The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Jaeger
Full Name:
Stephanie Pafenberg Jaeger
Congregation, Synod, Churchwide Affiliations:
Trinity Lutheran Church, Staten Island, Metro New York Synod
Current Role/Position:
Pastor
Length of Time in Ministry (include each location/organization and corresponding number of years):
Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Santa Monica (2007-2012)
Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park (2012-2014)
St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, North Hollywood (2014-2023)
Trinity Lutheran Church, Staten Island (2023-present)
Educational Background (include degrees, institutions, and fields of study):
8/2021-present: MA in Counseling, Concordia University, Irvine
9/2019: MFA in Creative Writing, Antioch University, LA
12/2006: MDiv, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
12/1991: Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, Dept. of German
5/1986: MA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Dept. of German
12/1984: BA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Dept. of German
Previous Leadership Roles (within and beyond the synod):
2024-present: Professor of Religious Studies (Adjunct), Wagner College
2/2017-2/2022: Executive Director, NoHo Home Alliance
2/2018-11/2022: Twin Valleys Conference, Southwest California Synod of the ELCA, Dean
1/2010-1/2012: Metro LA Conference, Southwest California Synod of the ELCA, Co-Dean
1991-1998: Professor of German Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
Experience Serving in Diverse Communities:
Pastor: St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, North Hollywood, a congregation that is 50% LGBTQIA+, Deaf ministry
Board Chair and Trustee: New City Parish, 2010-2012, 2014-2016
Leadership and Vision: What is your vision for our synod? How would you approach its implementation?
“Living Jesus in Metro NY! / ¡Viviendo a Jesús en Metro NY!”
Building connection: It is challenging to forge a sense of connection and belonging across our 5 boroughs and 9 counties, especially post-COVID. Add to that a sense of tension that creeps into the relationship between a congregation and the Synod when times get tough and fears about church closures and property transfers fray our relationship. As Bishop, I am committed to forging a loving, truthful, and empowering relationship with every congregation, every rostered leader, and as many lay people as possible. As Bishop I propose two new initiatives to build connections between us: an ongoing weekly one-hour Bishop’s Bible Study held on Zoom that will be open to all rostered leaders and members of Synod. And a series of revival gatherings (focused on evangelism and worship) across the Synod where we can meet together in person, build our capacity for evangelism, and experience diverse worship opportunities to ignite our joy and love of God.
Preparing congregations: I believe one of the main purposes of the Synod is to accompany and empower congregations to minister impactfully in the present and in the future. As a pastor/redeveloper, my gift is to help congregations assess their vitality and sustainability, and help them identify and implement ways they can build their vitality and sustainability. If vitality and sustainability are not achievable, I help the congregation imagine and plan an impactful legacy before holy closure that aligns with the congregation’s values, and invests the gifts God has given them to steward in other ministries for the future. As Bishop, I will launch a congregational self-assessment initiative, expecting all congregations to engage in a self-assessment of vitality and sustainability, and legacy planning in year 1 and year 5 of my term. I commit in the first three years of my term as Bishop, to work personally with each congregation in the Synod in the initial step of the assessment and legacy planning process.
Organizing the Synod for the future: The Synod level must also undergo a self-assessment of goals, and imagining and implementing a realignment of structures, programming, staffing, and resources to best meet those goals. As early as practical in the transition, I will establish a Synod Assessment Team drawing on the current Synod Council executive committee and Deans, but include other leaders in MNYS and from outside the Synod to collect an assessment of gaps and recommendations for best practices. One immediate step: to support congregations exploring new ministries in pursuit of revitalization, I will work with Synod Council to establish a Mission and Ministry Endowment Fund that will have a transparent process for applying for competitive small grants in the $3-5K range to fund congregational pilot projects to experiment with new ministries.
Administrative and Operational Expertise: How have you supported and equipped a team, staff, and/or volunteers to handle complex organizational challenges? Please provide a specific example.
Administration is stewardship of people, resources, and processes. I have extensive experience and expertise in organizational. In my first call, I served as pastor and administrator of a congregation with a preschool with 125 children and staff of 20+ instructors and a $1.2 Mil budget.
I have served on several non-profit boards. For several years, I served as an officer, including treasurer, of a multicultural charter school (Goethe International Charter School) with fiduciary oversight over a $4 Mil annual budget.
My most significant administrative challenge came, as for many of us, during the COVID pandemic. In addition to serving as a pastor of a congregation, I had founded a non-profit community organizing and homeless services non-profit run out of our congregation in 2018. In early 2020, when the pandemic broke out, the non-profit had more than 65 part-time staff and staff-level volunteers providing a wide range of services for av. 85 participants a day. With the start of COVID, I had to transition our indoor operations to all out-of-door services without any reduction in service, develop appropriate protocols, facilitate COVID testing and vaccinations when they became available for our vulnerable, unhoused clients, our volunteer staff, as well as our neighborhood. Leading two organizations through the pandemic was a training ground not only for developing organizational nimbleness and responsiveness to frequently changing conditions but also for learning how to lead change with a diverse staff and volunteer pool with wide-ranging levels of anxiety and fear and diverse, culturally-influenced views of the disease itself. I had long developed the practice of frequent in-person communication through daily team meetings, individual check-ins, and regular written updates to build a strong sense of community. The most difficult leadership moment in the pandemic came when, in an unexpected move, shortly after vaccines became available, the non-profit’s board wanted to require vaccinations of all staff and volunteers without any exemptions for religious beliefs or medical needs. I had two long-time volunteers who were extremely valuable to the communal identity of the organization, and I supported their request for vaccination exemptions. The conflict over vaccinations, infused with reactivity and high anxiety, required extensive, difficult negotiations with board members and the large staff and volunteer pool to finally arrive at a balanced, nuanced policy that allowed for rare exceptions to the vaccination policy, and specific roles for unvaccinated volunteers. The process was difficult, but maintained the community.
Diversity and Inclusion: How are you actively celebrating and engaging diversity in your current role? What impact does it have? How are you continuing to learn and grow in this area of your work?
I have a long history of building an inclusive church. In my previous call, I served a congregation that is 50% LGBTQIA+, has a Deaf ministry, and committed to ending homelessness and poverty. I have been a servant leader alongside New City Parish, one of the most impactful examples of intentional multicultural, multilingual ministry in the ELCA. At Trinity, SI we cultivate diversity and inclusion by: proclaiming and implementing inclusion as a core value of the congregation; adding a second worship service that supplements our Eurocentric classical worship with an interactive, multicultural worship; intentionally utilizing rites (e.g. libations) and materials (e.g. from Black Liturgies) from non-European traditions in our worship; empowering worship leaders from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds so members and newcomers can see people in public leadership who look like them; doing ministry that engages a diverse population such as our church-member-and-pastor-led Girl Scout Troop; mounting public music concerts that profile African descent and LGBTQIA+ composers; developing an immigration legal clinic for undocumented neighbors; and partnering with Salam Arabic Church to host Salam Radio Station. These efforts help to build trust and communal bonds as the Body of Christ.
I continue to grow in my ongoing cross-cultural ministry by continuing to unpack my own biases, expanding my direct experience and knowledge of other cultures, and intentionally building relationships with people different from myself even through the inevitable discomfort and tension inherent in multicultural work.
Our Synod is beautifully and powerfully diverse. But I believe we need to move beyond a tendency to tokenism to authentic relationship and a more expansive practice of equitable inclusion. This means moving beyond just using limited Synod staff hires as the main way to profile our territory’s diversity. We must intentionally create new ways of expanding how we involve people in our power structures who have not historically held power in our church. As Bishop, I will pilot a “Bishop’s Advisory Council,” inviting more and more diverse clergy and lay leaders to serve in time-limited, rotating, stipended advisory roles to help the Synod address current and future priorities. The Advisory Council will provide a transparent, nimble structure for the Bishop to bring the lived experience and expertise of impacted communities into Synodical work, as well as build community and solidarity across the Synod as people from different conferences and cultures are intentionally brought together to relate and advise on pressing issues.
Pastoral Care: How would you balance the pastoral role of the bishop with the demands of administrative leadership?
Doing ministry is difficult. One of the greatest gifts a Bishop can give their rostered leaders is pastoral care. It is a role I relish and see as a privilege. For several years, for my continuing education, I have been taking classes toward an MA in Counseling through Concordia University—Irvine. I was moved to develop professional counseling skills in recognition of the extent to which rostered leaders have to contend with trauma and stress projected into the congregational system, usually by members but also by rostered leaders themselves. The projected trauma and stress create conflict. When projected trauma and stress become unmanageable, harm results…harm to the people involved, harm to the congregation, and harm to the Gospel. I wanted to build my capacity to care for my own emotional health, to manage trauma and stress in church systems, and help other clergy navigate trauma and stress in church systems. My counseling formation has provided me with knowledge and tools for pastoral counseling, especially for rostered leaders; my goal is not only to provide clergy crisis care but to establish practices to foster the mental health and holistic well-being of rostered leaders who frequently, as servant leaders, put their own health and wellbeing last. As Bishop, I will establish the practice of intentional face-to-face annual one-on-one well-being check-ins with all clergy leaders. I will share the responsibility for these check-ins with my staff. These check-ins will give clergy the opportunity to reflect on their own physical, mental/emotional, relational, financial, and socioecological (i.e. the impact of public policy, ethnicity, racism etc.) health. The goal is to support clergy in identifying health areas in need of improvement and accessing the care they need to achieve greater well-being. I will work with Portico Benefits and Synod staff to establish relationships with mental health counselors licensed in the State of New York with expertise in working with clergy and facilitate a plan for all MNYS rostered leaders to participate in mental health counseling for a minimum of one year at low or no cost.
I will balance my obligations for pastoral care and administrative responsibilities in part by hiring an exceptionally skilled A2B for Administration to oversee the management and implementation of Synod initiatives. Also, by setting up efficient systems and utilizing effective technology to make both administrative work more efficient and the delivery of pastoral care better organized and more efficient.
Public Leadership: How have you advocated for the church’s mission in a public or cultural space? What impact does your leadership have? What were your metrics for measuring success? What would this work look like in your service as bishop?
The Bishop is the Synod’s public voice proclaiming Jesus’ ethics and God’s vision for peace and justice. I am a practitioner of public church. You can learn more from my website:
publicchurch.info. In short, public church is bringing the ethical teachings of Jesus (e.g., Luke 4, Luke 6, Matthew 25) and the Gospel into engagement with current life experiences and social issues in the public square.
My own public action and advocacy as a pastor have primarily been on behalf of homeless services, affordable housing, worker protections, Deaf rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, Palestinian self-determination, and against poverty and racism.
I am especially interested in building other Christian’s capacity to engage in effective, faith-rooted advocacy. I have organized several advocacy volunteer teams, leading a variety of trainings in community organizing. I am experienced at creating “toolkits” with scripts and instructions on how to advocate with elected officials, like my recent toolkit in support of Lutheran Social Services and Global Refuge available here:
https://www.publicchurch.info/post/sun-s-up-lutheran-toolkit-to-speak-out-act-up-in-support-of-lss-and-gf.
In recognition for my public work for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I received the greatest honor of my life: The Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago’s Confessor in Christ Award. LSTC's "Confessor of Christ Award" is given to “a Christian individual whose commitment to Christ Jesus and the Gospel manifests itself through extraordinary personal sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ and the Gospel or exemplary witness to Christ Jesus and the Gospel by selfless service to others.”
As Bishop, I will continue to stay faithful to my understanding of what Jesus calls us to do as he taught in his first sermon “to bring good news to the poor...to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18). But as shepherd of the Synod, I will also empower congregations and people across the Synod to become practitioners of public church and engage publicly with their faith through trainings and advocacy actions. I will work with existing Synod committees, such as the anti-racism team, to amplify justice initiatives in our Synod. I will also invite select rostered leaders to serve on an Advocacy Team who can serve as my advocacy designee on specific justice areas based on their passions, experience, and gifts so that we can amplify the moral voice of Jesus in Metro New York and the world.
Bold and Courageous Leadership: Describe a bold or innovative action you took to reimagine ministry or strengthen a community. What were the challenges, and what was the outcome?
In my experience, one of the most effective ways for congregations to revitalize is to develop a community ministry that meets a hyperlocal need. In my former call, I led St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in North Hollywood to revitalize by responding to the great needs of their unhoused neighbors. We developed a separate non-profit for community organizing and to deliver homeless services at pop-up drop-in access centers. Church members were joined by community volunteers to run the most effective, hyperlocal, community-based, trauma-informed, harm-reduction-practicing homeless services program in Los Angeles. Locating services for the unhoused in small community locations are especially effective because unhoused persons have great trust in services at locations they already know or pass through and engagement with volunteers is relational. But locating services for the unhoused in community locations can elicit strong negative feedback. Through thoughtful operational planning, extensive community communication about our successes, and forging strong partnerships with elected officials and community liaisons in law enforcement, we were able to disarm opposition and thrive.
At Trinity, Staten Island, I am working with a team of 14 members to address the increasing needs of immigrant neighbors. Building on our existing weekly food service ministry that is heavily attended by immigrant neighbors, we are developing immigrant resources and services to help our newest neighbors because Jesus says to welcome the stranger. We are in the final stages of training for and building out a combined staff- and volunteer-run low and no-cost immigration legal services clinic following the model of a DOJ-recognized non-profit immigration legal program. Through our ministry we will help eligible immigrant neighbors avail themselves of the pathways to insure their legal status in the US as legal residents and ultimately citizens.
Immigration is one of the most divisive topics in the US, including on Staten Island where there are very limited resources, especially legal resources, for immigrants. God is clear in God’s call to care for the stranger, and build inclusive community. Does or could our immigrant ministry arouse concerns in the community? Yes, of course. But again, with clarity about our faith mandate, prudent operational decisions, effective communication, and building support with key allies in the community, we are confident that our immigrant services will be a highly effective expression of our religious commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Spiritual Life and Practices: How do you nurture your spiritual life and relationship with God amidst the demands of leadership? Share specific practices or disciplines that sustain you and provide an example of how your spiritual grounding has shaped your leadership.
The four main sources that nurture my spiritual well-being and relationship with God are: prayer, Bible study, Holy Communion, and connecting with people whom I consider models of religious life (alive and dead!).
Prayer is the most immediate form for nurturing me and my connection with God. In addition to engaging in silent and spoken verbal prayer during the day, or leading verbal prayer in worship or other gatherings, I am also a practitioner of the meditative prayer called Centering Prayer. Centering prayer, which often focuses on one word or image, allows me to open myself up to the experience of God in simple presence and deeper indwelling in ways that words do not.
I am at heart a student and scholar. Bible study is essential to me to experience and know who God is and how God is. The Bible is the foundation of my way of life, my ethics and morality, my gratitude for the salvation of Jesus both in the form of eternal life and the way of life that builds the Kingdom. I read the Bible daily. I lead Bible study in my congregation. I am grateful also to serve as a Professor of Religious Studies at Wagner College and to have the opportunity to share the Bible and Christian theology in my teaching.
Holy Communion, taking in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, broken and given for me, is the single-most act of restoration for my soul and spirit. Knowing that I am receiving Jesus in a great exchange for my failings frees me from shame and releases me into a future of love and possibility and strengthens me to lead others to manifest the Kingdom of God.
I have a short and a long list of Christians who serve as models and teachers in the faith for me. Engaging with them, or in the case of them no longer being alive—with their words helps to grow my understanding and love of Jesus, God, the Kingdom, and the calling to the Way of Jesus Christ. My short list of models includes: Jesus, Dorothy Day, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the theologian Juergen Moltmann, my former pastor Rev. Ron Moe-Lobeda, Lutheran ethicist Cindy Moe-Lobeda, and the random stranger (embodying Jesus) who teaches me to love my neighbor as myself.