The Rev. Wren Blessing is a bit new to this.

Even so, there’s some certainty in her steps. Sixth months into her new position as Rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Rev. Blessing looked back at her short time on Bainbridge Island and the path that led her here.

Blessing was appointed rector in March, and next week, a Celebration of New Ministry will be held at Grace, with the Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel, the Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia leading the ceremony.

The Celebration of New Ministry will be held at Grace Episcopal Church at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Blessing came to Bainbridge from Helena, Montana, but her journey to the church actually started in a small town in Kentucky on the Ohio River.

It was there, right after college, where her job as a social worker for Spanish-speaking families made her believe faith could play a crucial role in the lives of those she counseled.

“In doing that work, I had a sense that the church had an important place in situations of need in the world,” Blessing recalled.

Blessing, who had graduated from Wheaton College in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, decided to pursue her master of divinity at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina.

In her first year, she decided to take an internship at a church in Durham and her path took a surprising turn.

During Blessing’s second Sunday in the internship, Michael Curry (now the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church) fired the priest in charge.

“So then there I was, in charge of this congregation,” she recalled.

Members of the church, Spanish-speaking immigrants, encouraged her to consider ordained ministry.

“I’m not always comfortable being the center of attention, and I had not thought of being an up-front leader in the way that a clergy person sometimes is,” she recalled.

Turns out, that didn’t matter so much in the end.

“The congregation was really open to collaborating alongside me. And because it was a new culture, they didn’t expect me to know everything, and so we each had our roles.

“And in many ways, that’s kind of how Grace here on Bainbridge Island operates. The priest isn’t expected to do everything, and the many gifts of our many members are integrated into our common ministry,” Blessing said.

Blessing, 35, finished her master of divinity from Duke University Divinity School in 2009.

Her time in North Carolina included serving as director of family ministries, and a youth minister, for the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Raleigh.

Afterward, she was curate and director of Christian education at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, where she led programs for children and youth.

During the same time was when she became interim deacon in charge at Iglesia El Buen Pastor in Durham, where she led weekly liturgies and provided pastoral care for parishioners in a Spanish-language mission.

“In this congregation I didn’t have to know everything, I didn’t have to have all the answers,” she said of her time there. “But in many ways, I was serving almost as an interpreter, between groups in the church; between the church and the larger world.

“One of the great joys of that experience was, I did a lot of actual interpreting. I would interpret for confessions; I would interpret in prison when people needed to speak to an attorney; sometimes in other contexts.

“And it was this window into the real life of people with needs and hopes and dreams. I just often felt I could be a bridge between individuals, between communities. Between, sometimes, people who didn’t know how to reach out to God with their desires and longings and their disappointments.

“I got to be in this in-between space. And that has been a really joyful place to be.”

Most recently, Blessing was director of Camp Marshall, a diocesan camp for youth and families in Helena, Montana that is operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Montana.

Last year, she began considering a move back into a parish setting, just as Grace Episcopal Church happened to be seeking a new rector.

Blessing — who had been to the Pacific Northwest before (she worked in college on a trail crew in the Olympic National Forest and spent a summer on Orcas Island) — decided to apply.

Interviews followed, including a visit to the island in December.

Just before Christmas, Grace extended a call.

“I’ve never been a rector before in a church like Grace,” Blessing said.

“Grace is an extraordinary creative community, and it’s a community of many gifts, and many deep relationships. And the intentionality with which this community has kind of structured the space, but also its life together, is really exciting to be considered a part of,” Blessing said.

Blessing recalled underscoring her limited experience during the interview process. But for Grace, what the church needed was much more.

“The community very much affirmed the sense that, the whole church carries out the work of the church.

“And I have a particular role and some particular gifts in that, but everyone else does, too,” Blessing said.