Christ Church Cathedral An Episcopal Community in the Heart of Houston, Texas
A history intertwined with Christ Church When I moved to Houston thirteen months ago, my father bestowed upon me an old traveling suitcase that had belonged to my greataunt Fairy Thompson. Stuffed full of letters and photographs dating from the 1830s until the 1970s, the suitcase is the depository for the The Very Rev. records of my family’s Barkley Texas roots. Thompson Included in it is a tintype photo of my great-great-great-greatgrandfather Col. John Henry Moore and his wife Eliza (for whom my daughter is named). Moore came to Texas as one of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old 300,” and Eliza did the same with her father, James Cummins. Col. Moore commanded the Texians at the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835, and he gave the land on which La Grange was founded from his original league. His daughter Tabitha married Ira Griffin Killough, a rancher also from Fayette County (and the ancestor for whom my son is named). Fast forward two more generations, and you reach my grandfather, Robert Faires Thompson, and his older sister, my great-aunt Fairy. By 1900 the family lived in Houston, where my great-grandfather John Hunter Thompson (who was from Bellville) ran the Guarantee Life Insurance Company and joined Christ Church. Hanging on the wall in my office is a photograph of him sitting at his desk in downtown Houston, circa 1910. Another photo from the same era shows Aunt Fairy as a child in a pony-drawn buggy, and inscribed on the back is “May Fete, Christ Episcopal Church.” My grandfather moved to Arkansas as a young adult, but Aunt Fairy remained a member of Christ Church until her
History, page 2
March 2014 christchurchcathedral.org
Ready to launch the vision
Visioning task force completes proposals to be announced March 2 Last fall, after consultation with the ministry staff, Dean Barkley Thompson appointed 12 members to a new Visioning Task Force that sought to gather new ideas for the future of Christ Church Cathedral. In true populist Episcopal fashion, the task force sought answers from the people who know the needs and gifts of the church best: the parishioners. The task force designed a series of organized brainstorming sessions called “visioning charrettes.” More than 250 parishioners participated in the charrettes, hoping to discern a vision for the future of the Cathedral. After a thorough survey, which spanned all demographics of the church, the task force received more than 2,000 ideas from which they methodically chose the best and most frequently verbalized. “I was really excited by the Senior warden and visioning task force member David Kirkland presents amount of enthusiasm there was preliminary proposals to the vestry at the January retreat. for the process and the idea of coming up with a strategic plan for the Ca- about doing additional things, too.” The results of the task force’s work will be anthedral,” said senior warden David Kirkland, who served on the task force. “People are ex- nounced on March 2 at the 175th Anniversary cited with where we are but they are excited Vision, page 6
New Lenten lecture series begins March 12 This year, the season of Lent at Christ Church Cathedral will be marked in several poignant ways, including a brand new endowed lecture series, the Robert C. Stuart Lenten Series, presented by the Adult Formation Council. For its inaugural year, the Cathedral has invited five speakers to reflect on the theme of “Grace and Forgiveness.” The series will differ from those of the recent past in that it will offer two components over the course of the five weeks of Lent, and all parts of the series are free and open to the public. Each Wednesday will feature a different speaker who will be in residence at the Cathedral for the day. At noon, all are invited to a Researcher Brené Brown
Series, page 8