As she moves into the second month of the new year - and toward her first anniversary in service at Newtown United Methodist Church - the Reverend Lori Miller can say with confidence that it has been "a good transition."

Rev Miller became the senior pastor at NUMC in July 2016, following the retirement in June of Reverend Mel Kawakami. She is now the church's lead preacher. She also handles worship design and leadership, pastoral care, spiritual formation, missional planning, and administrative oversight of the Methodist congregation that 300-plus families call their home.

Rev Miller and her husband, John Halbrook, moved into the NUMC parsonage last summer. The couple relocated from Pound Ridge, N.Y., where they had lived prior to Rev Miller's appointment to Sandy Hook. Rev Miller had served as pastor at Pound Ridge Community Church from 2009 until 2016.

Previously she served as pastor at Zion's Hill United Methodist Church in Wilton (2005-09), Grace United Methodist Church, in Newburgh, N.Y. (1995-2005); and Gaylordsville United Methodist Church (1988-95).

Rev Miller was an English major at Williams College, and graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts. She then earned a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, graduating from the Cambridge, Mass., university in 1985.

Her entry into the ministry came in 1985, when she began a three-year stint as associate pastor at Community United Methodist Church in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

The move back to Connecticut last year came after Rev Miller and her husband had expressed an interest in moving, she said.

"There is a matchmaking that goes on," she said, describing the Methodist process of finding the right pastor when an opening arises. Pastors are appointed to their churches by their bishop and district superintendents.

"There is also a lot of consultation between pastors and churches," she added.

Her first sermon, on July 10, was called "The Good Samaritan." It was presented the weekend after the bombings in Nice, France.

"A lot of our attention was focused on the insider-outsider, and what do we do with the stranger in our midst. How do we relate to them? Should I be afraid of the foreigner?" Rev Miller said. "Jesus comes and extols the humanity of a foreigner, and that's the Samaritan. It's a good story."

One of the struggles people of faith find themselves grappling with, she said, is trying to be all inclusive.

"In effect, everybody in need is our neighbor, and probably everybody we meet is our neighbor," she said.

Rev Miller said those who call NUMC their religious home have created "a deeply caring congregation.

"They care about each other," she said. "This is a church with a strong sense of mission."

By the time she was just a few months into her tenure at the 92 Church Hill Road house of worship, Rev Miller said she could already see that the members of NUMC "really feel engaged in services."

One of the programs that stood out to her immediately was The Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one caring ministry that teaches lay members of congregations how to provide high-quality, confidential, and Christ-centered care to others who are hurting. Stephen Ministers undergo 50 hours of training, which ultimately allows them to offer support to those who are bereaved, facing a terminal illness, divorce, "anything that causes a struggle," Rev Miller said.

"This ministry offers people someone who will pray with them, and listen to them," she said. "That's probably the most important quality of the ministry.

"The Stephen Ministry has been going on here for a number of years, and I think it has been a really strong ministry of this church," she said.

Rev Miller was impressed to learn about NUMC's prayer shawl ministry, "which is very active," as well as the church's Pasta Project, the pasta suppers offered to the public on the first Saturday of each month, September through June, and its subsequent Coffee House.

Rev Miller admitted to slight anxieties, she said, being a new pastor for a church within Sandy Hook.

"The biggest concern," she said, "was figuring out how to be a pastoral presence for folk who, to different degrees, had been impacted and traumatized by the shooting at the school."

Newtown United Methodist Church was the larger of the two church parishes within Sandy Hook at the time of 12/14. The other, St John's Episcopal, has since closed.

"I came prepared to really get to know people, and just listen to people, and hear their stories," Rev Miller said. "I am aware that I do come and will serve here, and will serve differently, than Pastor Mel, who was here during the tragedy, and then needed to make closure."

Rev Miller has heard from a number of people who still need to talk about 12/14, she said, while others have not approached the subject with her.

"People are in such different places," she said. "It feels to me like there are folk here who are absolutely ready to move on, and there are folk who still need to tell the story, and be there, and keep a hand on that, I think as a way of remembering and respecting the memory of the children and the teachers who died."

Lori Miller and John Halbrook - who celebrated their silver anniversary in June 2016 - are the parents of two adult children, Jaan Paul, who is married to Samantha; and Gregory. They have two grandchildren, Alex and Connor.

The couple also has a "geriatric cat" (Rev Miller's phrase), a 17-year-old named Princess.

Rev Miller and her husband "are moviegoers," she said, and they enjoy attending the theater. She enjoys reading, especially mystery novels, which she calls her guilty pleasure; and walking.