The Evolution of Quigg Lawrence '77

    In a lifetime long ago, Quigg Lawrence sat in Boys School chapel services in Memorial Hall and listened to speaker after speaker profess his personal faith.
    That’s all really nice, the 1977 Collegiate graduate thought.  They’re good guys.  I admire them for sharing their stories, spilling their guts, even.
    But I don’t need that.  No way do I need that.
    He did, though.
    More than he could ever have imagined.
    Lawrence, you see, looked fine on the outside, but inside he was struggling mightily. His home situation was -- his word -- tumultuous, and when he went to the University of Virginia with hopes of becoming a doctor, temptation, he admits, got in the way.
    “To be honest with you,” he said, “I had no perceived need until there was significant pain.
    “Then I basically said, ‘I’m done.  I can’t drive the bus.  I’m not doing a very good job of it.’”
    At about that time, a surfer friend gave him the book Basic Christianity by John Stott.
    “I read it,” Lawrence said, “and it connected the dots.
    “Before that, I knew scripture – this verse, that verse – but I didn’t know what it meant to be a Christian.
    “I just didn’t get it.  I didn’t have ears to hear.  When you’re in pain, all that gets stripped away, and it’s ‘OK, I’m listening now.’”
    Lawrence left UVA after two years, worked as a medic at the 1980 Winter Olympics, then earned a degree in emergency medicine from Central Washington University.
    As his perspective evolved and his faith intensified, he found himself called to the ministry and enrolled at the Virginia Theological Seminary, where he thrived.
    One thing led to another, challenges created opportunities, and in 1989, Lawrence arrived at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Roanoke.
    He’s operated on full throttle ever since.
    He’s dynamic, inspiring, and passionate.
    He has an intense desire to enhance the lives of those to whom he ministers.
    At the outset, COTHS had 40 members.  Now, it has 1,500.  Average Sunday attendance is 800. Under Lawrence’s guidance, COTHS has established and fostered churches in Salem, Botetourt County, and Blacksburg.
    The Anglican church’s ministry isn’t limited to the Roanoke Valley.
    Indeed, it extends worldwide, most notably to Rwanda, where its humanitarian involvement began 15 years ago.
    “The whole time I’ve been a pastor,” Lawrence said, “I’ve been drawn to international (initiatives).
    “We focus on building churches.  In the Third World, churches are really the center of life.”
    The outreach, in Rwanda and elsewhere, includes digging wells to provide clean water, building medical clinics and schools, and creating fish farms.
    “My goal is to give (Rwandans) a hand up, not a handout,” Lawrence continued. 
    “It’s not just giving people money to buy cows.  It’s giving them the means so they can milk the cow, drink the milk, and sell the milk.
    “It’s great seeing kids who have gone from being malnourished to being healthy.
    “It’s just a huge joy.”
    Lawrence, who earned a doctorate from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has a wide and eclectic range of interests.
    He’s an accomplished photographer, an area coordinator for the US Naval Academy admission office, a bluegrass music enthusiast, and an avid outdoorsman.
    And he’s never minded getting his hands dirty, whether digging a well in Rwanda or working out in his local gym.
    He’s been widely recognized and honored for his vision, energy, strength of character, and single-minded advocacy for the struggling and downtrodden.
    In February 2013, he was consecrated as a bishop in the Province de L’Englise Anglicane au Rwanda and in the Anglican Church of North America.
    Today, in recognition of his extraordinary achievements, The Rt. Rev. Dr. R. Quigg Lawrence received Collegiate’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
    It’s another way station along his inspired personal journey, the motivation of which, in its purest sense, is to make the world a better place.
     “I’m very fired up to see people go from darkness to light,” he said.  “It’s a great joy, it’s a blessing, to see lives changed.”
               -- Weldon Bradshaw

    (Quigg Lawrence and Annette, his wife of 29 years, have three adult children: Fleet, a Naval Academy graduate and helicopter pilot, Ann Preston, a singer/songwriter in Nashville, and Mary Wynne, who works with COTHS.)