The Very Rev. Dane Boston, the current dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina, loves to sing. “I have been singing my whole life,” he told TLC. He sang in church and was part of the children’s choir at North Dunedin Baptist Church in Dunedin, Florida, where he worshiped with his family as a young boy. He deeply appreciates the great hymns of the church and singers like Paul Simon.
The vestry members of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, knew Boston’s love for music and worship. They mentioned it when they announced on March 28 that he would be the church’s fifth rector. He will begin serving the nation’s largest Episcopal parish in August. At only 39, he may be the youngest rector in the church’s history.
“Dane is passionately committed to the rich tradition of Anglican theology, prayer, and worship,” the announcement reads. “A lifelong singer, Dane has a deep appreciation for the power of the Anglican choral tradition as an integral part of our worship services.”
It was this tradition, plus his admiration for a schoolmate, that sparked his curiosity about the Episcopal Church. In middle school, he had a crush on a young woman who was an Episcopalian. “Well, if she likes it, it can’t be bad,” he thought. He also knew an Episcopal church was right around the corner from his family’s home.
On a Good Friday over 20 years ago, he asked his father to drop him off at St. Alfred’s Episcopal Church in neighboring Palm Harbor, four miles from Dunedin. Reflecting on one of his first worship services in an Episcopal parish, Boston recalled, “I was captivated by the liturgy of the prayer during that most solemn day.”
Picking up a prayer book, he flipped through the pages and found the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Thirty-Nine Articles. “There’s this document and tradition that takes the truth of the Scripture and places it in the larger framework, not just for believing, but for living,” he said. “It was really eye-opening for me.”
His curiosity turned into a commitment. Throughout most of high school, he attended the 8 a.m. worship service at St. Alfred’s. Before he was allowed to drive (and years before rideshare apps and even the invention of the iPhone), his father would drive him early to the Episcopal parish on Sundays and pick him up after the service. His mother and siblings would also be in the car this time, and they would head to the Baptist church. It became a routine for several years.
“You can imagine my dad was very happy when I got my license,” Boston said.
He moved north to Lexington, Virginia, for college, attending Washington and Lee University to study English literature. He found a home parish at R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church (now called by its original name, Grace Episcopal Church). “I jumped into that community with both feet and was confirmed later as a freshman,” he said. In some ways, he’s still connected to the parish (which he still calls R.E. Lee). Just recently, he was texting with a longtime mentor and trusted friend he met there about his forthcoming assignment in Houston.
It was also a Friday when, while listening to Alexandra Brown, the university’s Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor in the Bible, discuss the Gospels in a New Testament class, he felt strongly about his purpose. “I had this powerful sense that I needed to devote the rest of my life to sharing this news proclaimed here,” Boston said. He called his father while walking to his dorm after class and told him, “This is what I need to spend the rest of my life doing.”
“And that was it,” Boston said.
‘God Led Us to Him, and He Led Dane to Us’
“We would not be calling someone who had served in a church like St. Martin’s because there isn’t a church like St. Martin’s,” said Sherrie Perkins, the senior warden. In late 2023, St. Martin’s welcomed its 10,000th member. Although the word megachurch isn’t widely used in Anglican and Episcopal circles, outsiders would likely use the label for the parish founded in 1952 by the Rev. J. Thomas Bagby, because of its size.
Perkins, who has worshiped at St. Martin’s for 25 years, described the 15-month search for the rector, which began in late January 2024 after the Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson Jr. announced his retirement in May, as robust, thorough, and Spirit-led.
She expected early on that “it was highly likely that whoever we call would be moving here from somewhere.” She commended the vestry and rector search committee’s diligence. Around the time the search committee was announced, prayer and transition committees were also formed. “That may sound like a lot of committees … but we really wanted to do a prayerful job,” Perkins said.
“There is no fixed deadline for when the 5th rector will be called to St. Martin’s,” said a bulletin distributed to the congregation in the summer of 2024. “We are on ‘God’s time’ and want to find the best person for the job, no matter when that might be.”
Aside from weekly meetings, search committee members visited the home cities of various candidates. In Columbia, South Carolina, a city 1,000 miles from Houston, they found their future rector, whom both the search committee and the vestry unanimously called to serve at St. Martin’s.
“On behalf of the vestry and the search committee, we’re delighted,” Perkins told TLC on Boston’s selection as rector. “We very much believe that God led us to him and that he led Dane to us.”
Jesus at the Center
Boston was ordained a priest in his mid-20s at Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, on June 5, 2012, the feast of St. Boniface. His wife, Debby, an attorney by training, has been by his side throughout his ministry. They met as undergraduates at Washington and Lee University and were married a year after graduation. This summer, they will move to Texas with their four children.
When he learned he had been selected to become rector, Boston said he was humbled but also felt nervous, considering the legacy of St. Martin’s, a parish with a high profile across the church.
Houston is a diverse city of 2 million and the largest city in which he has served. And this transition in his life and ministry is occurring when the world is deeply polarized. Like many Episcopal leaders, Boston believes in engaging the public square but is cognizant of what the church’s ultimate focus must be.
“Christ put himself right in the middle of the mess that we human beings have made of the world,” Boston said. “The church has to be engaged. We cannot hide. But we as the church must keep our focus on Jesus.”
St. Martin’s, Houston, and Trinity Cathedral, Columbia, have both been partners of the Living Church Foundation.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.