Meet The Rev. Nick Morris-Kliment, New St. Paul's Pastor

Several weeks ago, the congregation of welcomed their new pastor, the Reverend Nick Morris-Kliment, to town.

Morris-Kliment was hired in early April to replace Rev. Mike Dangelo, who moved to Texas early in the year with his family to accept a new position at an Episcopal school. The new pastor gave his first sermon at St. Paul's on Sunday, May 20.

Before coming to Lynnfield, Morris-Kliment was the associate rector at Trinity Church in Concord, Mass for eight years. He is a Yale graduate who did graduate work at Brown University and who also did his seminary studies at Yale. His first experience in leading a congregation came during time spent as a lay chaplain at the Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Connecticut.

Morris-Kliment also spent eight or nine years as a high school teacher and coach, with some of this experience earned while he worked on his seminary studies part time.

While Lynnfield may be new to Father Nick, he has actually known his predecessor since those days at the Yale seminary, which Dangelo also attended. The two were also acquainted through their respective work in the Eastern Mass. Diocese of the Episcopal Church.

Morris-Kliment did not begin his academic career in divinity studies, nor did he grow up in a family that regularly attended church - although he did attend an Episcopal elementary school as a boy followed by a junior and senior high school run by the Quakers. "There was maybe hints of things to come," he said.

Earlier in life the reverend had actually planned to become a history professor before feeling the call to join the clergy. "For me, it wasn't until I was in my early 20s," he explained, adding that his faith awakened after "someone invited me to church and I discovered that God is real." From this experience that he described as a "very powerful feeling," he was baptized at age 24.

Along with history, another of the reverend's interests is basketball. In fact, his wife and a couple of parishioners even put up a new basketball net in the church parking lot the weekend before his first sermon there.

The new St. Paul's pastor grew up in Maryland, in a small town north of Baltimore called Monkton. "We had a post office. That was it," he said of his former town, adding that his family ran a plant nursery with perennials, bamboo, ground covers and more while he was growing up.  He has two children with his wife, Jamie. They have been married for 15 years.

Looking ahead, Morris-Kliment has been working with others at the church to set some new goals for the congregation. He emphasizes that the church's current relationship with St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Chelsea will be "continuing in a very, very strong way." During the summer, a garden behind the church produces vegetables that are used in the soup kitchen at St. Luke's, which members of St. Paul's and other nearby Episcopal churches volunteer at monthly.

There are also plans in the works for a possible joint mission to El Salvador with youth group members from both St. Paul's and St. Luke's. Some adults may be headed there this fall on an exploratory visit for their own service work and to also make sure that this is a good time for a group of teenagers to plan a visit to the country. One thing that makes the prospect of this El Salvador mission so exciting, suggests the reverend, is the idea of teens from a prosperous suburb going to work with fellow teens who have a very different life. "That's so powerful," he said.

When asked if he has a particular philosophy for his vocation, the reverend explained that "My vocation is to help people see God at work in their lives and to act on that knowledge in service to God and neighbor."

"When I preach, my passion is to help people learn to see... We have to learn to see and hear God at work in their lives and to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world, serving God and neighbor," he added. "It's hard for people to come in and think of how to live their faith the other six days of the week."