The Rev. Andrew Lazo (L) prays at the altar with Bishop Brewer (R) during the Holy Eucharist at Lazo’s ordination on Jan. 25. | Photo Credit: Katherine Reusch

Spirit and Word. Fire and water. Strength and weakness. Beauty and brokenness.

These contrasts resonated as themes throughout the ordination of the Rev. Andrew Lazo to the priesthood on Jan. 25 at Church of the Messiah, Winter Garden, the church he currently serves as apprentice rector and participant in the diocesan Residency Program. And these same themes have resonated throughout the life that has brought him to this point at this time in the Diocese of Central Florida.

“I was raised nothing,” Lazo said of a Northern California upbringing that centered on intellectualism rather than faith. But that all changed during his freshman year of high school, when he noticed a “loving bond” between fellow members of his band class. “They expressed love and concern and care for me,” he said. “And it also didn’t feel like it was anything that I was deserving; it was just this overflow of love.”

People had been sharing their faith with him for years, Lazo said, but until then, he had always responded, “That may be true, but it’s not true for me right now.” The father of one of those high school friends pastored a small Baptist church, and Lazo started attending. There, he learned about the scriptures and about God’s plan of salvation. And although his theology has shifted through the years, the basics have remained.

“Every different denomination I joined … has said, ‘Well, we’re all kind of getting there, but we’re doing it a little better than everybody else, was the attitude,” Lazo said. “I didn’t ever really feel that attitude in The Episcopal Church. The way I heard it expressed early on was, ‘Hey, we’re all working on our junk. And so if you want to work on your junk and get close to Jesus while you’re doing it, this is a place for you.”

His path toward the priesthood included two years at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago; a term as road manager for renowned Christian musical artist Phil Keaggy, who introduced him to the writings of C.S. Lewis (and wrote music to a sonnet by the Rev. Malcom Guite that was featured at Lazo’s ordination); a bachelor’s in English from the University of California, Davis; a master’s from Rice University in Houston, Texas; a season of personal grief and brokenness; teaching at both collegiate and high school levels; and a 2022 Master of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary. A prominent C.S. Lewis scholar who often travels to share his expertise, Lazo is now finishing a doctorate at Northwind Seminary, where he is also a distinguished lecturer.

His new vocation as priest is of significant and continuing importance in his life, as the Rev. Dr. Katherine Sonderegger, faculty member at VTS, confirmed in her ordination sermon, pointing to the role of the Holy Spirit in forging this path:

Tonight this Holy Spirit of Christ meets us in our need, in our secret hopes and sorrows, in our dissatisfaction and restlessness. He meets us here and bestows upon us all the Spirit that first rested upon Moses the prophet who spoke to God as a friend, face to face. That Spirit will rest upon Andrew, upon the bishop, upon the hands of the priests who lay their hands upon the ordinance, and who will confect a priest in our midst, a fire bearer of the Spirit.

The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer echoed Sonderegger’s emphasis on “the scorching work of the Spirit” in his charge to Lazo, urging him to embrace that burning fire so as to allow him to serve people in a way that reveals “the cruciform nature of what it means to be someone submitted to the yoke of Christ.”

Lazo, who married bestselling author Dr. Christin Ditchfield in 2017, says in terms of the future, he is “waiting on God’s plan.” Through the diocesan Residency Program, he is receiving information “hand over fist” from the Rev. Tom Rutherford, rector at Church of the Messiah.

“I’m going to learn as much as I can from him,” Lazo said, adding that “I know my position in the Lewis world is not an accident. And I can’t wait to see what priesthood does to my academic and intellectual interests.”

In the meantime, the professor, lecturer and now priest remains an eager student. “I can’t wait to see all that I can learn from my colleagues,” he said. “I may be 57, but I don’t have an idea what I’m doing, and these men and women have been doing it for years. And so I’m really looking forward to coming alongside and finding out all that I don’t know and seeing what I can do to be a tool in the bishop’s hand and a tool at the diocesan level and labor with my sisters and brothers. That’s really where my heart is.”