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.

Asian Woman Smiling Wearing Classes Black T-shirt

What began as a training initiative in Philadelphia in 1995 has become a global order with 34 ordained members and more than 40 organizational partners freeing people to love and serve in a network of more than 100 cities. We do this in three ways:

  1. We cultivate a network who shares a common call to seek cities of peace for all people.
  2. We form leaders through the Street Psalms Hub that functions like an urban monastery without walls.
  3. We co-create models of social innovation through Street Psalms’ Design Studio.

Expand the Rows Below to Learn More

habib-bako

Network Development Team Lead

Habib Bako

Washington, D.C.

coming-soon

Coordination Team Lead

Jessica Uhl

San Francisco, CA

coming-soon

Marketing and Communications Team Lead

Justin Mootz

Tacoma, WA

Kris-(SF-Link)

Executive Director

Kris Rocke

Tacoma, WA

Nic

Director Of Operations and Strategy

Nic Hughes

Portland, OR

sarah-moore

Metrics and Evaluation Team Lead

Sarah Moore

Tacoma, WA

Hirschl Family

Program Metrics and Evaluation Lead

Elizabeth Hirschl

Tacoma, WA

Joel-Aguilar-(LG)

Senior Fellow for Fellows Program

Joel Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Joel-VD

Senior Fellow for New Hub Development

Joel Van Dyke

Wyoming, Michigan

Lana2

Office Manager

Lana Rocke

Tacoma, WA

Lina Thompson

Senior Fellow for Formation

Lina Thompson

Seattle, 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

kristy2

Board Chair

Kristy Roberts Farber

Pastor | Mercer Island Presbyterian Church

Unknown

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

Unknown-1

Board Member

Jacob Moody

Chief Information Officer | Bargreen Ellingson

Pat Thompson

Board Member

Pat Thompson

Executive Director & Co-Founder | YES! Foundation

Mario square

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.

 

Ben+

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.

 

 

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.
DSCN0358 (2)

Margarita Solis-Deal

Dedicated to the transformation of individuals, groups, and communities, Margarita specializes in administering retreat spaces for those seeking to deepen their spirituality and faith through contemplative practices and deep study forums. Currently in Philadelphia, she oversees a the retreat center ministry of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, a Catholic women religious community who desire to share their charism with the greater faith community. The center serves a vibrant immigrant community, local parishes, Catholic movements, and organizations seeking retreat spaces to advance their own missions
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.”  After his retirement on June 30, 2023, Joel and his wife, Jeannie have plans to spend a few years in Asia.
kit danley

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.

Richard Beck Photo 1

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.

IMG_0265

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

Preston Adams

Denver, Colorado

Ordained

Annette Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Ordained

Joel Aguilar

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Ordained

Kieawnie Clar

San Rafael, California

Ordained

Scott Dewey

Denver, Colorado

Ordained

Josh Erickson

Salem, Oregon

Ordained

Hultner Estrada

Managua, Nicaragua

Ordained

Abhishek Gier

New Delhi, India

Ordained

Angie Gier

New Delhi, India

Ordained

Dwayne Hilty

Salem, Oregon

Ordained

Susan Hudacek

Tacoma, Washington

Ordained

Kristy Humphreys

Tacoma, Washington

Ordained

Jeff Johnson

Denver, Colorado

Ordained

Fred Laceda

Manila, Philippines

Ordained

Jessica Louwerse

Anchorage, Alaska

Ordained

Josh Louwerse

Anchorage, Alaska

Ordained

Linda Martindale

Cape Town, South Africa

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

Lina Thompson

Seattle, Washington

Ordained

Patricia Thompson

White Center, Washington

Ordained

Joel Van Dyke

Wyoming, Michigan

Ordained

DJ Vincent

Salem, Oregon

Ordained

Jacynthe Vaillancourt

Montréal, Quebec, Canada

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