Christ Church Riverdale

Rev. Robert Cole Lamborn, Rector.
 

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn:

I hope it will be helpful for me to provide some background information and introductory thoughts. I was born and raised in northwest Georgia, the only son of Bob and Elinor Lamborn, both retired public school music teachers. I grew up as a Presbyterian in the small town of LaFayette, Georgia, and became an Episcopalian in college at the University of Georgia, Athens, earning my undergraduate degree in music education. I entered graduate school in musicology at Indiana University, Bloomington, receiving a degree of Master of Music and completing the coursework only for a Ph.D. In seminary at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, I met and married my wife, now the Rev. Amy Bentley Lamborn. She is a native of west Tennessee, the daughter of Kenneth and Carolyn Bentley, with an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in religion from Union University, Jackson, Tennessee. Amy has one brother, Mark Bentley, and a nephew, Drew. We moved to Indianapolis in 1994, where I served on the staff of Christ Church Cathedral until 1996, and was ordained to the diaconate in 1994 and the priesthood in 1995. While in Indianapolis, Amy served as a hospital chaplain and a member of the bishop’s staff.

We moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana, 45 miles northwest of Indianapolis, in late 1996 for me to become rector of St. John’s Church. My emphases in parish ministry have included Christian Education (children and adults), liturgy and music, pastoral care, and stewardship. Amy was ordained to the deaconate in 1997 and the priesthood in 1998, and has since served at St. Andrew’s Church, Greencastle, Indiana, on the staff of Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, and from 2000 to 2004 as rector of St. Mark’s Church, Plainfield, Indiana. This fall, Amy will begin the Ph.D. program in psychiatry and religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she has been awarded a full tuition fellowship. I am currently working toward the degree of Doctor of Ministry from Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, in a program designed to run concurrently with work in parish ministry. (I will be away in Alexandria continuing this work July 12 through 16.) Amy and I have one daughter, Caroline, born August 1, 2003, and our family also includes two cats, Dickens and Percy. We like to spend time playing with Caroline, reading, exercising, and playing golf. Amy enjoys cooking and playing the piano; I enjoy woodworking/home improvement and playing the trombone. How did I come to sense a call to become the rector of Christ Church? Amy and I first became interested in moving to the New York City area when she became moved to bring together her long-standing interest in psychology with her theological training and priesthood. Union Theological Seminary offers the program by far most suited to her interests, and when she applied, I began discernment about parish ministry in the area. The Christ Church parish profile showed some interesting potential matches between your two-to-five-year goals in the areas of Christian education, stewardship, outreach, and growth/development, and my qualifications and experience. As you can tell from what you have read so far, music is an important part of who I am, so I also welcomed the information in the profile about the strong musical tradition at Christ Church. Once I started meeting with parishioners on the search committee, and later on the vestry, what began as “interesting potential matches” started to acquire flesh and bones. I came to see a parish with people who are both very talented and quite down to earth, where diversity is not simply lived with but celebrated, and where love for God and for one another are lived realities. It will be a joy to get to know you as my sisters and brothers in this Christian community, and to join with you in the service of God. In Christ, Rob

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