Female rector part of trend
The Rev. Kara Wagner Sherer, 37, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, 3857 N. Kostner. Salary: $37,100.
Kara Wagner Sherer taught elementary school, but for years people told her she should be a pastor. "It became a nagging thing," said Wagner Sherer, who has been a priest for three years.
The Episcopal Church has ordained women since 1976, but Wagner Sherer had never seen a woman priest until she was in college. She is the sixth woman elected rector in the Diocese of Chicago. "It's still kind of emerging," she said.
On Friday morning before Christmas, Wagner Sherer had coffee with a parishioner who was celebrating one year of sobriety.
Then there were e-mails to answer, the bulletin to edit, and people on the prayer list to call. There were three different sermons to get ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A homeless man came in, wet from the rain. The rector found him a sweater and arranged for a trip to a shelter.
Other parish work includes helping with the neighborhood food pantry, meeting with parishioners, planning worship and new ministries, and doing work for the larger Chicago Diocese. St. John's also has a partnership with a parish in Mexico.
Wagner Sherer usually starts each day reading the Scriptures for that Sunday -- aloud at first. To get ideas for sermons, she reads the newspapers and looks at a book of art and poetry that matches the Sunday readings.
Wagner Sherer never writes down her sermons. She talks them out. "I preach to my friend and to my husband and to the wall."
Mary Wisniewski