New pastor follows his calling

Michele Marr

In January 2002, the Very Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, then

rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach, announced his

plans for retirement. Anderson had been at the helm of the church for

16 years.

During that time, he lead the parish through a $7-million,

two-phase construction project, which endowed the church with a new

education building, an administration building and a new sanctuary

with a 28-stop, electro-pneumatic pipe organ.

Anderson’s announcement thrust the 61-year-old parish into a

search for a new senior pastor that lasted nearly a year.

The process was careful and arduous for the church’s vestry, the

search committee and for candidates alike. Jim Dale, junior warden

for the parish, said they were fortunate to have the search move so

quickly.

“We were looking for an orthodox conservative, someone who stands

on biblical truths and who is also evangelistic in nature,” Dale

said. The right candidate needed to possess strong pastoral skills

and needed to be committed to lay leadership, to youth ministry and

to community outreach.

On Nov. 23, the vestry and the congregation put the final decision

to prayer. After months of research and hours-long interviews, the

field of candidates was narrowed to a handful. Father Praveen Bunyan

was among them.

“Listening closely to what God was speaking to us about, after

prayer and after everyone shared their opinion, it became so clear

that Father Praveen was the choice,” Dale said. “When the vestry

voted, it was a unanimous decision on the first ballot.”

Bunyan holds a master’s of divinity from Union Biblical Seminary

in Pune, India and a master’s of theology in New Testament from the

Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada. He earned

a bachelor’s in life sciences and master’s degrees in public

administration and political science from Madras Christian College in

Madras, India.

He comes from a long line of Anglican clergy. His grandfather was

the first Anglican bishop in the Church of South India, and his

father is an Anglican priest. He is a family man, with two teenage

children, Ida and Ben. He wife, Veena, is also a priest.

Bunyan has years of experience as a priest and pastor, having

served as the assistant to the rector at St. Luke’s of the Mountains

Episcopal Church in La Crescenta and then as interim rector of St.

Luke’s Episcopal Church in Fort Collins, Colo.

From 1999 until he was called to St. James, he served as the

rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in Aurora, Colorado, where he

earned a reputation for his interpersonal skills, his inspirational

preaching, and his energetic and visionary leadership.

When the search committee at St. James first approached him about

becoming a candidate for the position of rector, Bunyan had some

concerns.

“None of them were about St. James,” he said. His concerns were

about uprooting his family from their home, uprooting his children

from their schools and his wife from St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church,

where she was the assistant to the rector.

And he was just as concerned about leaving St.

Martin-in-the-Fields.

“I really agonized over that,” Bunyan said.

But when he took his concerns to his junior and senior wardens,

they told him, “We love you so dearly, but you need to be listening

to God. If God has plans for you, he has plans for us.” And his

family told him the same thing.

“The Lord began to convince me, slowly and surely through prayer

and through scripture, through prayer with my family and with my

prayer partners,” Bunyan said.

But he still asked God for one sure sign.

As a final affirmation that he was to go to St. James, he told God

that he wanted the vestry’s vote to call him as the new rector at St.

James to be unanimous.

“If it is 10-2 or 10-1, I’m not going,” Bunyan said he told God,

and then took it back, feeling he had perhaps overstepped his bounds

by putting God to the test like that.

Then he got the call. He was on his way home from a retreat in the

mountains, in an area, he said, where his cell phone had never had

service. The phone rang. The connection was perfect and clear.

Dale remembers the call, too. After the unanimous vestry vote to

call Bunyan as the new rector at St. James, Dale and Alec Simpson,

the parish’s senior warden, invited the whole vestry to the vestry

room to make the call to Bunyan.

“When he accepted the call [to become the new rector at St.

James], the vestry broke out into cheers,” Dale said. “There was not

a dry eye in room. It was the most joyous moment I will ever

experience in my life. I will never forget that.

“Father Praveen is an incredibly godly man,” he said. “The love of

Christ shines forth from him. His family is a godly family. They are

going to be wonderful example to the families at St. James, to see

how they work together and love each other as a family.”

His wife and family will join him at the end of the school year.

Bunyan began his work at the church on Jan. 20.

“I believe God has called this parish to be a light shining forth

in our community and in our nation and in the world,” he said. “There

is so much we can do together.”

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic artist.