During his youth, Jerry Miller received unusual advice from his parish priest. The Rev. Bill Casady told Miller not to attend youth group meetings at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus, Indiana.
“All they do is play with the kids,” Casady said. “You are too serious for that.”
Instead, Casady encouraged Miller to read Holy Cross magazines, tracts about trinitarian theology and various other Christian articles and books.
“I didn’t need to be entertained,” recalled Miller, nowadays the part-time rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Lebanon, a 15,000-population town that serves as the county seat of Laclede County, Missouri. “I needed to learn.”
He learned well.
Photo of the Rev. Jerry Miller.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Miller’s ordination to the priesthood. Trinity will celebrate that milestone Oct. 19, the day the Rt. Rev. Amy Dafler Meaux makes her first Trinity visit as the diocese’s newest bishop.
As part of the festivities, Trinity will dedicate a new set of carved wooden Stations of the Cross in Miller’s honor, said Bishop’s Warden Amanda Perschall, who has known Miller about 15 years.
“They already are up in the nave,” she said. “They are really pretty.”
Parishioners consider Miller a blessing for their picturesque church, the original part of which dates to the 1880s. He cares about the people. Though he lives an hour’s drive away, he seems to always be in Lebanon when needed most. Often his wife of 39 years, Betty, is by his side.
When Miller started serving as a supply priest at Trinity in the fall of 2012, Sunday attendance averaged about 20 people. A few weeks later, he agreed to serve as Trinity’s part-time pastor. He began visiting people who had vanished from the pews, as he also began forging personal connections with the regulars. Attendance grew. Now, Sunday service draws about 50 worshippers, including some who come from as far as 40 miles away. Trinity also offers two weekday services and a Bible study class. It has a choir and a music director/organist.
“Someone asked me, why do you think you are successful?” Miller said. “Two things. I learned how to get along with the people I served. Also, after all those years, I sort of knew what to do most of the time. Maybe not all the time but most of the time. Most people in ministry, they make their mistakes early on…. Just like a teenager learning to drive. You wreck a few cars, get a few dents. Then you figure it out, that you can drive this car without making a few dents.”
Miller’s leadership has blessed Trinity in other ways as well, members say.
About six years ago, when the bishop’s committee considered adding a parking lot, Miller guided them to think even bigger.
“He said we could do more,” Perschall said. “He said, ‘Let’s look at what we could do, and how we could finance that.’”
The result: A new wing on the building and some remodeling work elsewhere – plus the parking lot.
“He comes off as very kind yet very much confident,” said Karen Miller, a longtime St. Paul’s member not related to the Rev. Miller. “If you are having a religious talk with him, you will come to the conclusion that he is truly called and truly a shepherd of his people, and he truly loves Jesus without it being showy.”
When Karen Miller’s husband died suddenly one night, about a year after Jerry Miller became her priest, her niece notified Rev. Miller.
“It was late at night,” Karen Miller said. “I did not expect him to come all the way from Springfield, but he and Betty both came to be with me…. When he did that, I knew we had a priest who really cared.”
He is like that with everyone, Karen Miller added.
“He checks on you; he calls, he comes by…. He’s not only good at spiritual things, but he is also a good leader, too.”
Jerry Miller grew up in Columbus, Indiana – the son of a stay-at-home mother and a salesman father who also worked as a part-time entertainer. Back then, people paid to watch live variety shows. Miller’s father could sing, dance and tell jokes.
As a young man, Miller studied briefly at Indiana University before enlisting in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He figured Navy life would be safer than getting drafted into the U.S. Army. It turned into quite an experience. Miller got assigned to the Naval Security Group, an intelligence gathering unit.
“Basically, we intercepted communications from around the world,” said Miller, who had a top-secret clearance. His final 13 months, he worked at the National Security Agency at Fort Mead, Maryland.
After his discharge, he returned to Indiana University for more studies. Later, he got accepted to the graduate school of social work in Indianapolis. Meanwhile, he also entered the discernment process to become an Episcopal priest.
In 1972, he began studies at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. Ordained a priest in 1975 at age 30, he began a career that took him to parishes in Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, New York and Missouri. He also served as a chaplain in the Army National Guard from 1984 to 2005.
Much has changed since his ordination. Women entered the priesthood. Lay people grew more involved. The Book of Common Prayer got revised. And, more recently, the number of churches in the Diocese of West Missouri able to keep a full-time priest has dwindled. More priests also work a “regular” job outside the church.
In July 2012, Miller retired as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Springfield. He took the summer off before starting “supply” work, which means filling in at churches that lack a rector or when the rector is out of town.
When Miller agreed to be the part-time priest at Trinity, he signed a three-year contract. That was 13 years ago.
He considers his 50 years of ministry to be a blessing.
“I don’t think God micromanages this world or our lives but, providentially, I think God oversees it all,” Miller said. “God has been very kind to me. I am one of the luckiest priests in the world.”
Why do you feel that way?
“Through the years of ministry, all the wonderful people that I’ve gotten to know, both lay and ordained. As I look back, I see grace after grace, blessing after blessing. It is hard to talk about. It’s almost emotional when I think about it. My faith is stronger just because of the witness of the people I serve.”
This article was submitted by Donna McGuire.
