Emory Report
December 7, 2009
Volume 62, Number 13



Tales of a
traveling minister

Pace talks about the year he spent as a minister on the Isle of Wight in England:
“The Isle of Wight is a beautiful island that is often considered to be about 25 years behind the times. Some days that was wonderful, and other days I was ready to get beyond the island and connect with the mainland of England,” he says. “It gets more warm weather than other parts of England but it was certainly dreary and gray from November to March. The residents were welcoming, though, which made it seem much warmer.

“It is one of the major tourist points in England — people from all over the country would vacation on the Isle of Wight during the warmer months and flock there during the Christmas holidays for ‘turkey and tinsel’ road trips. It made that very tiny island feel alive . . . but the locals weren’t too fond of all the traffic!”

 

   

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December 7, 2009
Setting the pace of pastoral care

By Mary Loftus

Rev. Lyn Pace ’02T often works with his office door open in the Oxford Student Center. Students come by to chat and, before they realize it, are talking with him about deeper things.

“It becomes a pastoral care moment, a counseling moment,” he says. “Certainly there are everyday stresses. But there are also tough, important issues that surface here at college.”

As Oxford College’s new chaplain, Pace ministers to students from a range of religious backgrounds, from Hindi to Jewish to Methodist to Southern Baptist. “I’m the adviser to any and all religious groups on campus,” he says.

Pace works with the Interfaith Council to host programs and bring speakers to campus, activities that are funded through the Pierce Institute for Leadership and Community Engagement. He also advises Voices of Praise, Oxford’s gospel choir.

A college position is ideal for Pace, who originally intended to become a history teacher. “Really it was through mentors such as my stepfather, who was a United Methodist minister, and the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe and Professor Luther Smith here at Emory, that I decided on my specific calling of campus ministry and chaplaincy,” says Pace, a lifelong United Methodist.

Pace and his wife, Ami Hernandez, moved into the chaplain’s residence at Oxford in the summer of 2009. Prior to coming to Oxford, he was associate chaplain at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., his undergraduate alma mater.

Just after graduating from Candler School of Theology, Pace spent a year as a minister on the Isle of Wight in England through Candler’s partnership with the British Methodist Internship Program, where he served five churches on the East Wight circuit.

Pace now leads weekly services in the historic Oxford chapel (which was constructed in 1875) as well as counseling students, co-teaching a freshman seminar, and helping to coordinate Journeys trips and Global Connections seminars with the Office of the Dean of the Chapel and Religious Life at Emory.

Pace sees the multiple roles of a college chaplain as cultivating hospitality, shaping spiritual formation, offering care and counsel, engaging in the theological exploration of vocation and building an ethically engaged community that “moves toward social justice.”

“I really enjoy helping students discern their own paths,” he says, “and find the places where they make meaning in life.”

He also has ambitious ideas for art exhibitions, guest speakers, and field trips to spiritual or social justice sites in the South that are historically significant.

But he is never too busy to pause and talk.

“Technology speeds up life, and we forget how to slow down,” he says. “Part of my job is to help students slow down and connect with each other.”