Another Austin church will join others with new beginnings in 2011.

Members of Christ Episcopal church and others from Austin will welcome The Rev. Catherine Lemons to the community on Dec. 1.

Ask Lemons, and she’ll explain how excited she is to start her position as priest at Christ Episcopal. Among the opportunity to work in a small town and meet many people on a personal basis, Lemons is fresh with vigor to be working in the clergy.

It is a late-life calling, but while in Tokyo several years ago, Lemons knew it was time to serve the Lord.

“It was just one of those spontaneous moments then — when I knew God wanted me to be a priest, so here I am,” she said.

After that moment, Lemons entered seminary school four years ago, graduated in 2010 and is finishing her current position at Trinity Episcopal Church in Anoka. When the call came from Christ Episcopal, she was ready to take it.

Though leaving Trinity Episcopal, the parishioners and the congregation is a sad time as well, Lemons calls it a “bittersweet moment,” something all clergy go through.

“I have come to love the parishioners here at Trinity and been involved in their lives and they in mine, and so of course we have a strong bond,” she said, yet added she is following God’s opportunity for her. “But I think that in today’s modern world, we’re only a phone call or an email away, so when God calls, I think it’s something we respond to.”

And after two years without a full-time priest, Christ Episcopal clergy and congregation are ready for Lemons to join their church.

“Oh we’re very excited, very hopeful,” said John Sullivan, Senior Warden at Christ Episcopal. “We really feel like we’re going to start moving ahead in a positive way.”

For the past six months, Christ Episcopal has operated through the services of a long-term supply priest. For 18 months before that, it had been using an interim priest. The clergy all had to take on more responsibilities, which was a good thing, Sullivan said. The clergy became stronger as a group.

However, the church ultimately needs a priest.

“We’re a sacramental tradition,” Sullivan said. “So a priest as an ordained person, they’re given that charter to minister the sacraments; and lay people cannot do that in our tradition.”

Lemons joins Christ Episcopal at an exciting time for the church.

She brings her husband, Richard, to Austin, and two of their three children will be attending church at Christ Episcopal during the holidays. Furthermore, Christ Episcopal’s 150th anniversary is approaching in February. With those exciting events, Sullivan added the church wants to become more community-focused, like many other area churches.

That pleases Lemons.

“Certainly, that is high on my priority list, as well,” she said about meeting the community and its service workers and officials. “I love being able to walk down the street and knowing people as I pass on the sidewalk, so I’m looking forward to that opportunity — knowing my neighbors.”