Please join us in welcoming The Rev. Edwin Chinery to our Ascension family as Assisting Priest. Father Ed will be preaching this Sunday, July 14, and looks forward to meeting everyone at coffee hour after the service. Please save the date, Sunday, September 22nd as we receive his formal “Vows of Ministry” to our parish.
Ordained to the priesthood in June 2010, Fr. Ed has served as half-time Priest-in-Charge with St. Mark’s Keansburg (in the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey) since July of that year. (Keansburg is located in the Bayshore region of the state, and suffice it to say, ministry opportunities have been bountiful in the last several months!) In addition to this work, Fr. Ed also served part-time with Grace Episcopal Church in Plainfield, NJ, the town where he was born and raised. At Grace, Fr. Ed led a project in which a Spanish language mission was planted in an existing, predominantly African American and Caribbean congregation. A light meal and ESL classes were recently added to the mission, and the program currently enjoys a new and exciting vibrancy.
Prior to his seminary studies, Fr. Ed spent a career as Benefits Administrator for the County of Middlesex (also NJ). During the last decade of his time in government he was privileged to participate as a volunteer with a variety of social service programs (Ryan White CAER Act chief among them) that included mental health and chemical dependency, homelessness prevention, and AIDS care and treatment. In the course of this work, Fr. Ed is grateful to have held leadership roles in the areas of board governance, program planning and policy development; the related skills both helpful in understanding the nature of public advocacy, as well as being readily transferable to any brand of parish ministry that seeks to blend secular social service with community of faith experience.
Fr. Ed attended the General Theological Seminary (NYC), where his studies focused on spirituality, scripture and preaching. In addition to a Masters in Divinity, he graduated with certification as a Spiritual Director.
