I hope to draw on my life experiences -- including years of lay leadership -- to serve a healthy, vibrant congregation. I know, for example, how a congregation may ask for considerable focus on pastoral care but may leave unsaid their underlying fears about their aging congregation, declining education enrollment, diminishing pledges, or potential conflict.

I know what it meant to me and my home congregation for lay leaders to head to leadership school with a scarcity mindset and return excited and transformed, with renewed energy, a view of abundance, and new tools at their disposal -- and how such repeated investment in leadership development can change or build momentum.

I hope to provide care and comfort, to teach and challenge, to inspire and model for congregants how to live out their highest aspirations. I hope to learn and grow together through our common struggles: to know and love ourselves and one another more fully, to safeguard the earth for our children, and to bring more peace and justice to the world.

Most of all, I want to empower people to use their strengths and vulnerabilities to grow and serve in community, to find the resources that support their spiritual needs, to act on their convictions, and to live more fully.