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History/biography
Everett Holland Jones was born on June 9, 1902, in San Antonio, Texas. After studying journalism at the University of Texas, from where he received a BA in 1922, Jones pursued studies in theology at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). In 1926, he was ordained a deacon at the same church in which he had been baptized and confirmed, St. Mark’s Church in San Antonio. He would become the rector there in 1938 and serve until his ordination as Bishop of West Texas in 1943.
Deeply committed to the well-being of his native town of San Antonio, Jones established the first chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Antonio in 1945. In 1967, he and others founded San Antonio’s Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health (now called the Ecumenical Center for Education, Counseling, and Health). Jones described the Center’s purpose: “It is to bring together the best resources of religion (in all its varied expressions) and of medical science (including psychology and psychiatry) for the healing and fullest development of persons. The goal is what the Bible calls wholeness of life. We seek to help the forces of religion and medicine to understand each other and to work together as a team.” Jones’ vision became a successful community resource that has since expanded and serves the community in a variety of ways through education, counseling, health, and pastoral services.
A writer from his college days, Jones wrote a weekly newspaper column that ran in many Texas newspapers from 1959 to 1984. The column, A Bishop Looks at Life, which he also called the “sermonettes,” were his “...effort to look on life around [him] and comment upon it from a Christian perspective.” Sixty of these sermonettes were published in 1967 by the Anglican Press in a book also entitled A Bishop Looks at Life. Jones authored two other books as well: Getting Life Into Perspective (1983) and Finding God (1943).
Jones retired from the church in 1969, although he remained active as a speaker and writer as well as continuing to work with Alcoholics Anonymous and the Ecumenical Center. He died on November 18, 1995 at the age of 93.