The Rev. Canon Michael N. Ambler, Jr.
Click here for résumé

Video from the Nominee Walk-about on March 20, 2012
at St. Brendan’s Episcopal Church, Franklin Park

Ordained:
December 16, 2000, Diocese of Maine

Currently:
Rector, Grace Episcopal Church, Bath, Maine; serving since 2002; age 47

A Word of Introduction from the Rev. Canon Michael Ambler:
I was born and raised in New York City, where I first sensed my vocation to the priesthood when I was 12 years old.  That sense never left me, though for a while I thought I had outgrown it.  After working for the New York City Board of Correction and a Portland, Maine, law firm, I began to realize that the work I was doing as an active lay person in church mattered far more to me than what I was doing in my job.

Attending Episcopal Divinity School meant we could avoid uprooting our young family, and EDS was a fortunate choice.  My upbringing was quite conservative; EDS was anything but.  I learned there to recognize and value the faithfulness of Christians whose positions varied widely from my own centrist understanding.  Now, as Rector of Grace Church, it is important to me that we represent many persuasions, from the most progressive right through to the most conservative.  Grace reflects my own commitment to the Anglican value of comprehensiveness: we are united by our common faith and witness, and not divided by our divergent opinions.

Grace has recently joined together with a smaller, nearby parish to inaugurate a novel ministry partnership.  Together, we have hired a newly ordained priest as a full time assistant, and I have become the priest-in-charge of the smaller parish as well as continuing as rector of Grace.  Between us, we offer the only full-time clergy internship in this part of the country.

I am often called on as a mediator and consultant for congregations in crisis.  I have training in mediation through the University of Southern Maine, and also through the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, which offers the pre-eminent program in ecclesiastical conflict resolution.  Mediation is hard work; it requires trust and time and the good faith of all participants.  It is a source of deep spiritual satisfaction to help adversaries rediscover their common bond in Christ and find a way forward.

Other Church Service:
Co-chair of the Diocese of Maine’s Committee on Holy Orders; served on various ecclesiastical courts; deputy to the 2009 & 2012 General Convention, current president of Diocese of Maine Standing Committee.

Education:
Episcopal Divinity School, M.Div., 2000
University of Michigan Law School, J.D. magna cum laude, 1989
Princeton University, A.B. cum laude, Comparative Literature, 1985

Family:
Married 26 years to Deborah (“Darreby”) Stalker Ambler, a freelance author; three children.

Hobbies & Interests:
Willing to travel almost anywhere on any excuse; fluent in French; love small-boat sailing when it’s not too serious; chef of the family.

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Answers to Questions Asked of All Nominees

1. Why do you feel called to be the Eighth Bishop Diocesan of Pittsburgh and what experiences equip you for this call?

I recently led a Bible study on the account in John’s Gospel of Peter and the beloved disciple running toward the tomb. They had heard the news from Mary Magdalene; the tomb was open and Jesus’ body was gone. What did it mean? That Bible study was part of my weekend with your Search/Nominating Committee in early January; after we read the text, we looked together at a painting of the two running disciples by Eugene Burnand (Google his name and you will see the painting). Their faces reflect the horror of Good Friday, but are also lit by a wild hope: What if it were all true?

It’s Easter morning in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The recent past is shadowed by betrayal, division, a kind of death. The future is rich with God’s promise, though we don’t know yet how it will take shape. Today is the day of resurrection: the day to see Jesus in a new way, to wait for the wind of the Spirit, and to spread the news that the love of God has triumphed.

Helping to lead the Diocese of Pittsburgh into this resurrection is the most exciting, challenging, soul-nourishing ministry I can imagine.

I would come to this ministry as a theological centrist. My background is conservative. My seminary — which I chose for geographical rather than ideological reasons — was anything but. I have seen how the most conservative and the most progressive Christians can strengthen one another through their shared love of Christ, and I would work to make the Diocese of Pittsburgh a beacon of reconciliation.

When there’s a sticky conflict in the Diocese of Maine, the bishop often asks me to mediate, to help Christians who have become estranged from each other find new ways to live together. Mediation brings together my skills as a former litigator, and my spirit as a Christian and a priest. I bring administrative gifts to my work as president of our Standing Committee, and am enriched by the chance to see and support the work of our bishop and diocese from up-close. I am an active part of the life of the larger church, and serve as a deputy to General Convention. And I have led my parish to embrace new approaches to ministry, partnering with a neighboring congregation so that together we now offer the only assistant rector position for a newly-ordained priest in our part of the country. My background gives me what I would need to manage the learning curve I would face along with you as your new bishop.

If you and the Holy Spirit bring me to Pittsburgh, I will strive to embody the values of Anglican Christianity — Anglican in the truer, older sense. My theological hero is Richard Hooker, an Anglican founding father whose collect calls us to seek the “middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth.”

That generous vision allows each of us — conservative, progressive, or tired of the distinction —the chance to be the best Christian we can be. It invites all of us to worship together at God’s altar, and then go out together to serve the lost, the cold and the hungry.

It’s Easter morning in Pittsburgh. What miracles will we be able to show a skeptical world?

2. The Diocese of Pittsburgh is significantly smaller than it was in 2008. Given that we now have 32 participating congregations, a) how would you foster growth in the ministry, stewardship and membership of our parishes, and b) what do you see as the best way to approach our diocesan organizational structure?

Our prayer book teaches that the mission of the Church is to “restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”

We have to start with the “each other” part before anyone should listen to us about the God part. The division of the last few years has not been like a corporate spin-off; it’s been more like a family divorce. Until we let God heal the wounds of that divorce, few will want to join our family. We need to follow the example of the first Christians, who as soon as Easter morning was over, gathered together in an upper room, closed the door, and started talking. Have you seen Him too? And also, where were you on Good Friday?

Recount the story. Repent the wrongs. Reconcile the estranged. All through the redemptive grace of Christ. That will be our focus as we set out together.

If we do that — and if, along the way, we remember to care for those around us and among us who are hurting and in need — then we’ll have something holy and distinctive to offer the battle-weary world we live in. We’ll be able to talk about resurrection and restoration, and people will see that we know what we’re speaking of.

We need to let God do a new thing in Pittsburgh. That means that we must be careful not to fall back into doing all the old things in the old ways. I have heard that there are as many diocesan committees, commissions, and other bodies as there were before the split, and I’ve heard murmurings about people getting burned out trying to carry the load.

The key functions of the diocese are to support the ministry of the parishes, to care for the clergy who serve in those parishes, and to do the work that is more effective or more efficient when we do it collectively: such as youth ministry, education for new leaders, preparation of aspiring priests and deacons.

There is one new body I would call us to create in our first years together: a study group to look carefully at those key functions of the diocese, and make recommendations about how we can organize ourselves to carry them out. We may need to change our canons; we would certainly need to change our habits. But it would be worth it if it gave us a structure that energized rather than exhausted us; that allowed opportunities for shared and diverse leadership; and that insisted that every activity, every meeting, have a purpose that justified its cost in time and resources.

 3. What challenges facing the Church today energize you and, as our bishop, how would you lead us to respond to them?

The biggest challenge facing today’s church is that we matter to fewer and fewer people.

Ask yourself: if you weren’t part of the Church, if you’d never been part of the Church — would you join? Would you even come through the door? I love the Church, despite all its failings; but I have a sinking feeling in the face of my own question.

The obstacles are many and familiar. Our buildings are often old and austere, and sometimes it’s hard to find the door — literally. Have you ever gone to an unfamiliar church and had to struggle to find the way in? Our liturgy is as life-giving to me as my own heartbeat, and I am about equally protective of both. Yet it means nothing to those not already steeped in its rhythms and its scriptural images; it’s a foreign language which may be beautiful but is still incomprehensible. Then there’s the music, which can seem to come from long ago and far away. Remember, the question is not whether you love it, but how it speaks to someone whose experience is of contemporary music perfectly performed, time after time, all the time, thanks to an iPod. How do we share the good news of Christ with people who don’t think it is good news, and don’t think we have much to offer them?

I’ve read recently about a Lutheran bishop who decided that every decision he made was going to turn on how it would affect people who were not part of the church. That seems a little extreme. Those already in the Church are Christ’s beloved, and they — we — need to be well cared for and gently treated.

But he does have a point. And in fact, one of the founding principles of Anglicanism was that the Church needs to change to meet the needs of the world in new times and new places.

The Church needs to start mattering a lot more to a lot more people. We can’t wait for them to come through our doors; we must go out through those doors, and meet them where they already are. This is mission, and it will look different in each community. In my current parish, we take dinner to senior centers each week, and share both food and companionship with the residents. We sponsor the mobile food pantry, and invite people in for coffee and conversation while they wait. We bless animals in the city park. I wear clericals most of the time, because that is one tool I have as a priest to remind people that the Church touches their lives. It leads to surprising conversations in the coffee shop and by the dairy case.

That same outgoing spirit can lead us to new ways of worship as well. Whether it’s Children’s Church for young families, or Taize services for people who will find God through candlelight and quiet chant, or something entirely different, our call is to speak of Christ to those who don’t already speak Episcopalian.

 4. How might you respond if a person who was not a Christian approached you and said, “Why would I want to be a Christian?”

“Because we’re the world’s number one supplier of free coffee?

“Actually, I can’t answer your question. All I can tell you is why I am a Christian.

“I am a Christian because I believe it is true. I know there is a gulf between humanity and God; I feel that in my life, and I see it in our angry and divided world. Yet I also know that God is with us, and loves us despite all our failings: I feel that just as strongly, and the generosity of God’s creation can make my eyes tear. I believe that Christ is the bridge across the gulf; that Christ really did live and die and rise again to reunite us to God, both now and forever. That’s what it means to me when Christ says that he is “the way, the truth and the life.”

“Believing that changes everything. It means that I can love, because love doesn’t end in death, but in glory. It inspires me to be my best, because I know that it matters — that what I do and who I am makes a difference in the sight of God. And it means that I am not afraid, because I know that God is with me, and won’t drop me, even when I am at my worst.

“There’s a table free over there. Let’s sit down, and then tell me: why do you ask? Oh, and can I buy you a cup of coffee?”­