When meeting Loren Mead for the first time, one finds it is easy to miss the passion that lies behind his warm and easy-going exterior. But one soon discovers that Loren Mead is a man with a passion for the local church - a passion that has deepened in the years following his ordination as a priest in 1955. His commitment to the local church ultimately found its broadest expression through the work of the Alban Institute he founded 1974.

Loren Mead was born and raised in Florence, S.C. He is a graduate of the University of the South and the Virginia Theological Seminary. In 1955 he began his ordained ministry at Trinity Church, Pinopolis, S.C. and then at the Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, N.C., where he served for 12 years. It was out of these early experiences of parish ministry that the vision, which ultimately became the focal point of his ministry, began to form.

In 1969, he, his wife, Polly, and their four children moved to Washington, D.C., where he established Project Test Pattern - a ministry of consultation and research aimed at strengthening the local church and its ministry. After four years Project Test Pattern had grown to the point where he was ready to cast his vision into an ecumenical mode and look toward the future. The result was the founding of the Alban Institute on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral. He served as its president until his retirement in 1994. The Alban Institute still continues to expand under the current leadership of James Wind, and Loren Mead, in retirement, still continues to speak and write on behalf of the local church.

In his work with churches he has developed a number of programs now widely used which deal with the role and work of the interim pastor, the use of conflict management, clergy stress and burnout, and concepts of change and development in congregations and their judicatory systems. These resources of the Alban Institute have helped countless churches of many denominations. He also initiated a publication program, which, under the editorship of Celia Hahn, has produced more than a hundred books focusing on the local church and its ministry. This publishing arm of the institute continues now as a major part of its ministry.

He is known widely throughout the church as a teacher and a writer. He has written nine books, including three best sellers: The Once and Future Church (1991); Transforming Congregations for the Future (1994) and Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church (1996). His latest book, Financial Meltdown in the Mainline, a book about the financial and spiritual dilemma of church financing, was published in 1998.

Loren Mead's passion for the local church brought forth a unique ministry whose time had come. In the introduction to The Once and Future Church, he wrote: "God is always calling us to be more than we have been ... It is my conviction that religious congregations are the most important carriers of meaning that we have, with one exception (the family) ... For six decades now, I have inhabited them, enjoyed them, been frustrated by them, earned a living from them, and tried to understand them."

For this, churches everywhere have reason to be grateful. His unswerving interest in the local church has been a source of hope and help to large churches and small churches alike. His passion has been a gift to us all. o

The Rev. James C. Fenhagen is the retired dean of the General Theological Seminary