Healing in the Interim Time
Author: Rev'd Nancy Cox
April 15, 2026
In the life of a parish, an interim season can feel uncertain. Standing between what has been and what will be is not simply a pause or a gap to be endured. It is, at its heart, a season given for healing, honesty and hope.
Healing begins with honesty. Through the Holy Cow survey, small group gatherings and the “still to come” whole parish meeting, the congregation has been invited to gently tell the truth about its past—its joys and its wounds, its faithfulness and its fractures. The community takes time to intentionally listen to voices that may have been unheard or overlooked, and welcome them back into the conversation.
The goal is to name, without blame or defensiveness, what has been lost, what still aches, and what remains unfinished, in order to create space for God’s grace to meet us where we truly are. Stories are shared, not to reopen old conflicts, but to deepen understanding and restore trust. It is amazing how the Holy Spirit works through these moments of attentive listening, and knit the community more tightly together.
Healing is not only about looking backward, looking at history for history’s sake. It is about rediscovering identity. Who has God called this community to be? What gifts has God entrusted to this particular congregation, in this particular place? This interim time allows St. Mary’s to reconnect with its purpose—not as defined by a single leader, but grounded in its baptismal calling.
Over the years, St. Mary’s has been “known for its community outreach” (quoted from the first line of an article from The Oklahoman on the parish’s 75th anniversary). We were one of three co-founding churches of the Hope Center, an organization which responds to the basic needs of people in the community experiencing personal emergencies. The combination of COVID closures and the move to this new location means that ministry in the community has to be engaged in new ways. This was very much “front and center” in the on-going conversations about the future which your parish leadership is having with the diocesan canons.
Interim time is holy work. It is the slow, faithful tending and tilling, so that new life can take root. And in that work, God is present—healing, restoring, and preparing the way forward. Doing this work of healing and reclaiming identity leads toward hope. As patterns are examined and relationships renewed, our congregation becomes more open, more resilient, and more ready to receive new leadership. The future is no longer something to fear or control, but something to enter with faith.
Our work is to keep taking that next step forward!
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