[Images] The Rev. Daisy Colon and the Rev. Liam Barr
Reimagining Curacies is an initiative funded by a Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving in Ministry grant to support a variety of religious organizations across the nation as they create or strengthen programs to help pastors build relationships with experienced clergy who serve as mentors and guide them through key leadership challenges in congregational ministry.
The Rev. Liam Barr and the Rev. Daisy Colon began their tenure as the second diocesan cohort of Reimagining Curacies in July 2024. Here they share thoughts on the experience to date. Because both of them work with communities that feel vulnerable in today’s political climate, identifiers have been removed.
Christine McTaggart (CMc): How did you come to be a part of Reimagining Curacies?
The Rev. Liam Barr (LB): [After] graduating seminary, my wife and I wanted to be back in North Carolina. I heard about Reimagining Curacies in conversations with Canon Catherine Massey after the seminarians were introduced at Annual Convention. This was such a cool program that would get us back in the state we love and closer to family, and it reflected the ways I was formed in seminary. The future [for clergy] is bivocational, so what does that actually look like in a context where priests are having to juggle more than ever?
We can be really anxious about this, or we can think about it as an opportunity to have the church be evangelized by the spirit in the world. Having to do more things means encountering more people, encountering God in other places, and letting the church be evangelized and transformed by that. So for me, it’s been really cool in this position of working half-time with the Latino community at the church where I serve and half-time at the New Hope Collaborative (Disciple, Winter 2025), to see these two sides of ministry and let both of them kind of fuel and influence each other.
The Rev. Daisy Colon (DC): I also heard about the program from Canon Catherine Massey. I saw it as a great opportunity to learn before taking a clergy position on my own. I’m working with two churches—both are predominantly Anglo congregations—that are involved in their local Latino communities, and I’m seeing everything as a great opportunity to learn and engage with two different kinds of communities at the same time.
CMc: What drew you to working with multiple ministries, as opposed to a single-church approach?
DC: For me, at the beginning, it was a little scary. During seminary, I saw myself just in one place, the more traditional track. But at the same time, when I spoke with the Rev. Canon Franklin Morales about the churches, it started to seem more interesting.
I think it’s much better, in a way, because you learn from both. You are here and here. You’re not only in one capsule. I really like it.
LB: It’s a good microcosm of the church, figuring out how to manage your own time with different people, different systems. So much of my discernment, even into the priesthood, was trying to figure out how much am I called to the priesthood and how much am I called to working in the community of whatever that looks like. Before seminary, I worked for an environmental nonprofit where I did a lot of the public-facing work, and even in seminary, I was really involved with a lot of the work that I was doing before. I was a chaplain at a local immigration shelter and did a lot of things that were very gospel work, very in line with who I understand Jesus Christ to be and what he’s calling me to. And yet we’re outside of the confines of a church.
And so I think for me, this felt like a call where I get two parts of my sense of call being touched and informed. In one space, I’m working and walking alongside this Latino community, and at the New Hope Collaborative, I’m really being active in the community of supporting local nonprofit leaders, hosting different events, finding out the ways God is already doing work in the community, and asking how we can invite that into the church. Reimagining Curacies’ two-part, bivocational call means
I get to work within both contexts of the community and the church. That’s been really special.
Just having that flow of energy and blessing and transformation is, for me, this intersection of the community work outside of the church and having spent my whole life in the church, and somehow this Reimagining Curacies two-part bivocational call means that I get to work within both these contexts. And so that’s been really special, too.
CMc: Tell me about the work you’re doing in each place.
DC: At the one church, I’m doing La Misa, which we changed to Sundays at 5 p.m. I choose what will be in the service and the music. I’m also about to start doing the children’s chapel service and working with the Latino preschool twice a month, and I work with the young adult ministry.
At the other, I do a weekly Bible study with the children, and we are working on starting Godly Play. I’m also trying to connect the people in the community with the Latino ministry. It’s a little bit harder now because ICE was in the area a few weeks ago [at the time of the interview], but I’ve started going to a local feeding and meal ministry, where I can sit and really talk with members of the Latino community.
And I also have a part-time secular job along with a bus ministry I started a few months ago. That’s kind of a personal thing. I was wondering how to engage with people—how do we practice that? I was in public transportation for almost three years and learned that for a lot of people, they need to be listened to, and they have a lot of stories to share. So now, I just get the bus. And we engage. I’m just myself, and maybe I have a reflection book with me, or I’m working on my sermon. Sometimes I walk around the city and talk to people, and just last week I took the train. Different places, just meeting people and having a regular conversation, whatever they need to talk about.
LB: Daisy, you’re so cool. Every time I talk to you, I feel this infectious energy—this bus ministry is something God is calling you to do, not because you’re clergy but because you’re a faithful person, and that is inspiring to me.
As for my work, the church where I serve is a historic Anglo English-speaking congregation, that about 20 years ago looked around their community and saw a growing Latino population who moved into the area for farm and labor work. So the church started an afternoon worship service created for the Latino community, and 23 years later, believe it or not, I’m the first clergy person to serve who is fully bilingual! It’s exciting because these faithful folks have ideas of what they want to do and where God is calling them to be, and I get to be the person who says, yes, let’s make these things happen.
And as a white guy who did not grow up and share the culture of the wonderful people I serve, I am taught so much by them, and they give me so much grace, and it is such a good expression of community that we can get together and be on this journey of becoming more human together.
At the New Hope Collaborative, I kind of do whatever needs doing on a day-to-day basis. One day I met the fire alarm system people to address some beeping. Another day I organized getting a painting quote or helped set up for an event. And I’m getting the office ready to welcome our new founding director, Lesley Peace [who began at the end of February]. I enjoy it—it’s grunt work and putting sweat and energy into a project and community that you’re helping God build.
[Image] Ordination to the priesthood in December 2024 was not the last step in their formation as priests for the Rev. Daisy Colon, the Rev. Chipper Long and the Rev. Liam Barr. Colon and Barr are continuing their formation as members of the second cohort of Reimagining Curacies. Photo by Summerlee Walter
CMc: What are you finding challenging?
DC: For me, it’s trying to engage the community to come to church. We try to connect with people, but they don’t always answer the phone or text or messages on WhatsApp. I don’t know why, exactly. So it’s a little bit at a time, but it’s still a challenge.
LB: I think just this first year of ministry with everything being brand new, doing everything as a priest for the first time and just experiencing that. Being aware of how we interact with the community [across cultures] and what we do on Sundays, and trying to provide good, helpful, thoughtful formation that’s inclusive. The challenge is that every day is an adventure—some days are great, and some days I don’t know what I’m doing, but somehow God shows up.
CMc: What do you most hope to gain from your experience with Reimagining Curacies? What do you hope at the end of your time you will take with you?
LB: I hope to continue gaining wisdom and confidence in what I’m doing and who God is calling me to be. I’ve already gained so much of that, and what’s special about Reimagining Curacies is we get to experience and gain that confidence and wisdom in two different contexts, with the blessing of having people to go to for advice and guidance. For me, working in one church and one community, I get to see what God is doing in two very different settings.
DC: I’d like to do a quinceañera and a baptism. And, like Liam, I just want to be confident and equipped for whatever congregation I serve. Getting experience in these two churches—one city and one countryside— is giving me experience in two totally different contexts. I want to be a priest for everybody or whoever needs me, not just for a specific community. I want to be equipped to do that so I can succeed and bring the best to my vocation or whatever community God calls me to.
Christine McTaggart is the communications director for the Diocese of North Carolina. Contact her. Contact the Rev. Liam Barr. Contact the Rev. Daisy Colon.
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