New leadership at historic church
On one of the walls inside Little Rock’s Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, at
310 W. 17th St., hang the pictures of the 20 deans who served at the church before Amy Dafler Meaux.
“And they are all white men,” she said. “To know that I am the first woman to have this kind of executive leadership role in the church downtown, I have to shoulder a lot of responsibility for that.
“I have to do it well and authentically engage in the community around us because I know the impact it has on the community.
“We know the difference it makes when a woman comes into a role that is usually held by men.”
Meaux, who was hired in August, is the first female dean and rector of the cathedral. She said this is her dream job.
“I have been praying [for a job like this one],” she said, “where I have an opportunity to deeply engage and make a difference in the life of the community — beyond what I have been able to do before.”
She said the church has a responsibility to the faith and spiritual development of its members and “how they draw closer to God,” and she said the church has the same commitment to the spiritual life of its community.
“I think the cathedral is really poised to be a place where people can come and encounter one another to learn about the Christian faith and meet people of other faiths and learn what it means to be good neighbors,” she said. “It is the perfect place to draw the community together for reconciliation, for healing, for growing and for raising everybody up.” According to its website,
trinitylittlerock.org, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is the oldest Episcopal church building in central Arkansas and the third-oldest church building in the area. The first service at the church took place Oct. 19, 1884.
Meaux said the COVID-19 pandemic has forced churches to engage with people in the community in a new way by going virtual and allowing those who otherwise wouldn’t attend to be a part of the church.
“The church, in general, has never done a great job of reaching people who are homebound, but the pandemic has forced us to go online and virtual, so those homebound can attend,” Meaux said. “The church is beginning to see that being online deepens our connection to those around us.”
Meaux has been an ordained priest for almost 19 years, having grown up in the church. She said she was 8 years old when she witnessed the ordination of a Lutheran minister, and it was then that she felt the desire to become a minister.
Meaux spent the past nine years at Trinity Episcopal Church in Danville, Kentucky. She and her family, which includes her husband, Jared, and their three children — Elise, 16; Jacob 13; and Woodrow, 8 — moved to Arkansas in mid-August 2020.
“We had to get really creative with our services,” she said. “We worshipped outside on Spring Street, in people’s backyards, which became really hard when it got cold and when the [COVID-19] numbers started to spike in November. … It hasn’t been easy, but it has been great.
“It is different than what any of us were trained to do.”