The Anglican priest, writer, and mother on how discovering grace invigorated her faith and ignited her calling.
Long before Tish Harrison Warren entered the Anglican priesthood, she suspected that serving the church would be her calling. By her own admission, she was a “super churchy, super ‘good’ kid” growing up—the kind of person who, in the Baptist circles she ran in, seemed destined to be a missionary or a pastor’s wife.
What she didn’t expect was how challenging grace can be. As she recalls, “The first part of me discovering the gospel was figuring out I was a lot worse than I thought I was. Even though I was a ‘good church kid,’ there were dark parts of my heart—and still are—that run from God and want nothing to do with him….That’s what the cross was about.”
That realization transformed her, as well as her ministry. Now balancing her work as a wife, a mother, the co-associate rector (with her husband, Jonathan) at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, and the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, Warren is refreshingly open about her neediness. “I am weak,” she says, “and this is such a big call. You have to live your life as a mother—and as a mother in the church—completely dependent on Jesus for grace and mercy that is above and beyond you.”
For today’s episode of The Calling, CT managing editor Richard Clark sat down with Warren—the author of the kickoff piece to CT Women’s much-talked-about #AmplifyWomen series—to learn more about growing up as a youth group poster child, her conversion to Anglicanism, and the surprising path that led her to the priesthood.
On discovering the gospel after growing up churched: “My understanding of the Christian life was that it was about becoming …
Source: Christianity Today Most Read