Our Mission:

Street Psalms is a community in mission that frees leaders from all walks of life to create cities of peace for all people.

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What we value

People

We gather and equip gifted grassroots leaders from diverse backgrounds, giving ample space for those of us who are marginalized misfits and overlooked one-offs. From such delightfully quirky stock we are formed as missional communities profoundly centered and mutually supported in our commitment to serve among those most vulnerable in society.

PERSPECTIVE

We see from below. We do theology from below, reading the Bible with the excluded and damned. We practice spirituality from below, together learning to see and celebrate good news in hard places. We share a spirituality of imperfection that delights in the Spirit’s dance among awkwardness and disarray.

PLACE

Cities are our classroom, parish, and playground. We recognize the global, urban and postmodern forces that shape the cityscapes in which we live and serve. We eagerly lean into the challenges and opportunities we see emerging in our urbanizing world. Our particular calling is to corners of our cities marked by poverty and violence – and neglected possibilities.

PRAYER

We are contemplative activists, and active contemplatives. All of our work is an attentive act of prayer, whether in the bustle of street life or in the quiet inner room of the soul. “Lord, teach us to pray.”

PAIN

We recognize our own pain and the pain of others as the primary gateway of transformation. We are wounded healers; we recognize that if we do not transform our experience of pain we will transmit it. The way of the cross demands disorientation and loss on the way to renewal and life, both for individuals and communities.

PRACTICE

We embrace asset-based approaches to personal growth and social change. We begin with God’s exuberant Yes rather than the world’s dismal No. We are continually amazed by the overlooked and neglected vitality to be tapped in unlikely contexts, and seek to employ emerging tools for unleashing such energy.

PEACEMAKING

We are blessed to be peacemakers, seeking a true center that holds in a fractured, unjust, and violent world. We are committed to unmasking and unplugging from the mechanisms of violence (physical, spiritual, emotional) within ourselves, as well as in those people and places we serve. We explore and model real-world alternatives to violence – “beloved communities” of justice and embrace.

PREACHING

We follow the tradition of St. Francis who said, “Preach the Word always, and only when necessary use words.” Our commitment to the preached word is grounded in our deep trust that true words transform the world when spoken, acted, or even held silently in love. The world, especially the most vulnerable among us, is hungry for daring, holy and humble speech that bears witness to the reality of God’s mercy and grace.

POETRY

We enjoy lyrical and poetic language as we seek the Word of God among us, retell stories of grace, and express good news. We listen for the music among us and around us. Our taste is more jazz than classical – informal, communal, conversational, coming in and from the margins to influence the center.

PLAY

Amid the monumental challenges of our contexts, our worst mistake is taking ourselves too seriously. Humor is a staple of our life. We take every opportunity to celebrate. We risk; we fail; we laugh together with God at our fumblings. Wonder and curiosity take us around the next bend of our journey, and joy will carry us home.

Kris-(SF-Link)

Executive Director

Kris Rocke

Tacoma, WA

Joel-VD

Senior Fellow for New Hub Development

Joel Van Dyke

Wyoming, Michigan

Lina Thompson

Senior Fellow for Formation

Lina Thompson

Seattle, WA

Kristy Photo 2022

Associate Director of Operations

Kristy Humphreys

Tacoma, WA

Nic

Director Of Operations and Strategy

Nic Hughes

Portland, OR

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Office Manager

Lana Rocke

Tacoma, WA

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Program Metrics and Evaluation Lead

Elizabeth Hirschl

Tacoma, WA

Street Psalms Senior Fellows have dedicated their lives to freeing leaders to love and serve. Each Senior Fellow brings a particular gift and serves a relational network that extends the table of Street Psalms in their context, bridging more and more difference so that everyone belongs.

Senior Fellow

Executive Director of the Catalyst Leadership Foundation

Abhishek Gier

New Delhi, India

Senior Fellow

Lightning Rod at Salem Leadership Foundation

D.J. Vincent

Salem, OR | U.S.

Senior Fellow

Director of Training | CTM Kenya

Esau Oreso

Nairobi, Kenya

Gideon Ochieng
Senior Fellow

Founding Director | CTM Kenya

Gideon Ochieng

Nairobi, Kenya

Senior Fellow

Training Coordinator | Nehemiah Center

Hultner Estrada

Managua, Nicaragua

Senior Fellow

Innovation Youth Director

Jenna Smith

Verdun, CA

Senior Fellow

Director of Leadership Development at CTM Guatemala

Joel Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Senior Fellow

Founding Director | Parachute Ministries

Joel Kiekintveld

Anchorage, AK

Senior Fellow

Director | New Hub Development

Joel Van Dyke

Wyoming, Michigan

Senior Fellow

Founding Director Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation

Justin Beene

Grand Rapids, MI

Senior Fellow

Pastor | Manitou Park Presbyterian Church

Ken Sikes

Tacoma, WA

Lina Thompson
Senior Fellow

Senior Pastor | Lake Burien Church

Lina Thompson

Seattle, Washington

Mario Matos
Senior Fellow

Founding Director at the Center for Transforming Mission (DR)

Mario Luis Matos

Dominican Republic

Senior Fellow

Missionary | Resonate Global Mission

Mike Ribbens

Johannesburg, South Africa

Senior Fellow

Associate Professor of Theology and Culture Seattle School of Theology and Psychology

Ron Ruthruff

Seattle, WA

Senior Fellow

Founding Director | Watu Moju

Tim Merrill

Camden, NJ

Senior Fellow

Executive Director | The Leadership Center & Director | The Institute for Pastoral and Congregational Thriving at Portland Seminary

Trisha Welstad

Portland, OR

Senior Fellow

Training Hub Director | Sous Espwa

Valery Vital-Herne

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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Board Chair

Kristy Roberts Farber

Pastor | Mercer Island Presbyterian Church

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Treasurer – Board Member

Mandla Kaunda

Tax Manager | Deloitte

Doug-SQ

Secretary – Board Member

Doug Hostetter

Director of Photography

Marti-Little

Board Member

Marti Little

Staff Attorney | Support Center for Child Advocates

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Board Member

Jacob Moody

Chief Information Officer | Bargreen Ellingson

Pat Thompson

Board Member

Pat Thompson

Executive Director & Co-Founder | YES! Foundation

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Board Member

Mario Matos

Founding Director | CTM Dominican Republic

DJ Vincent (SQ)

Board Member

DJ Vincent

Executive Director | Church @ the Park

Mary Albert Darling

Mary Albert Darling

Mary teaches classes in communication and spirituality at Spring Arbor University (Spring Arbor, MI), including a course on spiritual formation and justice that took her to Guatemala for part of six summers. Mary is co-author with Tony Campolo of “The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice” and “Connecting Like Jesus: Practices for Healing, Teaching, and Preaching. She is a trained Enneagram instructor and Spiritual Director who has studied spiritual formation under Richard Foster and Dallas Willard.

 

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Ben McBride

Ben McBride is a native of San Francisco, spiritual leader and longtime activist for peace and justice. In 2014 Ben launched the Empower Initiative as a consulting group to deliver leadership development to individuals and institutions.

 

 

María Isabel Mayorga

María Isabel Mayorga

Marisa Mayorga is an Industrial engineer, MBA, wife and mother of two. Currently, she serves as the Executive Director at Fundación Gedeón, a Guatemalan non-profit created in 2013 whose mission is to provoke a cultural change in Guatemala by studying and questioning the cultural beliefs that have traditionally guided leaders and held back efforts of development in Guatemala. The special focus of this work is aimed at business and political leaders where in the goal is to examine and challenge the paradigms, beliefs and world-views of those who hold power. Marisa is a Fellow of the Central American Leadership Initiative (CALI), and a member of the global leadership network at the Aspen Institute.

Tali Hairston

Tali Hairston

At SPU, Hairston contributes to the educational development of students, faculty, and staff in racial reconciliation, global urban leadership, and Christian community development. He is also an educator and public speaker, lecturing at SPU as well as Fuller Seminary’s Youth Institute. He also leads a profound “interpreting the city” program with Asbury Seminary and others.

Dave Hillis

Dave Hillis

After 14 years as president of Leadership Foundations (LF), Dave has moved over to LF’s Innovation Center to focus on how to bring theory and practice together on behalf of the social and spiritual renewal of cities. Dave is the author of “Cities: Playgrounds or Battlegrounds?”, a contributor and general editor to the recently released “City As Playground: An Anthology”, and cohost of the “City as Playground” podcast. He has also contributed numerous articles to magazines articulating the idea that how we see our cities is the most important question we can ask of ourselves and the institutions we lead.
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Margarita Solis-Deal

Dedicated to the transformation of individuals, groups, and communities, Margarita specializes in developing programs and services for those seeking to deepen their spirituality through contemplative practices and experiences. She oversees a spirituality and retreat sacred space that is open to all faith traditions, practices radical hospitality, and offers an exploration of the intersection between spirituality, justice and mercy.

Joel Huyser

Joel Huyser

Before serving with Resonate Global Mission, Huyser was a trial attorney in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Joel helped found Nehemiah Center in Nicaragua where he lived from 1996 to 2013. The story of the Nehemiah Center is told in Carol Van Klompenberg’s book, “On Mended Wings: Transforming Lives and Communities in Nicaragua.”

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Kit Danley

Danley’s work has spanned three decades with a newly developed 8 acre campus in the heart of downtown Phoenix. The Neighborhood Center is a hub where relationships with children, their families, and city-wide partners join together to make a difference for hundreds throughout the community. Neighborhood Ministries has been featured in magazines like “World,” “Christian Century,” and “Christianity Today.”

Scott Sherman

Scot Sherman

Scot Sherman is an Episcopal Priest, the Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Church Innovation, an ecumenical ministry formed to strengthen and revitalize existing churches, and reimagine and support new expressions of church based in San Francisco, and a member of the consortial faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has taught courses in systematic theology, historical theology, ecumenical theology, the theology of mission, homiletics, and church planting.

James Alison

James Alison

He has studied, lived and worked in Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Spain and the United States as well as his native England. He is a Fellow of Imitatio and author of many books including The Joy of Being Wrong, on being liked and Jesus The Forgiving Victim. He is also the co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. His principal claim to fame is his effort to bring the work of the French thinker, Rene Girard to the wider public.

Greg Boyle

Father Greg Boyle

Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. They employs and train former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provide critical services to 15,000 men and women who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life. Father Boyle is the author of the New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.

Brad smith (S)

Brad Smith

Smith has been with BGU.edu for 20 years serving as President and now Chancellor. He served as a legislative assistant to two U.S. Senators, planted an urban church near downtown Dallas, and served at Dallas Seminary developing spiritual formation programs. He also is the Director of the WEA Global Institute of Leadership facilitating teams who provide coaching and leadership training for National Alliances in 140+ nations.

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Richard Beck

Richard Beck (PhD) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Abilene Christian University. During his teaching career, Richard has been honored twice as ACU Teacher of the Year. Richard has also been recognized as Honors Teacher of the Year and has won the College of Arts and Sciences Classroom Teaching award and Faith Integration award.

Outside of the classroom, Richard travels the world as a sought after speaker and an award-winning blogger and author.

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Michael A. Mata

With Koreatown in Los Angeles as his base Michael for nearly four decades has designed and administered community and faith-based urban programs in both domestic and international contexts. He has integrated these experiences into his training, consulting and teaching, primarily in the areas of community transformation, leadership and community youth development.

The Street Psalms Community is a dispersed communion of Christ-centered leaders who see and celebrate good news in hard places. Enlivened by this gift, we are ordained to develop incarnational leaders according to the shape of our particular call and context. We do so as urban peacemakers and participants of Street Psalm’s mission.

We are called to nurture life-giving perspectives and practices guided by SP’s Incarnational Framework that sustains those who live and breathe good news in hard places. As witnesses of the Incarnation of Jesus, we seek peace and the underlying unity of all things – within the rich and sometimes challenging diversity of our own Community, as well as the diversity of our urban contexts.​ ​We are urban peacemakers who form and shape urban peacemakers in the power of the Incarnation. The Community is made up broadly of a network of friendships among women and men who profess to the way of life of Street Psalms: 

Ordained

Annette Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Ordained

Joel Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Ordained

Scot Dewey

Denver, Colorado

Ordained

Hultner Estrada

Managua, Nicaragua

Ordained

Jeff Johnson

Denver, Colorado

Ordained

Susan Hudacek

Tacoma, Washington

Ordained

Fred Laceda

Manila, Philippines

Ordained

Jessica Louwerse

Anchorage, Alaska

Ordained

Josh Louwerse

Anchorage, Alaska

Ordained

Mario Matos

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Ordained

Tim Merrill

Camden, New Jersey

Ordained

Gideon Ochieng

Nairobi, Kenya

Ordained

Esau Oreso

Nairobi, Kenya

Ordained

Ruben Ortiz

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ordained

Paul Patu

Seattle, Washington

Ordained

Kris Rocke

Tacoma, Washington

Ordained

Lana Rocke

Tacoma, Washington

Ordained

Ron Ruthruff

Seattle, Washington

Ordained

Jenna Smith

Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Ordained

Patricia Thompson

White Center, Washington

Ordained

Joel Van Dyke

Wyoming, Michigan

Ordained

Jacynthe Vaillancourt

Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Ordained

DJ Vincent

Salem, Oregon

Ordained

Irene Wanjiru

Nairobi, Kenya

Ordained

Chris Williams

Phoenix, Arizona

Our fellows have come from all over the world, and represent a variety of backgrounds and fields including Executive Directors, Theologians, Entrepreneurs, Community Developers, Psychologists, and others.

Fellow

Fred Laceda

Manila, Philippines

Fellow

Imani Hall

Delaware County, PA

Fellow

Ivan Monzon

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Fellow

Jordan Sampson

Tacoma, WA

Fellow

Josh Ericson

Salem, OR

Fellow

Margarita Solis-Deal

Philadelphia, PA

Fellow

Mark Bulgin

Salem, OR

Fellow

Nate Beene

Grand Rapids, MI

Fellow

Preston Adams

Denver, CO

Fellow

Susan Okamoto Lane

Seattle, WA

Fellow

Eloise Skinner

London, UK

Fellow

Dwayne Hilty

Salem, OR

Fellow

Andrés López

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Fellow

Liesl Stewart

Rosebank, Cape Town, South Africa

Fellow

Joel Ryman

Boise, ID

Fellow

Kieawnie Clar

San Rafael, CA

Fellow

Linda Martindale

Cape Town, South Africa

Fellow

Johonna McCants-Turner

Kitchener, Ontario

Fellow

Sean Robertson

Salem, OR

Fellow

Caroline Powell

Cape Town, South Africa

These hubs are the primary partners with whom Street Psalms collaborates to develop incarnational leaders in vulnerable urban communities. All UTC hubs are locally owned and led (with a dedicated hub director) and take a variety of forms. For example, some hubs are stand alone training organizations and other hubs are training departments embedded in a community based or city serving organization.

Each hub shares a common commitment to the Incarnational Training Framework that informs and shapes local, contextual training.

Together, training hubs form a global network of mutual support, co-creating formational opportunities for underserved grassroots leaders in vulnerable urban communities worldwide.

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Street Psalms is the managing partner of the global Urban Training Collaborative (UTC), in partnership with Leadership Foundations, Resonate Global Missions, and other organizations worldwide.

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