Dear Beloved in Christ,
Grace and peace to you in this season of beginnings. As I have prepared to join you in the ministry we share across the Diocese of Long Island, I have found myself praying often for the Spirit’s guidance — for steady hearts, open ears, and a deep trust in the God who goes before us.
O God of beginnings and renewals,
You call us into places we have not yet walked,
and entrust us with people we have not yet met.
We come with trembling hands and open hearts,
ready to be surprised by Your Spirit.
In our eagerness, keep us humble.
In our uncertainty, keep us steady.
In our joy, keep us generous.
Let this ministry be a place where truth is spoken in love,
where the weary find rest,
and where Your justice rolls down like a mighty river.
We offer our plans, our gifts, and our very selves to You—
trusting that what You begin, You will bring to fullness.
Amen
– Inspired by Walter Brueggemann
Thank you all for the welcome you've already extended to me over these past months. I know that a change in leadership can bring a mix of feelings — hope, curiosity, and maybe a little uncertainty about what comes next.
This next season is going to be one of listening.
I am not walking in with a five-point plan for what needs to change. I don't think that would be honest, and I don't think it would be wise. You have been doing this work — some of you for years, some of you for decades — and you know things about this diocese that I do not yet know. You know which programs have quietly changed lives and which ones have moved along out of habit. You know where the energy is, and where the exhaustion is. You know what has worked, and, just as importantly, what hasn't.
My first task is not to arrive with answers. It's to arrive with questions, and to actually wait for the answers. So over the coming months, I'll be asking to sit with you — individually and in cohorts and congregations — and to hear your stories.
Many of you have already participated in listening sessions over the past couple of years, offering honest reflections about your ministries, your hopes, and the challenges you face. I want to say clearly: that work matters, and I have received what you shared with deep gratitude. This is not a repeat of past listening; it is a continuation — a chance to understand the heart behind the comments, the stories behind the concerns, and the faith behind the hopes. My desire is to hear how the Spirit has been speaking through you all along, and to discern together what that means for our shared future.
We are bringing in a team, outside the staff, to help us do this well. Their job is not to come in and diagnose us or hand us a report full of recommendations we didn't ask for. Their job is to help us listen better than we could on our own — to design a process that actually reaches the staff, the parishes, and the wider diocese, to hold space for honest answers, including the hard ones, and to make sure that what we hear is what actually shapes what we decide. I did not want a process where a handful of us at the top read a few pages of summary and then made the calls we were probably already leaning toward. I want a process built so that the decisions genuinely come from your stories and from the stories of this diocese — not from my assumptions about what those stories must be.
Below you will find short bios for this small transition team: Herbert Drayton, Gideon Pollach, Lena Mullings, Mieke Vandersall, and Erin Weber-Johnson. Lena and Gideon are our Diocesan Transition Liaisons for this point in time. Herbert and Gideon will focus on work with staff and internal processes. Lena, Mieke, and Erin will be working to create a broad listening process for the diocese. As part of their work there will be the creation of an onboarding task force to prepare intentional listening with the diocese even as we focus on listening closely with the staff.
This team will work alongside diocesan staff, clergy, and lay leadership over the coming months to ensure a thoughtful, well-informed, and faithful transition. Next week I will send out an email that walks through their shared purpose, methodology, and the timeline. I want to make sure you know what to expect from them and from me.
I ask that you welcome this team and engage openly with their work. Introductions and biographies for each team member appear below.
Please know that even as this transitional work begins, I'll be away, with Bishop Wolf, September 21–29 at Camp Allen in Texas for the House of Bishops meeting.
I also want to preview some good news: I expect to announce our next Canon to the Ordinary later this week.
I am grateful — truly — for the faithfulness with which you serve Christ and this diocese. I look forward to walking this season with you, trusting that God is already preparing the ground for what will grow among us.
May the Holy Spirit guide us, steady us, and knit us together in love.
Faithfully in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Adam J. Shoemaker
Bishop of Long Island
Questions may be directed to Gideon Pollach (gideon@stjcsh.org) or Lena Mullings (lmullings@aol.com).
Meet the Transition Team
This team will work alongside diocesan staff, clergy, and lay leadership over the coming months to support a thoughtful, well-informed, and faithful transition. Their work is intentionally limited to this season of Bishop Shoemaker’s onboarding and transition, helping us listen well and begin this new chapter together.
Herbert L. Drayton III
As Interim COO, Herbert oversees the diocese's day-to-day operations, finance, and staff coordination throughout the transition period. He is Managing Partner of HI Mark Capital, a Charleston-based venture capital firm, and brings nearly three decades of experience building and leading organizations across healthcare, technology, and professional services. He previously supported parish leadership at St. Stephen’s, Charleston through capital planning and financing work alongside then-Rector Adam Shoemaker.
Dr. Lena Mullings
is an educator and organizational development consultant with extensive experience in leadership development, process facilitation, and systems‑level organizational assessment. She has served the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island as a transition and rector search consultant, working closely with vestries and parish leadership to support healthy clergy transitions. Most recently, she served as Co‑chair of the diocesan bishop search committee, guiding a comprehensive discernment process grounded in broad listening and collaborative decision‑making. Dr. Mullings brings a disciplined background in organizational learning and facilitation to support the diocesan transition team’s work of designing an intentional, wide‑ranging listening process for staff, clergy, and parish communities.
The Very Rev. Gideon L. K. Pollach
is Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church and Memorial Cemetery in Cold Spring Harbor and Priest in Charge of Emmanuel Church in Dublin, New Hampshire. Within the Diocese of Long Island, he serves as Dean of the North Nassau Deanery, a member of the Reparations Committee, and an alternate deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church; he previously co-chaired the Search Committee for the Ninth Bishop of Long Island and served on the Cathedral Chapter of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, the Diocesan Transition Team, and the Board of Trustees of the Mercer School of Theology. Beyond parish ministry, he co-founded the St. John's Pond Watershed Alliance and leads the BlueGreen Theology Project. Across these roles, his work reflects a sustained commitment to the life and governance of the Diocese alongside his pastoral ministry.
The Rev. Mieke Vandersall
Founder and Partner, Vandersall Collective
Mieke and Erin co-lead the design of the diocese's listening process during this transition time. Vandersall Collective is a queer-founded, women-owned and led, faith-based consulting firm that works at the intersection of strategic thinking, planning, organizational development, and fundraising. Mieke comes from a qualitative methods background, honing in on careful listening and reflecting back—and then implementing this listening into concrete recommendations for what comes next.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Partner and Senior consultant, Vandersall Collective
Erin and Mieke co-lead the design of the diocese's listening process during this transition time. She has worked for over two decades as a lay theologian and strategic/fundraising consultant. Erin joined Vandersall Collective in 2017 and became a partner in 2026. Previously, Erin served as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and a missionary for the Episcopal Church.