God’s call doesn’t diminish for retired clergy in the Episcopal Church.
Many clergy, including the Rev. Nan Lewis Doerr, the Rev. Jim Liberatore, the Rev. Anne Matthews, and the Rev. Dr. Sharon Turner, remain active within the church regardless of retirement. For them, there isn’t a distinction between before and after in their ministry or their vocation. Their creative spirit remains vital.
Jim Liberatore’s view is that humans’ primary identity is that of creator, made in God’s image, so “it’s bad theology for a person to say that they’re not creative. You may create a family. You may create a great place to work.” In other words, creativity is not just bound up in works of art. In these four priests, it has found expression both in artistic works and in a continuing call to serve as shepherds of God’s people.
The Rev. Nan Lewis Doerr chuckles when relating what a friend told her: “Retirement means being tired again.” She retired in 2010 from full-time parish ministry at the Church of the Redeemer in Houston. In the 15 years since then, she has served as an interim rector at a small rural church, sharing those duties with another priest, and written her second book, Praying the Psalms with Beads: A Daily Book of Prayers (Eerdmans, 2020). Her first book, Praying with Beads: Daily Prayers for the Christian Year, was published in 2007 by Eerdmans. Both reflect the creativity that infuses her ministry within the church.
But that’s not all. Doerr has a vibrant musical ministry, both at her home church, Grace Episcopal in Alvin, Texas, and as a longtime member of the Daughters of the King, as well as in her community. She has played piano and trumpet throughout her life, and sings; she’s involved in several local bands, mentoring high-school students in a jazz band.
She’s chaplain of the Glory Bound Singers, the Daughters of the King’s choral group. Doerr occasionally leads quiet days for DOK chapters, guiding them in making and using Anglican prayer beads. She says she “doesn’t want to overdo,” but also worries about being in a place of inactivity.
“Mother, when are you going to finally retire?” is the question that the Rev. Genevieve Razim asked of the Rev. Dr. Sharon Turner, who is now 82. Turner answered her daughter’s question: “Just this past month I decided to finally actually retire from church ministry, even as supply.” Most recently that was serving as full-time interim rector at St. James’ Church in La Grange, Texas, though before a first disability-related retirement, she served at St. Michael and All Angels in Dallas.
For Turner, who uses the name Sharyn Richey for her paintings, “Creativity and spirituality are much of the same.” She adds that “to be creative is to be open to that flow of the Spirit from this life source that is within us all. Our workings with what flows from within as it meets with the outer world is creative work.”
“All along the way, she said, “I have been an artist.” Though Turner considers it her full-time call, painting was set aside in favor of the creative work of parish ministry. Now that she’s truly retired, her heart is fully committed. She especially enjoys plein air painting in places such as Big Bend National Park in west Texas, as well as being active at All Saints’ Church in Austin, her daughter’s parish, guiding others in creative endeavors. She gave Bishop Jeff Fisher oil-painting lessons at one point.
For the Rev. Anne Matthews, “retirement means control over your schedule.” Matthews, who is 74, resigned as rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Brookhaven, Mississippi, in May 2019 after her husband died in 2017. After significantly downsizing, “wanting to be lighter,” she returned home to Texas, settling in the retirement community of Sun City, near Georgetown.
Grace Church became her home, and she accepted the rector’s invitation to contribute as much as she wanted to the life of the parish, which included a restart of the Canterbury mission at Southwestern University. Singing in the choir is a life-giving part of her ministry—she’s “a lifelong singer,” and was in a rock band, The Blue Howlers, for 10 years in Austin, while she attended church at St. Matthew’s.
Travel is now a large part of her creative endeavors, which she discerned after reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This feeds her love of history and keeps her connected to her family tradition of traveling and learning. Each year, she takes one domestic trip and one foreign trip; she has visited 25 states.
Pilgrimages to Scotland and to civil-rights sites have deepened her spiritual life. Future trips have her excited; in September, she is heading to Norway to see the northern lights and 2026 will bring a European river cruise to Lyons, France. She has become experienced in the art of retiring well.
“I’ll retire when I feel like it.” The Rev. Jim Liberatore serves as a chaplain to the retired in the Galveston-Southwest region of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. “I’m a fair priest, but I’m more of an entrepreneur,” he said. A creative, pioneering spirit was part of his vocational makeup even before he was called to ordained ministry. His motto is “Tell me I can’t.”
Liberatore, who is 75, served at St. Andrew’s Church in Pearland, Texas, for 27 years, not resigning until the very last minute. In addition to serving as an interim rector for a church in Beaumont, he is the president and cofounder of Mosaic in Action, which has been helping residents of southeast Texas since Hurricane Harvey devastated the area in 2017.
Liberatore is driven by a passion for connecting with people, including his family. One way his creativity finds expression is cooking. Every weekend, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren gather for a meal. Even there, he’s always on the go, rarely preparing the same recipe twice.
At a recent Church Pension Group conference on retirement, someone said to Liberatore, “I don’t know what the church would do without retired people.” Liberatore heartily agrees, as does Bishop Jeff Fisher, who pastors retired clergy in the Diocese of Texas and elsewhere:
“Even though clergy eventually resign from their positions and enjoy their benefits from the Church Pension Group, our retired clergy never fully ‘retire.’ Some drive on Sunday mornings to small congregations to serve as supply clergy; others fulfill dreams of creativity, entrepreneurship, and family time. Christian ministry is a lifelong expression of service and joy.”
Christine Havens is a writer and a graduate of the Seminary of the Southwest. She is passionate about literature and theology. Her work has appeared on Mockingbird Ministries’ blog, Mbird, and in Soul by Southwest, the seminary’s literary journal.
