Rector Search

On behalf of the Holy Comforter Vestry, and with gratitude to God, I am delighted to announce that The Rev. Amanda J. Barker has accepted our call to serve as our next rector. Mother Amanda possesses a unique combination of pastoral and executive skills that equip her to walk with us into an exciting future. Her ministry with us will begin on January 1, 2026.

She comes to Holy Comforter from St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, where she has served as Curate since July 2024 and previously as their Seminarian Intern. While at St. Aidan’s, she has worked to design and implement creative faith formation projects such as a forthcoming podcast to accompany the choir’s performance of Handel’s Messiah and a Prayground to welcome young worshippers.

Mother Amanda received her Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in May 2024. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in earth and planetary science from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and a Master of Science degree in environmental policy and planning from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Before ordination, she spent nearly two decades in nonprofit leadership, advocating for land conservation policies and historic preservation education. She worked at the Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts for six years and served as executive director there for more than two years. She is also a proud returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Madagascar, 2005-2008).

Mother Amanda and her husband, Aaron, live with her two stepchildren in Boulder. She spends her free time discovering more about this speck of land in the universe. She’s currently learning about the birds across seasons in her backyard and is a beginning student of Tai Chi Chuan. She loves being in the kitchen, reading, traveling to new places, and to her favorite people.

We invite you to read the letter from Mother Amanda printed on the right of this page, and to hold her and her family in your prayers during this time of transition. Additional information regarding Mother Amanda’s arrival at Holy Comforter will appear in editions of the weekly E-News as the time draws nearer.

Exciting News! We have found our new Priest! From our Senior Warden…

  • Dear Holy Comforter Congregation,

    I am filled with joy and anticipation as I prepare to join you as your next Rector this January. Beginning to learn your story with the Vestry and Search Committee, I am heartened by your steadfastness through a season of transition. I am delighted with the creativity blossoming through your faithful ministries and inspired by the spirit of welcome that lives in your hearts.

    I come with gratitude for your faithfulness and with excitement to share in worship, prayer, and community life. I am eager to learn your stories, to celebrate the gifts that make Holy Comforter so vibrant, and to dream together about the next chapter of God’s mission in Broomfield. It will be a blessing to walk beside you in ministry.

    Please pray for me and my family over these upcoming weeks. Each of you is in my daily prayers.

    With thanksgiving,

    The Rev. Amanda Barker

  • Wendell Berry wrote a line of poetry that is in my prayers this Advent season: “It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born,” (Heaven's Earthly Life: Wendell Berry & the Poetry of Advent). I think about these words as the days shorten and as the world feels tender and uncertain.

    We hear the truth about the spiritual rhythm of Advent in Berry’s words. God’s great beginnings so often arrive in the places we least expect, at the moments when our own light feels dim.

    The story of our faith is filled with sacred nights… creation begins in darkness, Israel learns to hold on to hope in exile, Christ is born while the world slept, and the dawn of resurrection is discovered “while it was still dark.” Again and again, God chooses the night as the threshold of new life. It is in those hours when we cannot yet see our way that grace slips in, steady and unannounced.

    Perhaps this is why the church lights Advent candles so slowly. We do not rush the light. We learn instead to notice it. It’s fragile at first, then grows week by week, gathering warmth, widening our sight. Holy change rarely comes all at once. It arrives one small flame at a time, asking for our attention, our patience, our trust.

    Holy Comforter is living in a season of expectation and preparation. You are waiting with courage. You are tending your ministries and caring for one another. I see beauty in your waiting. I see your faithfulness, a longing for what God will reveal, and a hope that keeps this community awake to possibility.

    Advent promises us that Christ is born into real places, into weariness and joy, into questions and bold dreams, into communities in transition. Christ is born where people long for new life. Christ is born where people watch for the morning.

    So for now, we watch. We wait. Trust that even in the dark, God is already preparing the light that will lead us forward.

    I am praying for you during this holy season and cannot wait to join you in the new year.

    Faithfully,

    Mother Amanda | The Rev. Amanda Barker

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