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Editor’s note: Katie was ordained May 26, 2024, at Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville. Her father is the Rt. Rev. Neil Lebhar, first Bishop of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese; her mother Marcia Lebhar has had a prolific biblical teaching ministry; her sister Sarah is a seminary professor and Sarah’s husband is the rector of Incarnation Tallahassee; her brother Peter was ordained as a deacon last year and priest this year. Here is her reflection on her unique calling and journey to ordained ministry. -sjh+
By trade I’m an artist, and more specifically a theatre and production director. I serve as the Director of Fine Arts at a private school in Jacksonville. I have had years of teaching a class called Theological Arts, which focuses on viewing God and the study of Him through our particular lens as artists. Additionally, I help the team of chaplains as the chapel music coordinator, and with other arts integration opportunities (including writing and directing the Christmas chapel, the Passion Week chapel performance, dramatic readings, etc.). I also work to train student preachers in homiletics.
As the chaplain’s duties have grown across our three campuses, our Dean of Spiritual Life asked me a few years to serve as the leader of the Pre-K chapel program, doing music and “preaching” weekly with my puppet. To add to all that (and this is all on top of my duties of serving to lead a team of nearly 30 arts teachers in visual and performing arts) I serve as the leader of the Israel study trip as part of our Global Programs. I get so excited to take people to the land of the Scriptures and watch God open hearts and blow minds with the reality of His presence. All of these things I have done as a lay person for years. But I began to feel God nudging me toward being ordained. My sister Sarah said that it was as though the Holy Spirit was acting to “put a ring on it!”
I also serve at Redeemer, where I have attended on and off since my dad was called to serve as rector in 1988. Over the many years I have served in music ministry, children’s ministry, sporadically taught adult discipleship, served as a reader, served in the sound and projection booth, and wrote and directed the annual Christmas pageant a number of times. That is what gets me excited: When the Arts cross into ministry – either in my work at school, or as a volunteer at Redeemer. The Holy Spirit uses artistic gifts to change and shape people and that’s where I know He has called me to continue to push His people forward into thinking creatively and reaching the lost with the beauty and power of the spoken and written word, the song, the dance, and visual images.
Maybe my biggest discovery in the discernment process is that God’s call for ordained ministry doesn’t look one way. I always saw Biblical knowledge/teaching theology/ordination as the calling that the rest of my family might have and that I was the artist, the one with a foot in the world, the one finding my calling in the lives of high school theatre kids—that kind of thing. But watching God call me to ordination has reminded me that we are all truly a Kingdom of Priests, operating in the world, doing the work of the Gospel. Ordination is not just for the academics, theologians, and saints. God calls ALL of us, uniquely and differently. All types of people can and should be sacramentally ordained, but in a real sense we are all ordained, chosen by God for earthly service to a broken world.
What has surprised me in recent years is my passion for the art of crafting and delivering a strong sermon. That has led me down a path of study and training and I feel that God may use my artistic/directing gifts to serve to encourage and uplift others in their preaching.
I am looking forward to my role as a deacon to continue to be a bridge builder between the church and the world. My greatest desire is to reach people with the Gospel.