My Dear St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church, 

Serving as your Senior Pastor for the past decade has been the honor of my professional life and has transformed who I am as a person of faith. We have faced some of the best and worst life moments together--from the silliness of bounce houses in the courtyard to the bare-souled honesty of the graveside. We have endured the wild debates of election seasons and faced the complexities of injustice and inequity. I am proud of the people we have been together and the ways I was able to stand at the helm of this nearly 125-year-old church. 

You and I both know the sentence that is coming next. It has not been easy for me to form the words, and I have fought hard against saying them out loud. The time has come for me to step down from my position as your Senior Pastor. As clear as the call was to both New Orleans and to you, the St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church, a new invitation of Spirit has been whispering to me for some time now. A period of contemplation and discernment over the past year has made clear what I already felt but was not yet brave enough to say: I am stepping away from traditional ministry in the institutional church. 

Over the next year, my career will take on a new freelance form with an increased focus on writing as well as consulting and coaching. A small but important aspect of my work in the year ahead will be launching the program I have had the joy of creating through the St. Charles Center for Faith + Action. In Deed and Truth: Interrogating Legacies of White Church in America has the support of large, partner organizations, and I am committed to helping this program flourish in my part-time role with the Center. The essence of In Deed and Truth is what I have experienced in my time as your pastor and is the culmination of so many sermons preached on the radical love of God as fully revealed in Jesus the Christ. 

Standing in the pulpit where countless, potent sermons have been preached for a century has shaped and formed me for doing justice work in more robust ways. I am eager to remain connected with the St. Charles Community while also cultivating freelance work of my own as an at-large-pastor, writer, podcaster, and resource to churches and clergy discerning this moment in religious life..

While there are finishing touches to our capital work, you stand in good stead as Phase One of capital projects near their finishing point, and the final disbursement of the grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places (as well as the sale of historic tax credits) will arrive soon. Nathan and I are committed to walking you through all of the final documentation of both historic tax credits and the National Fund for Sacred Places as you prepare to celebrate this remarkable accomplishment in November.

I am proud of the work we have done together and the team we have built. And while I am sad (and more than a little scared) to step away, I am so confident in the leadership you already have in place with my colleague, The Rev. Dr. Marc Boswell. Marc has long been someone I admire and respect, and I hoped for a few years that we might get to work together. His giftedness for congregational ministry and unwitting role as public theologian are tremendous assets to the St. Charles Community. My prayer is that you will see him for the remarkable gift that he is and protect his role as a key leader to this congregation in the year to come. 

I will remain on the church staff through September, and my last Sunday with you in worship will be September 24. Until that Sunday, it is my hope that we will have many moments for expressing the fullness of love and gratitude that I have for you, the St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church, and how much it will always mean to me that, on September 15, 2013, you took a chance on a 35-year-old pastor from Virginia and invited her to move 1000 miles away to create a new world with you. For these past ten years, I hope you and I have been people who are known for the love we have for one another and for the whole wide world. That has always been my aim and forever will be.

Grace + Peace, 

Rev. Elizabeth M. Lott