An Announcement

The Next Installment of The Rev. Thorne is Underway

Friends,

It has been a quieter season here than I expected.

Many of you know at least some of what has been going on in my life, and I am deeply grateful for the patience, encouragement, prayers, and kindness you have offered along the way. I have not disappeared. I have simply been moving through a full season—sometimes faithfully, sometimes tiredly, sometimes with more silence than words.

But I am glad to share this:

The second Reverend Thorne novel is officially underway.

After Faithfulness in Small Places, I knew Jonah’s story was not finished. St. Jude’s still has more life in it. Providence still has more people to reveal. Jonah still has more questions to ask, more awkward conversations to survive, more coffee to drink, and more grace to stumble into.

This second novel begins almost immediately after the first. Pentecost has come and gone. The church is still small. The work is still fragile. A Celebration of New Ministry is approaching, and Jonah is trying to understand what it means to be seen, named, and received as the priest of a place he still fears he may not be able to save.

This book is beginning to take shape around vocation, exhaustion, belonging, imposter syndrome, ordinary pastoral care, and the strange ways grace keeps interrupting people who are not sure they are ready for it.

In other words, Jonah is still Jonah.

I do not want to say too much yet, but I thought I would share a small glimpse from the opening movement of the new book.

From the second Reverend Thorne novel

I spent most of the morning polishing silver.

It felt like the sort of thing a priest should do when he didn’t know what else to do. The chalice sat on the table in the parish hall, catching little fragments of light from the window above the sink. Beside it were the paten, the cruets, and the small silver lavabo bowl I had found tucked behind a stack of mismatched altar linens. I didn’t even know the last time anyone had polished it properly. Judging by the dark streaks along the rim, neither did anyone else.

I worked the cloth in slow circles. Press. Turn. Breathe. Press. Turn. Breathe. It was almost a prayer, like something the Benedictines would do.

The Celebration of New Ministry was coming whether I felt ready for it or not. The bishop would stand at our little altar. People might come from the diocese, maybe from town. My parents would sit somewhere in the pews, probably in the front row. My mother would probably start crying in the opening hymn, and my father would look quietly overwhelmed but determined to be useful if anyone needed something carried.

And somewhere in all of that, I would be expected to look like the person everyone kept insisting I was.

Priest.

Vicar.

Pastor.

Father Jonah.

I rubbed at a stubborn spot near the base of the chalice until my thumb began to ache.

“There,” I muttered.

It still looked tarnished. I leaned back in the chair and stared at it for a while. That seemed familiar.

A knock sounded from the church doors. Not loud. Not urgent. Just two careful taps.

I froze, polishing cloth still wrapped around my fingers.

For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined it—the wood settling from the heat. Maybe the wind pressed against the doors just enough to make them complain.

Then it came again. Two taps. A pause. One more.

I stood slowly, setting the chalice down with more care than was necessary.

“Coming,” I called, though I doubt they could hear me.

I stepped through the parish hall, past the folding tables and the bulletin board still advertising the Pentecost feast with Caleb’s bright little flyers, and crossed into the nave. The church was dim, except for the angled light coming through the plain windows. Dust drifted lazily through it as if it had nowhere in particular to be.

When I opened the door, a boy stood on the top step. Not a child exactly, but not fully grown either.

One of those summer teenagers caught somewhere between looking too young to be left alone and too old to admit they needed anything. He had his hands buried deep in the pockets of a faded hoodie, despite the heat, and his hair fell over his eyes in uneven strands.

I recognized him. Not well, but enough. He had been at the school after Elias died. One of the ones who hovered near the edges. One of the ones who didn’t cry where anyone could see.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied.

For a second, neither of us moved. He glanced past me into the church, then down at his shoes.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here.”

“I’m here,” I said.

He nodded, still not looking directly at me.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

---

That line feels like the heart of this next part of Jonah’s story.

A small church. A tired priest. A knock at the door. Someone who does not know where else to go.

That, I think, is where much of the Gospel lives—not always in grand moments, not always in full sanctuaries, not always in certainty, but in the quiet faithfulness of being there when someone knocks.

I am grateful to be walking with Jonah again.

And I am grateful that so many of you have been willing to walk with him, too.

More soon.

Peace,

Chris