The East Tennessee
Episcopalian   July 1999

by Nellie McNeil
Upper East Correspondent

“We’re on a journey together, and I’m a tour director,” said the Rev. Willis W. H. Poyser, new rector at St. James Church, Greeneville.

Instituted and inducted May 14, Poyser sees his role as primarily a liturgist, teacher and pastor. I favor liturgical preaching—explaining what’s going on in the liturgy and why. Many parishioners enjoy knowing how liturgy and faith wonderfully intertwine. I take the tradition of the church and relate it to life. We are not alone. Our faith and tradition see us through.”

Poyser’s seminary education was in Milwaukee at Nashotah House, a place for training parish priests for whom administering the sacrament is a craft,” he said.

At Nashotah House Poyser met fellow seminarian Frank Cooper, now rector at St. John’s, Johnson City, and they became close friends. He and Martha were newly weds, and they had me to dinner. Years later I taught their son what I know of the five-string banjo. I visited them in St. Andrews, Scotland, while Frank was working on his doctorate,” he said.

For Cooper’s January, 1998, Celebration of New Ministry at St. John’s, Poyser and Cooper’s son Joshua played a banjo concert.

Poyser grew up in Goshen, Indiana, and graduated from Goshen College with a degree in history and English.

After his second year of college, as a Mennonite, Poyser went to Africa. In the Congo he taught English and helped construct some the buildings of the University of Congo, block by block,” he said.

There, attending Cathedral Evensong services, Poyser said he had the distinct feeling: I’m at home.” With the guidance of the Rt. Rev. David Rigsdale, he then began the journey to becoming a thoroughly integrated Anglican,” he said.

After Poyser had earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1968, he worked as a guidance counselor until he went to seminary, sponsored by his home parish St. James’ Church, Goshen.

First a curate in Muskegon, Michigan, then a vicar at St. Martin of Tours Mission and a chaplain at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, he served Holy Trinity in Memphis for eight years and was chaplain at Memphis State University before going to St. Andrew’s Church in Grand Prairie, Texas.

He supplied churches in Dallas and Fort Worth and was associate rector at Holy Nativity in Plano, Texas, until coming to St. James’, Greeneville on February 22.

For his induction Poyser wore a Slabbinck stole, handmade in Belgium, given to him when he left Plano by parishioners at Holy Nativity and presented by Elise McMillan, widow of a former rector of St. James’ and Norma Hillyer.

At the service the Rev. Michael Doty, Chairman of the Standing Committee and rector at St. Paul’s, Athens, read Poyser’s letter of institution signed by the Rt. Rev. Charles vonRosenberg to whom Poyser was presented.

Parishioners presented the Signs of Ministry. Sr. Warden Steve Harbison and Jr. Warden Martin Hayes gave Poyser the symbolic keys to the church.

The Very Rev. O.C. Edwards, occasional New Testament and homiletics professor from Nashotah House, now retired and living in Weaverville, North Carolina, delivered the sermon.

A reception followed the service in McMillan Hall.

An icon collector and a gourmet cook, this twenty-five year ordained priest with a constant twinkle in his eye and an admitted sense of the ironic,” lives with his twelve year old rottweiler Rellik (killer spelled backward) in the Rectory on a shady street in Greeneville.