"God works in mysterious ways," says the Rev. Lori Babcock, the new priest-in-charge of St. John's Episcopal Church in Mt, Washington.

Ordained in December 2007, "I had planned to do a hospital chaplaincy," she said. "I saw myself more in an institutional setting than in a parish."

Instead, Babcock became the priest-in-charge, a limited-duty appointment, at Trinity Cathedral in Easton, Md., and now is at St. John's. The 41-year-old mother of four led her first Sunday service Feb. 15 at the 80-year-old church at Sulgrave Avenue and South Road, with about 30 people in the pews, roughly half of the church's membership.

Babcock succeeds longtime rector the Rev. Lance Gifford, who retired last June after 27 years.

In the church newsletter, The Epistle, senior warden Michael Hilliard called her arrival "the beginning of of what we of faith know will be a wonderful future for St. John's Mt. Washington."

Babcock, who is moving from Kent Island to the St. John's rectory, is not yet the rector. She has a 3-year agreement to be priest-in-charge, a mutual feeling-out period that could lead to her being rector.

"It can be an upsetting time for people," she said. "They don't know where the church is headed. So they wanted to bring in someone with long-term potential. We are all hopeful and optimistic it will be a permanent relationship."

Her main goal is to continue to make St. John's a small, diverse church, "where folks can feel comfortable to stop in for a Sunday or stay for 10 years."

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