The Reverend Leslie R. Bland

December 9, 1945–September 12, 2026

The Reverend Leslie R. Bland, Episcopal deacon, counselor, disability advocate, storyteller, and steadfast servant of the Gospel, died September 12, 2026, in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was 80.

Leslie was born December 9, 1945, in Hackettstown, New Jersey, to Miriam and Howard Rasmussen, and grew up in Florida and Connecticut. From an early age, she showed a rare combination of independence, courage, humor, and practical skill. Aviation became one of her first great adventures: she earned her pilot’s license at 16 before she had a driver’s license, so someone else had to drive her to the airport before she could take to the air. She later worked as a flight instructor in Florida, flew air transport for burn victims, and once completed a solo flight across the country. Those years gave her not only remarkable experience but also a treasury of stories she would tell with unforgettable timing and wit.

In 1973, Leslie welcomed her son, Jamie. Following her divorce from Jamie’s father, Leslie and her young son moved to Greensboro when Jamie was a young boy. Leslie became active at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and began building the friendships and connections that would shape the rest of her life and ministry.

Leslie attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she earned a master’s degree in counseling. She became a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, devoting much of her professional life to helping people meet hardship with dignity, creativity, and practical support. For a number of years, she supervised and trained counselors who provided independent-living services for people with disabilities. Colleagues remember her as masterfully creative in untangling obstacles and finding solutions that helped people live with greater freedom and independence. She later operated Country Hills Counseling in Greensboro, where she helped people navigate personal challenges as well as physical, emotional, and vocational change.

After years of progressive back problems, Leslie underwent delicate back surgery. When the surgery was not successful, she came to rely on a motorized wheelchair for independence. Far from diminishing her commitment to others, that experience deepened her resolve to remove barriers and expand access for people too often left at the margins.

Leslie and the Rev. T.J. Bland came to know one another through Leslie’s close friendship with T.J. and his late wife, Bobbie. After Bobbie’s death from cancer, Leslie and T.J.’s friendship deepened, and they were later married at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church by the Rev. Bill Poulos. Their life together included several moves between North Carolina and Vermont before they returned first to Kernersville and eventually settled again in Greensboro, which remained their home.

Leslie’s faith and commitment to service deepened through her life with T.J., an Episcopal deacon, and eventually led her to seek referral and recommendation from her home parish, Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church, for ordination as a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. As part of her discernment and preparation, she completed a diaconal internship at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in High Point and pursued her course of study through St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Hillsborough. She was ordained to the diaconate on January 24, 2015, at Phillips Chapel at Canterbury School in Greensboro.

When barriers of physical access made it difficult for Leslie to be placed in a parish where she could serve at the altar, she was permitted to serve as deacon at Saint Barnabas, her home parish. There, her ministry embodied the deacon’s calling to carry the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world into the life of the Church. She served until her retirement in 2023 and continued assisting at services whenever she was able.

A persistent and loving advocate for the full inclusion of people with disabilities, Leslie helped Saint Barnabas ask not only whether people could enter the church, but whether they could participate fully once inside. Drawing on her professional knowledge and her own experience using a power wheelchair, she helped guide changes that brought the altar to floor level, widened an entrance, improved sound access, and created seating throughout the congregation for people using wheelchairs and walkers. These changes allowed anyone to serve at the altar and proclaim the Gospel from the midst of the people. Although the modifications preceded her ordination, they made Saint Barnabas a parish in which she could serve fully. Saint Barnabas became the first, and remains the only, parish in the diocese to provide access to all areas on a single level, without stairs, ramps, or elevators. Leslie’s vision was grounded in a simple conviction: Jesus wanted everybody to have a place.

Leslie’s ministry also placed her at the center of Saint Barnabas’s decision to offer sanctuary to Juana, an immigrant facing deportation. Leslie took part in the parish’s careful discernment and then helped turn its commitment into daily care. She coordinated round-the-clock volunteer coverage, 28 shifts each week, and brought together parishioners and members of the wider community so that Juana would not face her ordeal alone.

Throughout the four long years Juana lived in sanctuary at Saint Barnabas, Leslie remained a steady source of hope, encouragement, and practical help for Juana, her family, and everyone who served alongside them. In that demanding ministry, Leslie joined compassion to organization, faith to action, and welcome to faithful presence.

Pastoral care was another of Leslie’s defining gifts. She and her faithful Labrador companion could often be found at Wesley Long, Moses Cone, and other hospitals and care facilities, offering presence, prayer, and companionship to familiar faces and to anyone in need.

Those who knew Leslie remember her as creative, persistent, compassionate, and wonderfully funny. She was a gifted storyteller whose marvelous sense of humor and vivid descriptions could keep any audience in stitches. The Rev. Randall Keeney once described her as working “tirelessly, patiently and very lovingly” to help others understand the needs of people facing challenges. Her life and ministry gave practical form to radical hospitality: no one was to be pushed to the margins of worship or community, and no one in distress was to be left alone.

Leslie is survived by the Rev. T.J. Bland, her loving and devoted husband of more than 31 years; her beloved son, Jamie Boyd; her stepson, Jimmy Bland, and his wife, Bertie; brother-in-law Jerry Brown; and other family members and friends who were blessed by her love, humor, and faithful presence. She was preceded in death by her beloved parents, her sister Judy Brown, and her devoted assistance dogs, Angie, Titus, and Hansen.

A traditional Requiem Eucharist celebrating Leslie’s life and the hope of the resurrection will be held at 2:00 PM on October 8, 2026, at Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church, 1300 Jefferson Road, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410. Interment will follow immediately after the service in the columbarium, with a reception in the parish hall celebrating a life well lived in the light of Christ and Leslie’s faithful witness to God’s kingdom among those she touched. Deacons attending are asked to vest in Alb and Stole and join the procession into the church together. Priests attending in clerical collars are also welcome to join the procession. Clergy are asked to RSVP to Saint Barnabas at 336-294-1282. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church or to Saint Francis Service Dogs, PO Box 19538, Roanoke, VA 24019 (Phone: 540-342-3647).

“Rest eternal grant to her, O Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon her.”