Infinite grace: Rev. Jenei Rossigg brings vigor, strength to Church of Proctor

BY MAT CLOUSER

PROCTOR — Grace as a concept is all-encompassing. Secular and spiritual at once, a conundrum but also an aspiration. It’s often a thing we want or wish we had, as in physical grace or the ways we might behave in hard times—times that can feel ever-present but not for a little more grace.

The subject of grace has been written about so widely that it can mean almost anything to anyone. It’s comforting yet elusive, distracting at times—even frustrating when it slips our grasp. Yet, always, there’s some poetry in it—in the ways that it can obliterate our preconceptions and provide us with solace and companionship where all else may fail. Like poetry, it can’t be defined—only experienced. 

Although the concept of grace is old, it can constantly be renewed—and must be if we’re to know it at all. The people of Proctor know this as well as any, having seen some of the industrious grace of their lushly marbled past dance away with the decline and eventual closure of the Vermont Marble Company in the 1990s. But business and industry do not define grace—they don’t begin to touch it. And those left in their wake—like those who survive any great trauma—know the pangs of grace alongside its joys. 

Among those in Proctor who hope to embody grace is the Union Church’s new pastor, Rev. Jenei Rossigg—herself no stranger to the mysteries of it, the elation of its renewal, or its fundamental role in handling the frequently inscrutable nature of human existence.

Rossigg, who has been at the pulpit since September 1, says she wasn’t raised within a particularly observant family unit—mostly Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Easter—and she didn’t find her spiritual calling until she was in her thirties and started attending a small Methodist church when her children were little.

“The more I participated, the more I was a part of things, the more I really felt called to be in ministry,” she said among the pews and Tiffany-stained glass of the austere, idyllic Union Church of Proctor following a recent Sunday service in which grace was a prevalent theme.

The program that day featured a quote from spiritual writer Mac Lucado on the topic that read: “Grace is the voice that calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off.” 

 Although she found her calling late in life, Rossigg, a North Carolina native, eventually found her grace and dove into it headfirst, attending seminary at Hood Theological in Salsbury, N.C.—the only American Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion seminary in the world.

She chose Hood, on the campus of Livingstone College (an HBCU), because it had the best balance of race and gender of all the Association of Theological Schools. “I really wanted my life to open up spaces that I needed to reconcile and figure out,” she said. “I come from a very old southern family which is fraught with all sorts of difficulties and tragedies and things that I could never wrap my brain around.”

Following her time there, Rossigg worked in various roles for multiple denominations and faiths, including working for Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics—even teaching Hebrew at a small synagogue. “I’ve been in a lot of different spaces with different denominations and faith communities,” she said. “As time went along, I felt like I was still missing something.” 

Eventually, she discovered that the United Church of Christ was a good fit for her theologically. She went through the ordination process while serving the Western Reserve and Eastern Ohio Associations as director of resources. 

Rossigg—who has been married to Sara Rossigg (the current pastor at the Brandon Congregational Church) since 2016 and partnered since 2008—has had her fair share of pushback—including death threats from some of her former congregants—both as a woman and as an out member of the LGBTQ+ community. “You darn well bet that as a woman serving in a church, there will always be people who will leave,” she said. 

“They will leave because you are a woman, and they just can’t believe that a woman can be a pastor,” she continued. “Yes, in 2022, it still happens. It’s hard—and then, when you’re an out woman on top of that, it doubles down for a lot of folks.” 

It’s required uncommon strength and guts to learn how to be graceful in the face of it all. “When you are approached with something like that—treat somebody with respect, treat them with care, but you also don’t have to take it.”

 In other words, she’s learned to take the good with the bad and keep moving with the grace of her convictions. “Sometimes, just walking like you know that’s true is enough for others.”

Rossigg says she hasn’t encountered anything like that during her time in Proctor. “I can’t think of any situation in which I haven’t been met with pure joy and hopefulness—they’ve just been amazing,” she said.

“Honestly, it’s been a really long time since I met a church like this—people who have really great boundaries; people who just want to serve—they want to figure out how to do the best they can with where they are and learn to grow,” she said.

That the church is interdenominational has been a bonus, says Rossigg, given her experience working within churches of all types. “It sounds corny,” she said, “but honestly, I just feel in love with them. I love talking to them.”

A visit to the church for a recent Sunday service confirmed that joy and hopefulness in action—itself a form of grace—as newcomers (in this case, the author of this story) were met with generosity and warmth, including a sincere welcome from nearly every parishioner in attendance. 

Still, despite the grace of its parishioners, the church faces a number of dilemmas. “I think all churches are really struggling—particularly with COVID and trying to come back,” said Rossigg. “People have found that they can feed that spiritual need in a lot of different ways.

“The biggest thing for churches right now is to understand there isn’t just one way to be a part of the spirit. We have to open ourselves up—really uncomfortably open ourselves up to acknowledging and celebrating the diversity of how the spirit moves and be willing to be a part of it.”

“This church is a little more aged, as most are these days, but I think there’s so much still that they can do,” she continued. “They’re not limited. Just because there are not a ton of children here doesn’t mean that there’s any less spirit moving.”

“I see so many churches that don’t think they have any vibrancy anymore—that they are not a vital place because they don’t have tons and tons of [parishoners],” she added. “Vitality isn’t about numbers; it’s about your zest for wanting to share the gospel message. It’s about embracing who you are and living into that fully.”

Rossigg says there are some plans to change the role of the church in the community—to see it used as an event center and place of congregation for people of all faiths or no faith at all, even going so far as to open up its spaces for things like game nights and a cornhole tournament to be held right between the pews.

Regardless of what the events may be, Rossigg said it’s critical for all people in Proctor and places nearby to be able to gather. “Not just under the auspice of the church,” she said, “but a place where people know that they can be in a safe space; where they can have different kinds of meetings; where they can be embraced for who they are and are becoming—and that’s exactly what I’m starting to see this church doing.”

When asked about the subject of grace directly, Rossigg, who was adopted and raised by her grandparents, grew circumspect, sharing painful memories from her past. In particular, she mentioned the murder of her mother when she was 18. 

Her past was so painful that during her ordination period (in which prospective pastors must share vast swaths of their personal lives), it caused some in the church to question whether or not she’d be able to minister at all.  

“I got flat asked—I just don’t believe you can really have any grace or believe in grace after all the things you’ve gone through in your life,” she said. “I was just dumbfounded by this. The first thing I said, and I truly believe to the depth of my core—because it plays out literally every day in my life—is that grace is infinite. It doesn’t mean it’s cheap. It means everything,” adding that if we can’t have grace in the face of tragedy, when will it show up?

“The guy who killed my mother—don’t you think I wanted to hold that as this big old ball and chain that I could swing around and knock the hell out of people with? Sure, absolutely,” she said. “And then, there was this moment of one day going, “I can still hurt and know that I could look at him [when he was up for parole] and find the grace to forgive him.”

“[Grace] is a practice,” she continued. “It sometimes begins as nothing more than rote, and then at some point you realize the magnitude of what you’re trying to develop as a habit. The biggest piece is when you experience the turning point… trying to do it, trying to offer it, trying to be that ‘better’ person… and then having this moment of—OH—I understand what it feels like. I understand the impetus behind what’s happening here.”

“Like, as in love, the more you give away, the more you get.”