Faces of Southeast Missouri: Rev. Ellen Gurnon

Rev. Ellen Gurnon says faith informs every part of her life. From a young child attending Sunday school and summer camps, to being elected to be a ruling elder in her 20s, to pastoring First Presbyterian Church in downtown Cape Girardeau, her relationship with God continues to grow and evolve. And today, even 30 years after graduating from seminary, she is discovering new things within Scripture.

“Scripture is alive and has so many messages for us,” Gurnon says. “But the overarching message is God’s love. God so loved the world, the whole world. Rather than dividing people, I think God wants to bring us together, to be in relationship and to share the love of Jesus with every person we meet.”

For Gurnon, this means her most important work is not to bring people into the church, but to send them out. Her interest in hands-on mission work was one of the driving factors that signified her pastoral call to Cape Girardeau in 2017. And while she acknowledges Sunday morning sermons are good for inspiring and challenging the congregation, the true purpose of the church is to find ways to demonstrate the kingdom of Heaven on Earth. In her seven-year role as pastor of First Presbyterian Church and her most recent role as pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Cape Girardeau, Gurnon says her small but mighty congregations are better together.

“We may not have the same style of worship service, but we can always work together to serve,” Gurnon says. “We can do more if we join together.”

Feeding the hungry and helping the unsheltered are two areas where the Presbyterian congregations have placed a lot of energy and focus. In 2022, they installed a neighborhood lunch box on the corner of Spanish and Broadway Streets in downtown Cape Girardeau. They continue to place sack lunches with nonperishable, easy-open packaging there seven days a week, and they fill a cooler with bottles of water. According to Gurnon, the items clear out pretty quickly. But other churches and community members in the area have joined forces, signing up to help with supplies, too.

As a female pastor, Gurnon has had challenges, but says they’ve fortunately been few. In previous churches, women have voted against her pastoring the church simply because they couldn’t imagine being led by a woman. After she was hired and they got to know her, Gurnon says the women had a change of heart.

“I could not lead the church by myself,” Gurnon says. “I need lots of wise and good people around me to serve one another and the community. I’m in ministry with the congregation, not to the congregation.”

It’s a partnership that allows Gurnon to show up as her fully human self, one that makes errors and asks for grace when necessary, like when she recently left her printed notes in the car and had to leave the pulpit during a service to retrieve them. The organist played “Amazing Grace” during her absence, and the whole congregation had a good laugh.

“I love being in Cape, in the downtown area and close to the Mississippi River,” Gurnon says. “I work with wonderful people, and the river connects me to my hometown in St. Paul, Minn. When I walk by the river, I think about the water flowing by and wonder how many days ago it was home."