By Pat McCaughan
After 45 years of ordained ministry, the Very Rev. Canon Michael Bamberger says Nov. 1, All Saints Day, will be his last official Sunday as rector of the Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre, but not his first experience of “retirement.”
Bamberger, the former Dean of Deanery 5 in the West San Gabriel Valley retired in 2011 after serving 22 years with the Sierra Madre Volunteer Fire Department, which involved “working wildland fires all over the state of California,” he told The Episcopal News recently.
Next, he signed on as a volunteer with Episcopal Relief and Development’s Partners in Response and Resilience. In that capacity, he offered education and training to congregations and dioceses across The Episcopal Church in times of disaster.
“In the early days, many dioceses had never ever prepared for disaster, so when it hit, we were after the fact telling them how a disaster unfolds. I did that up until even after Covid, still doing a little of that by Zoom.”
Fires and floods took him to Colorado, Texas, Northern California, the Dioceses of Olympia and Spokane in Washington. He spent a considerable amount of time in the Dioceses of New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, he said. He even consulted “with a rector dealing with a volcano in Hawaii,” and traveled with former Diocesan Bishop John Harvey Taylor during the January 2018 devastating mudslides that destroyed over 400 homes and caused 23 deaths, he recalled.
He coached clergy and bishops for television and radio interviews, “how to be prepared to be interviewed, and how to stay on message, how to keep your talking points short and right on target with what you want to saw. How to answer questions that may not be what you want to answer. How to deflect and stay on message.”
He has also served at St. John the Evangelist in Needles, and at congregations in the dioceses of Arizona and San Diego.
So what will retirement look like for him? “I’m 71, and I’ve put in a full run,” he said, adding, “the first six months, I’ll probably sleep and then we’ve got some home repairs.” Debbie, his wife of 47 years, is also planning to retire at the end of the school year and “we’ll make plans after that,” he said.
His advice to young clergy: “Learn from lay leaders, their wisdom can serve you immensely.” Ini Needles, the laity “understood what to do with a young priest and they helped form me.”