Best Wishes to Rev. Andy Greenhow!

November 8, 2016

 

By Chef TC Shillingford:

Andy has born a lot of titles here at BSM, starting as a congregant seven years ago, becoming a summertime youth associate, and finally ending his tenure as Pastor and Director of Faith and Worship. Those are all merely his positions, but to talk about Andy’s time at Broad Street, we have to talk about his role.

Everyone occupies unofficial roles at BSM: a calming presence or an energizer, a provocateur, a team’s glue. A role Andy has embodied time and again is that of standard bearer. Broad Street is an organization that continuously tries to live out our values, an effort that is frequently compromised by our human flaws as staff members, by our limited resources, and by the overwhelming mission we pursue. And during his time here, every time we have toed the waters of failing to live up to the values we have assigned ourselves, there has been Andy, demanding we hold ourselves to that higher standard.

This has often been thankless, unreasonable work. It is not popular to tell a group that they are expected to do better. But without Andy to hold us accountable so often, Broad Street would be a poorer place for the staff, volunteers, congregants, and guests. His voice, powerful and stubborn, will be missed here.

I’ve known Andy since 1998, and our friendship has rarely shared a stage. While I grew up in Wayne and have lived in Philly as an adult, Andy has been in West Chester, Toronto, England, Montreal, New Orleans and New Jersey. We never lost track of each other. Sharing BSM (and Philly) together for the past couple of years has been special for me, and I remain confident that Pittsburgh will not be the town to break us. This is a clean start for Andy, with all the good and bad that entails, and he goes with BSM’s best hopes, wishes, and prayers; he will stand with a new group of people, and demand that they live up to their own promises as well.

You can read Andy’s goodbye letter here.