The Reverend Robert Brooks's small, crowded office at Christ Episcopal Church in Kent, Ohio, is a long way from the executive suite that he occupied for nineteen years at the Philadelphia investment firm of Cooke & Bieler. He has moved a substantial distance in miles, of course, but further still in other, more significant ways. The books on his shelves now offer spiritual, not financial, guidance.

His office help - a part-time secretary and an answering machine - is minimal compared with his staff at Cooke & Bieler. The artwork - his own watercolors of landscapes, and a wooden cross - might seem out of place in his previous office. And his church's $135,000 annual budget would be small change to his former colleagues.

While the contrasts loom large, it is clear from the passion with which Brooks discusses his work that his decision to leave the world of investment management for the church was the right move. On a typical day, the warm, affable minister might meet with a couple planning to be married, deliver communion to a housebound parishioner, help prepare a meal at a soup kitchen, and work on his weekly sermon. As rector of Christ Church, he plays a vital role in most of the big moments in the lives of the one hundred families who regularly participate in church activities - baptizing babies, delivering graveside eulogies, and participating in everything that happens in between.

A native of metropolitan Washington, D.C., Brooks was brought up Episcopalian but stopped going to church when he entered Harvard College. After graduating cum laude with a degree in English and a varsity letter in football, Brooks served in the Navy and then entered HBS. It was not until he was long established as a financial counselor that he returned to the church - with the primary goal of giving his two children the spiritual education he had come to appreciate in his own formative years. When he began teaching Sunday school, however, he soon found that "teaching those kids was more important to me than what I was doing in the investment business."

In the early 1980s, when a young priest asked him if he had considered becoming a minister, Brooks admitted he had, but explained that he thought he could contribute more by maintaining his day job and devoting his free time to his parish. "When my friend responded, ÔI don't think that's the total answer for you,' I knew he was right," says Brooks, who went home that night and began discussing with his family the calling he felt he could no longer ignore.

He then spent several years examining his life, working with his church's youth group, and praying, before he entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upon graduation in 1995, he was ordained and called to serve in Kent. "The people here have been very welcoming and forthcoming," he says, noting that both he and his wife, Rhea, have been graciously accepted by their new community.

Despite the difficulties of managing a complete career change, Brooks says that entering the ministry late in life has been an asset. In guiding his church and parishioners, he is able to draw on a wealth of life experience, as well as on the leadership and analytical skills he developed at HBS and the knowledge about nonprofits he gained while working at Cooke & Bieler. His sermons are packed with relevant anecdotes, his church boasts an up-to-date Web site, and his youth outreach efforts are having a positive impact in the local community. In the end, however, the bottom line for Brooks is the emotional and spiritual relationships that he has developed with his parishioners. "It's all about personal involvement," he says. "That's why I do it."

- Susan Young