When Peter Kreitler discovered a stack of neatly preserved letters from his grandfather to his mother, he realized how much the advice they contained had shaped his wonderful mom. The discovery also got him thinking about the letters he had saved since his ordination to the priesthood in 1970. At the heart of Dear Father Peter is a selection of those letters charting the many stages of Kreitler’s almost five-decade career as a priest and environmental advocate. These letters and Kreitler’s commentaries on them are brimming with lessons for all of us who comprise what he calls “the priesthood of all believers.” He shares the guidance of family and friends who mentored him and the relationships and points of intersection that he forged with parishioners old and young, as well as with celebrities and politicians. Kreitler doesn’t shy away from the criticism he received either, since the messages in those negative letters influenced him also.Dear Father Peter highlights the foundational themes of his extraordinary life: his commitment to being a “pastor first,” who serves his community with creativity, acceptance, and dependable, caring presence; his prophetic call to save our fragile island home; the imperative of mutual respect and tolerance of all people; and the lessons we can learn from people of all ages, especially the youngest among us. Dear Father Peter is at once an unflinching and authentic autobiography, a tribute to those who shape and teach us, and a testimony to the simple but supremely powerful gift of being present for others. Dear Father Peter encourages us to resurrect the art and discipline of letter writing; we would do well to heed this timeless counsel.

Dear Father Peter: Forty-nine Years of Letters to a Priest

Biographies & Memoirs

Kreitler, The Reverend Canon Peter Gwillim

Leaders & Notable People

VTS Press

(This is the black & white edition.) When Peter Kreitler discovered a stack of neatly preserved letters from his grandfather to his mother, he realized how much the advice they contained had shaped his wonderful mom. The discovery also got him thinking about the letters he had saved since his ordination to the priesthood in 1970. At the heart of Dear Father Peter is a selection of those letters charting the many stages of Kreitler's almost five-decade career as a priest and environmental advocate. These letters and Kreitler's commentaries on them are brimming with lessons for all of us who comprise what he calls "the priesthood of all believers." He shares the guidance of family and friends who mentored him and the relationships and points of intersection that he forged with parishioners old and young, as well as with celebrities and politicians. Kreitler doesn't shy away from the criticism he received either, since the messages in those negative letters influenced him also.Dear Father Peter highlights the foundational themes of his extraordinary life: his commitment to being a "pastor first," who serves his community with creativity, acceptance, and dependable, caring presence; his prophetic call to save our fragile island home; the imperative of mutual respect and tolerance of all people; and the lessons we can learn from people of all ages, especially the youngest among us. Dear Father Peter is at once an unflinching and authentic autobiography, a tribute to those who shape and teach us, and a testimony to the simple but supremely powerful gift of being present for others. Dear Father Peter encourages us to resurrect the art and discipline of letter writing; we would do well to heed this timeless counsel.

Dear Father Peter: Forty-nine Years of Letters to a Priest (Black & White Version)

Kreitler, Peter Gwillim

A Student's Companion to the Daily Office in Greek and Hebrew is a resource designed for students of the biblical languages who want to enrich their daily worship by reading the passages in Greek and Hebrew. Based on the Daily Office Lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, this book provides the Morning Prayer readings for the traditional fall and spring seminary semesters. Each volume contains one semester's worth of readings. In addition, brief introductions to the linguistic style of each biblical book will help students understand better how theology and language interrelate. Volume I includes the passages for January to May of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary, intended for use in odd-numbered years.

A Student's Companion to the Daily Office in Greek and Hebrew: Volume I: Year 1, Spring

Religion & Spirituality

Layton, Molly Jane

Christian Books & Bibles

Telling a Neglected Story is a unique addition to African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church history. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, Dr. Cynthia Willis Stewart recounts the life stories and accomplishments of three remarkable A.M.E. Zion Church bishops: Bishop William Jacob Walls (1924-1968), Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood (1952-1972), and Bishop Herbert Bell Shaw (1952-1979).  Bishop William Jacob Walls is remembered for staging a three-hour sit-in in the segregated Washington Terminal Dining Room at Union Railroad Terminal in Washington, D.C., in 1925, some thirty years before Martin Luther King, Jr. began leading groups in passive resistance. In 1944, when the former residence of Harriet Tubman and the home for the aged she had founded were both scheduled for demolition, Bishop Walls led the effort to restore and protect the property, which today forms part of a National Historic Landmark. Bishop Walls’s leadership was also critical in the creation of Camp Dorothy Walls, a summer camp and retreat center for the A.M.E. Zion Church in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The Reverend Stephen Gill Spottswood’s ordained ministry in A.M.E. Zion churches through the Northeastern United States culminated in his serving as pastor at John Wesley Church in Washington, D.C. His leadership in renovations and the expansion of ministries there led to that church being designated the National Church of Zion Methodism in 1940, and from that church he was elected bishop in 1952. As bishop he advocated unity between his denomination and the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. While a merger of the two into a United African Methodist Church did not occur, he helped lay the groundwork for later joint efforts such as the 2009 Great Gathering of black Methodists. An active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), Bishop Spottswood would rise to membership in the National Board of directors, and finally to being elected Chairman of the Board in 1961. He once led a twenty-two-car Freedom Train to Washington to highlight the need for more civil rights legislation. A naturally talented preacher, Herbert Bell Shaw began serving as an associate pastor, as a deacon, and then as an ordained elder at an early age. For five years he was Presiding Elder of the Wilmington District, then worked on the restructuring of the denomination’s pension plan before being consecrated bishop in 1952. Bishop Shaw traveled the world on behalf of the A.M.E. Zion Church, serving as a delegate to World Methodist Conferences in Oxford, England, in North Carolina, and in Oslo, Norway. He was instrumental in organizing conferences in the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. At the time of his death, he was the senior bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church, as well as the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the National Conference of Black Churchmen and vice president of the World Methodist Conference. Appendices in Telling a Neglected Story include the text of a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Bishop Walls; the keynote address delivered by Bishop Spottswood at the 1961 annual convention of the N.A.A.C.P.; and Bishop Herbert B. Shaw’s 1970 Episcopal Address to the New York Annual Conference of the A.M.E. Zion Church. "This is a much-needed historical resource of the A.M.E. Zion Church. It provides valuable insights into the past that help us to learn and gain inspiration for the future."–Dr. Mary A. Love, Editor, Department of Church School Literature, A.M.E. Zion Church

Telling a Neglected Story: Leadership of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Difficult Times

Stewart, Rev. Cynthia Willis

"I believe churches should come in all sizes," writes author Marilyn Johns. "Just as God took great creative license in the formation of humankind, endowing each of us with different gifts, different life circumstances, and different likes and dislikes, so churches have become diverse in their size, their liturgies, their viewpoints, and their activities. There is room for everyone at the table."In Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Johns goes beyond routine discussions of small church growth to explore how small churches can become more healthy, more intimate, more sustainable. Informed by years of interaction with small church pastors and their spouses, she offers insights into issues relevant to the success of parishes with congregations in the double digits.This book suggests how church leaders can use the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) process to lead their congregation through a visioning or planning process. It makes practical suggestions about how a small church can set priorities for worship, Christian education, pastoral care, mission and outreach, stewardship, and the development of lay leadership. Johns also discusses alternatives to the traditional "one church, one full-time pastor" model of ministry; ways the small church pastor or priest can practice good self-care to avoid burnout and exhaustion; and the future of the small church.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Best Practices in the Small Church

Johns, Marilyn

Rector Transitions is the only book about Episcopal church transitions written from a lay leader's perspective. It is an invaluable, practical, and Spirit-guided road map that will help you to discern God's vision for your church and to find and establish a strong partnership with the new rector who will join you. With a foreword by The Right Reverend Frank Griswold, 25th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, this book is a call to spiritual leadership and discernment.

Rector Transitions: A Handbook for Episcopal Lay Leaders

Sheets, Van

No Turning Back: The Black Presence at Virginia Theological Seminary explores both the history of racism in the life of the prominent Episcopal seminary and recent efforts by the seminary to address its past failures. Several of the Southern Episcopalians who founded the seminary in the 1820s were members of the American Colonization Society, which aimed to resettle freed blacks in West Africa, instead of integrating them in American society. Many of the founders and early faculty were slave-owners, and some manual labor and construction on the campus was almost certainly done by rented slaves. Following the Civil War, high demand for theological education for black Episcopalians created an opportunity for racial integration at Virginia Theological Seminary. Instead the Board of Trustees decided to establish a separate school to train black clergy in Petersburg, Virginia. The Bishop Payne Divinity School opened in 1878 and prepared an estimated 260 students for ministry in its 70 years of operation. Desegregation would not come until 1951, when the Bishop Payne Divinity School was merged with Virginia Theological Seminary. That year John Thomas Walker became the first full-time black seminarian enrolled at VTS; following his graduation and ordination, he would go on to become the Bishop of Washington and the Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, as well as the first black candidate for Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.  No Turning Back follows the story of Virginia Theological Seminary through the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the addition of black studies to the seminary curriculum, and the hiring of the Rev. Lloyd A. Lewis, Jr., the seminary's first full-time black professor, in 1978. A 1972 VTS graduate, the Rev. Dr. Lewis provided the foreword for this book a few years before retiring from his position as the Molly Laird Downs Professor of New Testament in 2012. An elegant hardbound volume beautifully illustrated with more than 140 photographs, No Turning Back features 26 fascinating interviews with black alumni of Virginia Theological Seminary who graduated between the years 1961 and 2008.

No Turning Back: The Black Presence at Virginia Theological Seminary

Joseph M. Constant

Grace in Motion is a detailed account of the experiences of some of the first women priests in the Episcopal Church in the United States, as seen through the lens of the community of Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). An elegant hardcover book illustrated with 180 photographs, it shares the stories of a variety of VTS faculty and students, from the first woman to teach at the seminary as a visiting instructor in 1949, to the female VTS alumnae who were ordained as two of the Philadelphia 11 in 1974, to present-day women priests who travel to Tanzania, East Africa, through a VTS partnership to mentor women preparing for ordination there. Author Judith Maxwell McDaniel conducted personal interviews with more than 50 women connected with Virginia Theological Seminary, following their diverse journeys of call, seminary education, ordination, and priesthood. Three of the ordained women included went on to become Episcopal bishops; another, the Very Rev. Martha Horne, served first as faculty and then dean of Virginia Theological Seminary, becoming the first female dean and president of an accredited Episcopal seminary in the United States. Through their stories, McDaniel finds a common theme of the grace of God, working to allow the gifts of all the baptized to become available to the Church.

Grace in Motion: The Intersection of Women's Ordination and Virginia Theological Seminary

Judith Maxwell McDaniel

This beautifully produced volume tells the story of the largest accredited U.S. Episcopal seminary. Illustrated with more than 300 color reproductions of photographs, paintings, and maps, Hail! Holy Hill! depicts the founding and growth of Virginia Theological Seminary over the course of 190 years, a fascinating slice of the history of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
 Among the prominent figures in this history are Francis Scott Key, one of founders of the seminary, today remembered for writing the lyrics to ''The Star Spangled Banner'' ... Isaac K. Yokoyama, an 1877 VTS graduate who became Japan's first native-born Protestant Christian priest ... and Phyllis K. Ingram, the first woman to receive a divinity degree from the seminary. Numerous other graduates of the seminary have gone on to become bishops, presiding bishops, or archbishops. Two of the most controversial figures in the Anglican Communion today, former Primate Peter Akinola of Nigeria and former Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, both studied at Virginia Theological Seminary.
 VTS has been involved in all of the major struggles and debates within the Episcopal Church, from the issue of slavery to changing liturgical practices, from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer to the ordination of women. Named after the hymn written to celebrate the VTS centennial in 1923, Hail! Holy Hill! explores the challenges facing the seminary today and its work training effective Episcopal leaders for the future as it approaches its bicentennial in 2023.

Hail! Holy Hill! A Pictorial History of the Virginia Theological Seminary

Robert W Prichard

Julia E. Randle

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