Longboat Island Chapel commissions a new reverend

Jeffrey Nunes’ mother, Marita, knew he had a calling from the day he was born. 

“I knew it more when he was 2. And he came to me when he was graduating from college, and he said, ‘Mom, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t think I’m going to be a doctor,’” Marita recalled. “I said, ‘Son, I never thought you were going to be a doctor. I thought you were going to be a priest.” 

Nunes was raised Catholic, and Marita says everything about him pointed her mother’s instinct in that direction, from his aunt nicknaming him “The Professor” as a child to the way he reads and responds to people’s hearts. 

On Tuesday, Nunes was commissioned and robed as a reverend at the Longboat Island Chapel. He still has another two years of seminary school to complete, so the title doesn’t carry over to other churches yet.

Nunes, 56, has been a chapel member since 2014 and Rev. Brock Patterson’s right hand man for the last couple of years, serving as an interim office administrator and then as the pastoral care coordinator. His duties will remain the same but expand. 

 “I’ll be preaching more,” Nunes said. “I’m still a support to the senior pastor, but now I can support him in anything he does, not just some of the things that he does.”

About 100 members showed their support by attending a ceremony and champagne reception. Glasses were raised high during the toast as the congregation welcomed him as another chapel leader.

“We had a trip last year, and there were 23 of us that went to Israel,” member Sue Reese said. “I just had a hip replacement and couldn’t get around easily. Jeffrey walked with me and helped me on and off our tour bus, so he’s very special to me.” 

Nunes made his living caring for people. After graduating from New College in 1990, Nunes thought he’d go on to become a medical missionary. But when he started working with people with developmental disabilities, he said it became a calling of sorts.

Nunes spent 20 years as a habilitation coordinator. Habilitation helps maintain motor skills and teaches patients new skills. 

Going to the chapel

Nunes will be celebrating his sixth wedding anniversary with husband Michael Nunes in May. 

“I’ve always felt like my life was dedicated to the Lord, but before we came to the chapel, my sexuality was an issue in most of the churches I attended in my life,” he said. “And at the chapel, it’s not an issue.”

While “The Professor” knows the Bible forward and backward, he’s more about love and light than doctrine and discipline. 

“I’ve found much more success in delighting in the things that God has already allowed me to delight in, like going to the beach in the morning or painting ceramics or being with people in the chapel or singing.”

The chapel’s trip to Israel set Nunes on a straight path to the pulpit. It started at an events planning meeting when he mentioned how much he’d enjoyed his travels to the Holy Land, and the women ran with it. They got in touch with the tour company he used, and dates were set. Nunes refers to that chain of events as his “pre-call.” 

Last April, chapel members took that trip. Everyone got along so well, Nunes felt God was once again saying, “These people receive you.” He told Patterson he was feeling the call of God. Patterson shared the experience of his own calling and the conversation continued into a discussion about seminary schools. 

“We needed to find a seminary where I could get my master’s degree without having to leave Longboat Key and one that was going to be OK with me being married to Michael,” Nunes said. “There were two choices, and I chose Lexington over Chicago.” 

The Lexington Theological Seminary offers online classes 10 months out of the year. Nunes travels to Kentucky in January and June for intensives, in person classes where the reading is done beforehand and the writing is done after.

God will decide what happens in two years, but for now, Nunes is happy where he is.

“In my mind, what the chapel has is exactly what Christianity needs in the sense that people come from all over the country, from all different churches, and they come to a place where we don’t make an issue of differences,” he said. “We love each other because we’re at the chapel.”