Jeremy Lucas brings a wealth of life experiences with him as he begins his new role serving as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Steamboat Springs.

“We fell in love with Steamboat Springs and this church,” said Lucas, who stepped in the role of interim rector and was officially named to the position Oct. 1. “Everything felt so right about being here that ultimately, I put my name in to be the rector. The bishop approved that, and the vestry approved that and just this last Sunday at the animal blessing, we announced it formally to the parish.”

Lucas has served the Episcopal and Anglican church for more than 25 years most recently in Portland, Oregon, where he worked at a couple of different parishes over a period of more than a decade. He came to Steamboat Springs in April as an interim filling in after Rev. Catie Greene left in November.

“Finding a new rector within a year is actually pretty fast for the Episcopal Church,” said Dave Kinnear, senior warden at St. Paul’s.

Kinnear explained that normally the interim is not allowed to be considered as a candidate for the full-time position, but things went so well with Lucas that the bishop in Denver waved the rule and the vestry in Steamboat Springs offered Lucas the position.

Lucas grew up in Alabama where he practiced law for several years and did pro bono work with animal rights organizations helping write the first felony animal cruelty bills in Alabama. He decided to leave his career to attend The General Theological Seminary in New York City.

“I woke up one day and realized that the world needed fewer lawyers and more priests,” Lucas said. “That was the joke, but the truth is I had started attending an Episcopal Church not long before that, and several people just started asking me if I had ever considered being a priest.”

Truth was that Lucas has not considered it, but was very involved with all kinds of things at the church, and over the course of time the idea of becoming a priest continued to grow.

“Decisions like that in life are not something that you make lightly or overnight,” Lucas said. “So I started a long period of discernment that was about a year-and-a-half with my own priest and with the bishop and a group of people who were walking down that path with me, and that was the direction and that the path opened up.”

Lucas’ first day of seminary was Sept. 11, 2001, and he said being a short distance from ground zero had a huge impact on his life and on his role as a priest.

“We were two miles, as the crow flies, up the West Side Highway. Several of us spent time down there providing relief to the rescue workers and things like that. It was a baptism by fire,” Lucas said. “It probably has the biggest impact on who I am as a priest. When you’re studying theology, thinking about God and when every day you can smell fires burning at ground zero, that has an impact on what you’re reading, what you’re seeing and how you’re interpreting that experience.”

In 2004, after completing seminary, Lucas moved back to north Alabama to work in a small parish in a rural area. He has served in a variety of ministries in the Diocese of Alabama, Diocese of Olympia and Diocese of Oregon. For several years he served as the dean of the smallest cathedral in the Anglican community in Windoek, Namibia.

“I got involved in a lot of things in Namibia. I loved it and it was an absolutely incredible experience in life,” Lucas said. “I never understood what it meant to be from the South until I moved to the North, and I never understood what it meant to be an American until I lived somewhere else. It’s only upon reflection of being somewhere that is not where you’re used to, that you can start to think about those experiences and what you learned and what might also be true out in the world.”

Lucas said all of his experiences, including those he had as a lawyer, have helped shape who he is as a priest. Through his career, Lucas’ advocacy for social justice and community healing has led him to take strong public stands against racial discrimination and gun violence.

He brings that with him to Steamboat where one of his first moves was to start “Sunday Night Conversations” at St. Paul’s.

“We come together and have a short prayer service and then we just pick a topic,” Lucas said. “We always talk about it from all the different perspectives that we have in the room, and it’s really a way of practicing active listening, compassion, understanding that people come from a lot of different places to find where they end up, and people have beliefs for a reason. Even if we disagree with them we can at least admit that they came to their beliefs honesty just like we did.”

Lucas, and his wife Audrey, are avid runners and he said quickly fell in love with the Steamboat Springs active community. He is thrilled to step into his position with the church and is excited about what it will bring.

“We both have the experience of living in smaller, more rural communities,” Lucas said. “My first parish was in a town called Athens, Alabama, and we really have enjoyed the slowing down and the quiet and the real sense of deep community that there is here.”

Lucas said that doesn’t mean glossing over the challenges that Steamboat and other resort communities in Colorado have. He said he will address many of those issues as the new rector and understands the role of his church.

“Congregations, communities and churches are the ones who are out in the community, doing the work,” Lucas said. “Here at Saint Paul’s almost every nonprofit in town is represented by somebody in this congregation.”