A Brief Biography of the Rev. C. Pierson Shaw, Jr.
Pastor Shaw was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and
baptized at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church. At the age of three his father, who
was with the NC State Highway Commission (now the NC Department of
Transportation) was transferred to Greenville, in the eastern part of North
Carolina. After moving to Greenville the
Shaw family was members at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. When he was eight, Pastor Shaw’s family
joined Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. In that congregation he was received into
Confirmed Membership in May of 1978 and it was there when he was thirteen that he
received his Eagle Scout Award. In 1982 before graduating from High School,
Pastor Shaw enlisted in the North Carolina Army National Guard. Following
graduation he completed US Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
In the fall of 1982 he began his studies at Appalachian State University in
Boone and entered the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). He graduated in
1987 from ASU with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Merchandising. Three years
prior to that date he had been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field
Artillery and served for six more years with the NC Army National Guard.
In 1994 Pastor Shaw graduated from Lutheran
Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC with an MDiv (Master of Divinity). On June
3 of that year he was ordained after having been called to serve Sharon
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Statesville. He married Lois Paulette Stavely
who was a classmate and who was awaiting a call to a parish in the Synod. Lois
received a call to St. Michael Congregation in October of 1997. In June of 1998
Pastor Shaw was called to serve Christ Congregation of Winston-Salem. Soon
after accepting the call to St. Michael, Lois discovered that she had breast
cancer. After an intense round of treatment the cancer appeared to be in
remission. The discovery of cancer in February of 2000 revealed that the breast
cancer had metastasized. For the rest of the year, Pastor Shaw cared for Lois
and continued his ministry at Christ congregation. On December 19, 2000, Lois
died at their home in High Point under Hospice care. Pastor Shaw continued to
serve Christ congregation under a part time call and served as Chaplain to the
Lutheran Home, Winston-Salem until May of 2003. He also served as the
Vice-Pastor of the 380 member Holly Grove Lutheran Church, Lexington for over a
year, while the congregation was without a pastor under call.
On December 28, 2002 Pastor Shaw married Karen Foil
Russ whose husband died of cancer in 1999.
Together they are rearing two daughters, Sarah Grace Russ 19 and Taylor Jeanette
Russ 17. Karen grew up in Kannapolis, North Carolina, a community with a long
history in textiles, thirty minutes north of Charlotte. There Karen had been an
active member of Kimball Memorial Lutheran Church. Although from Kannapolis, Karen spent the
majority of her adult life in Winston-Salem. In Winston-Salem, she and the
girls were active members of the Lutheran Church of the Epiphany. Karen has a
degree in Business Administration and Computer Science and a degree in
Commercial Art – Advertising Design. Sarah and Taylor have both been active in
Church activities their whole lives.
In May of 2003 Pastor Shaw was called to serve as
Pastor of Miller’s Lutheran Church in Hickory, North Carolina. In May of 2005,
he felt a call to pursue his education with postgraduate study in Church
History and Theology. In May, 2006 he
received a Master of Sacred Theology (STM) from Lutheran Theological Southern
Seminary, in Church History and Systematic Theology. For several months following graduation, he
served as the Interim Pastor at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, in Claremont, North
Carolina, near Hickory. After being
accepted into the PhD program in Systematic Theology at the University of St.
Michael’s College in the Toronto School of Theology at the University of
Toronto, the family moved to Ontario, Canada. The family moved to Brampton,
where they rented a house while Pastor Shaw completed his two years required
residence as a part of his Doctoral studies at the University of Toronto. Sarah
and Taylor both attended McCrimmon
Middle School. The following year Taylor attended W.G. Davis School where she was
enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Program for academically gifted
students and Sarah attended the Regional Arts Program in visual arts at
Mayfield Secondary School. Sarah spent her senior year at St. Stephen’s High
School and was enrolled at Lenoir Rhyne University where she was in the Lenoir
Rhyne Scholars Program. Sarah is now a rising Sophomore at the University of
North Carolina Charlotte where she is an Art student with a focus in
illustration. Taylor is now a rising 12th grader and attends
Challenger Early College High School at Catawba Valley Community College.
In
the fall of 2011, Pastor Shaw was awarded the Teaching Assistance Training
Program Certificate from the University of Toronto. In November of that year
Pastor Shaw completed an S.T.L. (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) through Regis
College, a college in the Toronto School of Theology of the University of
Toronto in Ontario. The S.T.L. is awarded by only a handful of Roman Catholic
Schools worldwide to doctoral students with canonical effects in the Roman
Catholic Church among those who can demonstrate to a faculty committee a
proficiency in Roman Catholic Theology. Pastor Shaw is only the second
Protestant recipient of an S.T.L. in the history of Regis College. The
certificate was only made available to non-Catholics in any Roman Catholic
institution by the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
After returning to North Carolina Pastor Shaw served
for several months as the Interim Pastor of Shiloh Lutheran Church of
Bethlehem. His tenure in that capacity ceased when that congregation voted to
leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and joined with North American
Lutheran Church. Since then he has supplied for congregations in the NC Synod.
Pastor Shaw then went on to serve as the Interim Pastor of Reformation Lutheran
Church, Taylorsville for October 2012 – July 2013 when the congregation called
Pr. Craig Sigmon to serve as its new Pastor under call.
Pastor Shaw believes the Church has a
responsibility, working ecumenically, to assist the unbaptized and unconverted in
being initiated into a life of the community of faith. Such a process should prepare,
assist and enable persons to enter into a life in the Christian community and
includes the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. In an increasingly unchristian society,
particularly in the global north, the Church is called to faithfully live out
her calling, and to see this as part of her ongoing work of evangelization, as
she lives out her mission within God’s mission in the world.
Pastor Shaw is
intensely interested in liturgy, ecumenism and Christian education. He sees
worship as the center of the Church's life together, and is concerned to see
the work of ministry extended to all ages from the youngest to the most aged.
He has served for many years as the Ecumenical Representative to the NC Synod
and was reappointed to that position by Bishop Bolick in the fall of 2010. He
has also served as the facilitator of the Roman Catholic Lutheran Covenant
Committee for the NC Synod, and the facilitator of Episcopal, Lutheran,
Moravian (ELM) Committee in North Carolina. He has served for many years on the
Unity Committee of NC Council of Churches and presently chairs that committee. He
is a certified Pastoral Care Specialist in the American Association of Pastoral
Counselors, a student member of the American Academy of Religion and a member
of the Canadian Coptic Society. He has presented numerous academic papers and
has published including the most recently released: “Eucharist at A Divided
Table” in Ecclesiology and Exclusion
edited by Denis Doyle, et al and published by Orbis Books. At the Conference Assisi
2012 “Where We Dwell
in Common” held in in Assisi, Italy Pastor Shaw presented a paper to the
Ecclesiological Investigations Group under the title: “The Necessity of an Ecclesiology in Which the Church is Understood as
Sacrament with Christ as Primary Sacrament; Ways to convergence in Ecumenical
Dialogue”. The article will soon be published along with other selected papers
from the conference. Most recently at the Annual Gathering of the
American Academy of Religion held Baltimore, MD Pastor Shaw presented two
separate papers: “Episcopal Handlaying in the Hippolytan Community in
the Third Century; The North African Connection” and “Sacrosanctum Concilium’s Call for
Liturgical Renewal; New Tensions Raised By the Apostolic Tradition”. In Addition, he has been and
continues to be the Executive Director of the NC Synod’s Welcome to Christ
Team, which promotes the Catechumenate for initiation and adult discipleship in
the NC Synod.
Pastor Shaw was appointed by Bishop Bolick and by
agreement of the Congregation Council of Sardis Lutheran Church in Hickory to
serve as that congregation’s Interim Pastor, until such time as the congregation
calls a new Pastor to serve under Letter of Call. Together the Shaw family continues
to live in Hickory. Pastor Shaw has completed the draft of his PhD Dissertation
under the title: “Toward a Renewed Theology and Practice of Confirmation” and
plans to defend the dissertation in Toronto in January in front of select
members of the theological faculty.
The Rev. C. Pierson Shaw, Jr.
PhD Student, Systematic Theology
University of St. Michael's College
at Toronto School of Theology
in the University of Toronto Toronto, ON, Canada
2961 8th Street Court, NE
Hickory, NC 28601
Home (828) 328-8665 Cell (828) 238-9065
