Seeds For Church Growth: A Handbook for Episcopal Rectors
Pastor Somes is Rector Emeritus of Saint Barnabas’ Parish, Arroyo Grande, Diocese of El Camino Real, California.  He gained the M.Div. degree at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley.  There, that Graduate-Theological-Union experience strengthened his ecumenical bent borne of work in Cursillo.  He observes:  When you attend classes with Baptists, Dominicans, Episcopalians, Franciscans, Jesuits, Lutherans, and Presbyterians, you come to absorb just how much we can learn from each other.  So he did just that, attending multi-denominational evangelism conferences and visiting various growing churches in Southern California.  Much practical knowledge was absorbed, distilled and applied in his parish ministry and shared in this handbook. He was born and educated in England, earning a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree in engineering at the University of London.  A successful career in the U.K. and after 1967, in the USA spanned construction, design, research, undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, and management.  In the early 1980’s he felt increasingly called to ordained ministry and entered seminary. He married Patricia in 1958.  In retirement they live in Southern Oregon.  They have three children and two grandchildren