“This is it,” the Rev. Dan Justin told me over the phone. “I’m here for as long as they’ll have me.”

Father Dan invited me to film him vesting for the Sunday service. He joked about sliding his monastic alb over his hairless pate.

Taking the pulpit for the first time at St. Michael & All Angels last Sunday, the rector seemed serene and confident. His new congregation opened the service with a procession in his honor, featuring representatives from every church ministry, from vestry to choir to solar outreach.

Justin comes relatively late in life to the Episcopal priesthood. Now 39, he spent 15 years in a career in higher education recruitment before he “discerned a call to the ministry” and put it to his church’s discernment committee.

“A priest is raised up by his community,” he explained, “people recognizing that call with you.”

After obtaining a Master of Divinity degree at the southern California campus of San Francisco Theological Seminary, Justin was sponsored for ordination by All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, then completed his Ministry Study Year at St. John’s Cathedral in Los Angeles where he was ordained in 2009.

His nationwide search for a job led him to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Park Ridge, Ill., where he has been serving as deacon and assistant rector ever since.

“It was too cold,” Justin confessed. He longed to return to SoCal – Studio City specifically – though he is originally from St. Louis. He lived in West Hollywood between 2002 and 2009.

He was excited to apply for the opening at St. Michal’s because of the church’s reputation for being involved in the community and making a real difference in the people’s lives.

“The North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry, standing for justice, the repeal of Prop. 8, eliminating the death penalty, fighting for justice and respecting the dignity of every human being, all that work has to be grounded in, ‘We love God and we follow Christ and we believe this is what Christ has called us to do.’”

He says he sees himself as the church’s “chief spirituality officer,” modeling a  life of deep faith combined with service in the world.

The arrival of Justin means goodbye to the Reverend Mark Shier, who served St. Michael’s as an interim rector for the last year and a half. (He welcomed me to film the Maundy Thursday foot washing service in the church last year.)

Father Mark wrote me in an email:

I’m sad to leave St Michael’s and its folk, though I must say I am glad to resume my retirement and experience some less demanding Sundays.

It was a pleasure to film Father Dan’s first Holy Eucharist at St. Mike’s and to talk to him and some of the congregation’s members about how happy they all are to have found one another.

Let me know what you think about the interviews in the comments section on this page. How important is social justice work in your faith community?