January 5, 2025
Dear Friends,
In February of 2025, I will complete eight years of service as the Rector of Saint Bartholomew’s Church in the City of New York. In a ministry filled with a great many privileges, serving St. Bart’s has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. However, having served in active parish and diocesan ministry for more than 40 years, I feel the time has come to allow someone else the great privilege of leading St. Bart’s as Rector. My son, William, and his wife, Ellie, now live in Dallas, Texas, and it is Ellen’s and my intention to join them there in retirement. While I still find great joy in this work, I want to complete my ministry at St. Bart’s while my energies and enthusiasm remain high. This feels like the right time. I will plan to conclude my ministry at Saint Bartholomew’s on The Last Sunday After the Epiphany, March 2, 2025.
This may sound like short notice to some of you, but I have been in conversation with the Presiding Bishop, the Bishop of New York, the Wardens, and the clergy about this decision for a number of weeks and I can assure you that St. Bart’s will be left in very good and very competent hands.
I hope you are proud of all that we have accomplished as a congregation over the past eight years. We have recruited what is arguably one of the finest large parish staffs in The Episcopal Church. The sale of transferable development rights allowed us to make more than 20 million dollars’ worth of badly needed renovations to our beloved National Historic Landmark church and all those renovations were done on time and under budget.
We have invested in professionalizing a number of positions on the administrative staff including the hiring of a Chief Operating Officer and we have outsourced the financial operations of the parish. Our building staff works tirelessly to make certain our facilities have never looked better. We made a series of fiscally responsible decisions, including the closing of the preschool and leasing the school space to another school, in order to decrease costs and obtain operational efficiencies. Our communications team has made St. Bart’s a national leader in communicating our vibrant worship and programming to the world. We have developed a significant online congregation and we broadcast worship and educational events across the country and around the world.
We have invested more deeply in our music program in order to match the professional choir’s compensation to the high quality of their work. I believe our music has never sounded better. Our children’s programs (including the choristers) have experienced a resurgence in vitality and attendance. Our new member engagement programs and the Imagine Worship service are showing significant growth. We continue to serve more than 5000 meals per week through the Crossroads Community Services initiative.
St. Bart’s has survived (and even thrived) through a pandemic, turbulent racial issues, financial pressures, and polarized politics, and we continue to produce transcendent worship, serious preaching, excellent Christian educational content, and cutting-edge social outreach initiatives.
As the old gospel hymn says, “There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place.”
Of course, as we all know, there is always more which remains to be done. We have not yet achieved the level of financial support the parish needs for the long term and we must still find innovative ways to generate greater revenue from our congregants and our mission supporting activities. I believe we are currently pursuing the strategies which will lead the parish to achieve a robust sustainability.
Perhaps the single thing I am proudest of with regards to the staff at St. Bart’s is the affirmative culture we have been able to create. We work hard as colleagues, appreciate one another as friends, hold one another accountable, and find joy in our work. We maintain a deep respect for one another, which is noted by the congregation, as well as by other staffs from around the Church. It is difficult to say good-bye to such a unique place.
Shortly you will be hearing from the Wardens, Miriam Schneider and Ray Vandenberg about plans going forward for the transition period, as well as from Phil Conte, our Chief Operating Officer, and the Reverend Peter Thompson, our Vicar.
In the coming weeks we will have time to say our good-byes to one another and to reflect on all we have done together. I want each and every one of you to know what an honor it has been to work with you in this great institution we know as Saint Bartholomew’s Church in the City of New York.
Faithfully,
The Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe
Rector