Easter with Nashotah House
In my capacity as Dean of Nashotah House, I have the joy of watching the full life cycle of our students’ formation for lives of ministry.
I picture it in a series of images:
The new seminarian pulling up to campus with a U-Haul, eager, if a little nervous, to embark on three years of theological study and pastoral preparation.
The student kneeling, joining the throngs who have gone before them in offering daily praises to God in our St. Mary’s Chapel stalls.
The professor and student walking together across campus, continuing a theological discussion that began in the classroom and spilled over into the lunch hour.
The graduate, surrounded by friends and family, smiling proudly with diploma in hand at Commencement.
The alumni, having answered God’s call, faithfully leading their flocks, preaching the Word, and administering the sacraments.
I love being a part of the unique formation process that happens on our campus, but that last image is perhaps the most energizing part of my job. Priests and lay leaders using their training to serve God’s people: this is Nashotah House’s mission in action. And it is happening in outposts of Christ’s church all across the country and the globe.
Since assuming the role of Dean in 2024, I have visited alumni in large, program-sized parishes and have witnessed firsthand how Nashotah-trained priests work to foster health and mission-mindedness in these large churches. They raise up youth in love and service of the Lord, they disciple believers of all ages, they take on the gospel mandate to serve the vulnerable in their communities.
I have also visited our alumni who serve in smaller congregations. Some of these churches were on the brink of closure, barely on life support, and then our alumni answered the call and infused new life into them – the kind of life that only comes through the faithful proclamation of the gospel.
That’s not to mention our many alumni who faithfully serve as chaplains in hospitals, the military, and in prisons or as educators, deacons, and in lay ministry of various forms throughout the country and worldwide.
Our alumni are also influencing the future of global Anglicanism as they assume greater leadership in the church as bishops, in diocesan leadership, and in other executive roles. In 2025 alone, three of our recent alumni were elected and consecrated as bishops across the Anglican Communion. That God uses Nashotah House in this way to carry out his plan for the world is a great privilege.
In just a few weeks, the Class of 2026 will join our 1,200 living alumni as they begin their new chapter of service in Christ’s church.
I hope you will join us in praying for them, and all our alumni, daily. Here, the Nashotah House Prayer may help guide your intercession:
Bless, O Lord, this House, set apart to the glory of your great name and the benefit of your Holy Church; and grant that your Name may be worshipped here in truth and purity to all generations. Give your grace and wisdom to all the authorities, that they may exercise holy discipline, and be themselves patterns of holiness, simplicity, and self-denial.
Bless all who may be trained here; take from them all pride, vanity, and self-conceit, and give them true humility and self-abasement. Enlighten their minds, subdue their wills, purify their hearts, and so penetrate them with your Spirit and fill them with your love, that they may go forth animated with earnest zeal for your glory; and may your ever living Word so dwell within their hearts, that they may speak with that resistless energy of love which shall melt the hearts of sinners to the love of you.
Open, O Lord, the hearts and hands of your people, that they may be ready to give and glad to distribute to our necessities. Bless the founders and benefactors of this House, and recompense them with the riches of your everlasting kingdom, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
Dr. Lauren Whitnah has served as Dean of Nashotah House since August 2024. A medieval historian, Whitnah previously served on the teaching faculty of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and as research manager and associate director of the university’s Global Computing Lab. Whitnah holds a PhD in Medieval Studies and Master of Medieval Studies, both from the University of Notre Dame; a Master of Studies in History from the University of Oxford; and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Gordon College. Whitnah’s academic focus centers on devotion to saints and understandings of sacred place in the High Middle Ages, particularly in northern England and southern Scotland.
