The Reverend Adam Thomas, rector of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, cannot wait for the building to reopen completely again.

“It’s the building, not the church,” that has been closed for over a year now (March 15, 2020), Thomas emphasized during a recent interview.

“The ways that I’m used to supporting people have been limited during the pandemic,” Thomas went on to explain, characterizing this as the greatest psychological challenge of the last year.

The other big challenge has been technological, “adapting our worship services, meetings, and all other events to an online method (Zoom and YouTube).”

Thomas became rector of St. Mark’s in February 2014, but don’t call him that.

“A pastor is who I am,” he said. Still, “People not being able to see each other has limited my role as pastor.”

Before settling into this role and this place (“I’ve lived in Mystic, Connecticut, longer than I’ve lived anywhere else”) Thomas has “lived all over the country,” including 12 different states.

His father, also an Episcopal priest, served in many parishes.

When asked about his biggest accomplishments, Thomas described four activities or goals which the parishioners and he are working on together.

“We are expanding our partnership with St. Luc School in Haiti, providing hot lunches for over 300 students and teachers every day.”

This program began back in 2008 before Thomas became rector. The creation of an antiracism team (“three wonderful ladies working with me”) began in 2019. “It’s an ongoing series of communications on race we’re leading here in Mystic.”

A third project, in its early stages, is “working toward complete independence of fossil fuels,” in other words using solar power, “moving as close to green energy as possible.” Last but certainly not least, Thomas said he wants “to be the leader of a flourishing, loving community towards God and our neighbor. The biggest challenge for the church right now is how do we go out in our neighborhood and find out what God is up to and then support that.”

In response to the question about when he decided to become a priest, Thomas answered, “I began my discernment in college, after reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. It was then that I looked inside and felt a call from God.”

His undergraduate degree is from Sewanee: The University of the South, with a double major in political science and music. He then spent three years at Virginia Theological Seminary, was ordained in 2007, and spent the next year as a deacon.

Adam and his wife Leah celebrated their 10th anniversary this past February. They have 6-year-old twins, Charles and Amelia. The rector’s favorite recreational activities are music and writing. He has written eight fantasy novels, “set in the same world,” which have been independently published, and four books, three of them non-fiction, published by Abbingdon Press.

His primary musical instrument is the guitar, having taught himself beginning at age 17.

“I mess around with the piano also,” he said.

Outside the immediate scope of his duties at St. Mark’s, since 2016 Thomas has served on the board of Always Home, an organization working to prevent family homelessness and on the Mission Council of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut since 2017.

The term “Renaissance man” has a contemporary meaning as well as its original one. It can be used to describe an extraordinary person who is very good at many different things. The Rev. Adam homas, as this article has revealed, is certainly of that mode as theologian, pastor, activist, husband, father, author and musician. He is very good at all these various things, as many people at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic will attest.