Stephanie Spellers
Assisting Priest
The Rev. Canon Dr. Stephanie Spellers is one of the Episcopal Church’s leading thinkers around 21st-century ministry and mission. The author of The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community and Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other and the Spirit of Transformation, she recently wrapped up nearly a decade as canon to the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. She currently assists at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York and is at work on a new book exploring what nonreligious Americans (the “Nones” and “Dones”) can teach us about the future of faith. Prior to her service with Bishop Curry, she directed mission and evangelism work at General Theological Seminary and as a canon in the Diocese of Long Island; founded The Crossing, a ground-breaking emerging church within St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston; and led numerous church-wide renewal efforts. A native of Frankfort, Kentucky, and a graduate of both Episcopal Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, she received an honorary doctorate from the General Theological Seminary in New York City in 2018. Spellers makes her home today in New York's Harlem neighborhood with her husband Albert and their two chaotic cats.