregation. Hopefully it has a youth program again with a swing upward in numbers and more involvement in youth again. And of course the intern program. These three things are extremely important for Grace. There are other things we offer but so do other churches. These are the three things I would mention that make Grace Lutheran different.

As we end our conversation, is there anything you would like to express about your life at Grace we haven't covered?

This is a little complicated. Most denominational churches, as I have experienced them, which is a broad spectrum since I have been on the payroll of 15 different churches, are geared to traditional spirituality. The focus is on learning the faith and serving the world, but most churches do not focus on the needs and interests of mystics. That’s part of the reason that many mystics aren’t involved with churches. Mystics think differently. They're not looking for answers, they're intrigued by the questions. They encounter God as a mystery, they don't have to understand God, it's impossible to understand God and that's what makes it so glorious. It's a different way of processing things. Paradox makes sense to a mystic. It's double talk and confusing to the traditional approach. Opposites being true at the same time is something that makes sense to mystics. Most churches leave out mystics in their approach.

How would you make that work at Grace? Is that something that could be part of our church?

I think it may be possible to get people together who have that mystical approach to spirituality, probably in a group that meets together and worships together, but I would also want them to be part of the life and worship of the rest of the congregation. Mystics are very experientially oriented and are all about experiencing the Spirit rather than trying to understanding Spirit.

This is all part of your background.

I didn't know I was a mystic for a long time and that's what my books are about. This doesn't appeal to everyone, and to others they light up like a Christmas tree. I would like to see all churches respond to that need but clergy really aren't trained to that side. The structure of the church is often geared to meet the maintenance needs of people. My experience has shown 90% of people are in church for maintenance and 10% for growth, which is fine. In-depth studies, Bible classes, etc. will usually include only about 10% of the members, the others want and need the maintenance.

Do you think having more classes could become part of Grace?

Yes, I think so. I've noticed when there are classes they are well attended. Classes about spirituality is something to look at, but maybe Grace doesn't want to go there. Or, perhaps there could be group meetings for church members and others in the Wenatchee community who are mystics spiritually. It’s something to think about.