Welcome our new Associate Rector, The Rev. Iva Joyce-Miesse!


March 13, 2024


Dear Members and Friends of Trinity Episcopal Church,


I am thrilled to announce that I have invited the Reverend Iva Joyce-Miesse to serve as Associate Rector of Trinity. Her first Sunday serving with us will be Pentecost, May 19, 2024. 


Iva was ordained a Priest in this diocese in June of 2023. She graduated in 2022 from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, where she and her wife Julia, were presented the prestigious Dean’s Cross for their work leading the campus response to COVID-19. The Dean’s Cross award recognizes outstanding servant leaders who embody their baptismal vows. Past recipients include Madeleine Albright, Wendell Berry, and Barbara Bush. Her seminarian field placement was with St. James Episcopal Church in Potomac, Maryland, a vibrant parish in suburban Washington, DC. Iva also interned with St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Lebanon, Ohio for a year following her graduation, offering liturgical leadership, preaching and adult formation. Iva satisfied her Clinical Pastoral Education requirement with Kettering Health Networks, providing spiritual care in the Level II Trauma Ward.


Before discerning a call to ordination, Iva worked as a physical therapist. Beyond her healing practice, Iva worked in positions of project management, clinical management and director of clinic services. Iva oversaw the successful startup of three clinics for Workers Choice Health Services, Inc. and a fourteen physician surgical practice at Wright State Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. She brings a wealth of organizational, administrative and staff management experience that will be a gift to the church. 


Iva, a cradle Episcopalian, has called Ohio home for the majority of her life, holding degrees from both Ohio University and Miami University. Both Iva’s adult children, Ryan and Gwyneth, work and live in the Columbus area. Iva and her wife Julia, met at Virginia Theological Seminary. Julia is also an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, serving as Associate Rector at St. John's Episcopal Church in Boulder, Colorado, where she and Iva currently live as Iva practices physical therapy. Julia will relocate to Central Ohio with Iva as Julia also pursues positions with the Episcopal Church here. 


Iva brings to Trinity a passion for accompanying people in their spiritual healing, and an appreciation for creating meaningful relationships with parishioners that build a depth of connection with God and the church. Iva will be a full partner with me in leading worship, preaching the Gospel and teaching. Iva will bring her gifts as a healer to pastoral care and her business skills to aid in the continuing organizational development of our growing parish. She will spend her time and energy working with parishioners to develop ministry teams that will be a blessing to the church and our community. 


I trust Trinity will be incredibly blessed to have Rev. Iva join our community. Iva and Julia will join us for worship this Sunday at 10:30 while they are visiting in preparation for their move. I hope you will join me in welcoming them both this Sunday and then at Pentecost when we welcome Iva as our priest. 


Serving with you,


The Reverend Jed J. Dearing

Rector


[Left] The Reverend Iva Joyce-Miesse standing next to [Right] The Right Reverend Bishop Wayne Smith, former Provisional Bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

[Left] The Reverend Iva Joyce-Miesse standing next to [Right] The Right Reverend Bishop Wayne Smith, former Provisional Bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.



The Rev. Iva's Self Introduction


Greetings and Lenten blessings to each of you—


I am thrilled to have accepted your call to serve as your next Associate Rector and to be afforded the opportunity to briefly introduce myself. At the outset, however, I want to be sure to extend my deep gratitude for the prayerful discernment work of Rev. Jed, the Vestry, the staff and the ministry leadership involved. Additional thanks as I  am also keenly aware of the behind-scenes-work taking place on my behalf  in anticipation of my arrival. Lastly, thank you, Trinity, for your faithful devotion and prayerful support of your leadership and of this call. 


I cannot wait to celebrate the beginning of our collective ministry together on my first Sunday at Trinity, May 19, 2024! I am struck by the intentionality of the Holy Spirit that my first Sunday with you all  be very nearly my favorite principal feast in the entirety of the liturgical calendar, Pentecost. (My most favorite? Ask me my on first Sunday for bonus points!) 


I can only imagine the holy frenzy of excitement and enthusiasm swirling amidst the crowd gathered that day as each heard and understood in their native languages as the very breath, the pneuma, of God swept unrestrained among them and flowed through them. This same sense of swirling enthusiasm, of receptivity to the Holy Spirit and its urgings, was palpable among this community when my wife Julia and I visited a few short weeks ago. Trinity’s sincere devotion to living Beloved Community, to the Christlike embrace of inclusion, to ministering on the margins and to being the Church in the world  embodies the manifestation of the Spirit’s work in this place. This same stirring enthusiasm clung to my heart over the course of the unfolding conversations and prayer as I returned home to Colorado; I am not unfamiliar with this (not always still or small) voice, and I understood, in my own language…”THIS place, Iva”.


As a priest, I believe our foundational identity is drawn from our communal life around font and table. I am passionate about good liturgy and relevant scriptural based preaching. I love sacramental theology and strive to integrate our Anglican traditions with a modern day pertinence and presence in the world, a world in great need of Christ’s love and witness. 


Returning to Central Ohio will be a homecoming of sorts. I spent my growing up years just down SR 33 near Lancaster, rooted early on in my faith at St. John’s Episcopal Church. In addition to my parents, I was raised by this cloud of witnesses fervently living out their baptismal covenants in my young life within this community. 


Both of my adult children also now reside in the Columbus area. Ryan (25) is a second lieutenant and a ROTC recruiter for the Ohio National Guard. Gwyneth (23) is a newly minted registered nurse and is working in the emergency department for the Mt. Carmel Health System. We are excited to reinstate Sunday family dinners and hiking adventures with our grand-dog, Phin.


Julia, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, is also an Episcopal priest and will be seeking a call within the diocese, perhaps working in the short term in her pre-seminary vocational call as a trauma nurse. We treasure your prayers as she discerns this path and steps out in the faith that sustains us and our relationship as a clergy couple. 


Please continue to hold us and our transition from Colorado to Ohio in your prayers. We will be in Columbus this weekend house-hunting and hope you will introduce yourselves when we worship with you this Sunday!


In Christ,

The Reverend Iva Joyce-Miesse