clergy and staff

 

Following the departure of Rev. Rondesia Jarrett-Schell in mid-June 2023, after she served for two years as our interim rector, our Sunday worship services will be led by various supply clergy from the Washington, D.C., area:

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Rev. Dr. Gayle Fisher-Stewart

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Supply priest on August 27

 

Rev. Dr. Gayle Fisher-Stewart is a retired priest in the Diocese of Washington. A native Washingtonian, prior to accepting the call to ordained ministry, she retired from the Metropolitan Police Department as a captain and then taught at the university level. She is the president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians and also serves as the chaplain for the Takoma Park Police Department, providing spiritual aid and assistance to department personnel regardless of belief.

 

Gayle is a graduate of the University of Maryland University College (BS), the University of Maryland (MS, PhD), American University (MS), the University of the District of Columbia (MA), and Wesley Theological Seminary (MTS). She was the 2015 recipient of the Director’s Award, Episcopal Evangelism Society, and in 2017, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity from Colgate University.

 

She has written on race, policing and The Episcopal Church; “To Serve and Protect: Race, the Police and the Episcopal Church in the Black Lives Matter Era” was published in the summer (2017) edition of the Anglican Theological Review. Her book, Preaching Black Lives (Matter) (2020), asks and answers the question What would the church look like if Black lives mattered? In Black and Episcopalian: The Struggle for Inclusion (2021), she makes the case that African Americans should be able to bring their authentic selves to the  church. In response to the uprisings over the police murder of George Floyd, she developed a curriculum titled “To Serve and Protect: Bridging the Gap Between the Police and the Black Community.” She is currently working on another book, Church Hurt: Who Will Repair My Soul? which makes the case that the trauma of racism and white supremacy must be acknowledged before the church can begin the process of reparations/repair.

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Never able to leave policing, she is currently involved in bringing the church and communities together to eliminate gun violence. The love of her life is her son, David.

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Rev. Sarabeth Goodwin

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Serving the Misa (Spanish-speaking congregation, which worships at 5:30pm on Sundays)

I was called to serve St. Stephen and the Incarnation in December 2005 with an ardent dream of planting a Spanish-speaking congregation. In March 2006, Misa Alegria was born. My role was not only to be a missioner to Misa Alegria, but a priest to both congregations, helping build bridges between the two. I can only say that I cherish those years with abiding joy. They were the most exciting years of my ministry to date. The Holy Spirit was surely at work doing a new and a good thing. I will always be grateful to my
partner in ministry, Rev. Frank Dunn (former priest at St. Stephen's), and members of St. Stephen’s for their courage and willingness to help widen the circle of love and unity at St. Stephen and the Incarnation and in the world.

In 2014, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington invited me to be the Latino Missioner for the diocese. My focus became the support and guidance of our diocese's Latino congregations. I was also able to dedicate time to immigrant justice and the founding a of a new congregation with New Episcopal Communities grants from the (national) Episcopal Church. My retirement date caught up with me in February 2022, before I felt quite ready for it. My husband John and I moved home to West Virginia. We now live in
Shepherdstown, a historic liberal village on the banks of the Potomac, 90 minutes from D.C.

John and I have missed Misa Alegria. The music, the liturgy and the people fed us. It is my “Pan del Cielo.” I hope that our presence with Misa during this search process will be a mutual blessing in this interim time. I share a very short video (1:38) made by the Episcopal Church Foundation about St. Stephen's/Misa Alegria. (Thanks to Cruz Aguilar and Sarah Bushman for the music.) This is who St. Stephen’s became and who we can become again—a place of love for all, where the Spirit rejoices in joy and hope.

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Rev. John Graham

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Serving the Misa (Spanish-speaking congregation, which worships at 5:30pm on Sundays)

 

Rev. John Graham did his seminary fieldwork at St. Stephen’s from 1982 to 1984 and feels a special bond with this community.

 

After ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of Chicago in 1984, he began learning Spanish and participating in the ministries of Iglesia Episcopal de Nuestra Señora de las Américas (NSA or, in English, the Episcopal Church of Our Lady of the Americas). NSA was the first Spanish-speaking mission in the Diocese of Chicago, founded in 1957.

 

NSA shared a building with Church of the Advent, an English-speaking parish. Rev. John became rector of the Church of the Advent in 1986 then vicar of NSA in 1987. Over the coming 18 years, God worked among the two congregations to form a partnership in ministry that respected the autonomy of each while allowing for collaboration in worship, community service, and celebrations of various sorts. He hopes the two congregations of St. Stephen's can also work together to address the challenges facing the existing relationship, with the goal of creating a partnership in which each congregation honors the other.

 

Grace Church in Georgetown called him to be its rector in 2004. He served in this capacity until February 2021, when he retired. His wife, Sakena McWright, and he celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in May 2022. He loves jazz of all eras and styles; baseball, especially the Chicago White Sox; reading, mostly history, philosophy and biblical scholarship – and, of course, anything he can put his hands on about jazz and baseball. Both Sakena and he have close friends and family spread out across the country, and they do their best to keep up with all of them.

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