The Church Lab Team
Reverend Carrie Graham - Founder and pastor of TCL
While at Fuller Theological Seminary, she had a worshipful and transformative experience with dialogue. She came to see diaogue facilitation as a vital pastoral skill and began facilitating interfaith dialogues in 2007. She has not stopped since! In fact, she now trains others in facilitation whenever possible.
In Carrie’s view, dialogue and facilitation are both built around centralizing participants’ dignity, distinct journeys and perspectives. The work of the Holy Spirit is done in unpredictable fashion without needing to be controlled by Carrie or any other participant present. We are there to help, encourage and understand one another more deeply, growing alongside one another and building bridges in an otherwise severely divisive era in our world. In this space, we trust the multitude of ways God may show up in this process together, and as such, we get to see God work in ways we could not have imagined beforehand.
By the time Carrie became a pastor in 2009, she understood spiritual growth as having 4 pillars: dialogue, discipleship, outreach/mission and worship. They each exercise distinct spiritual muscles. Together they interweave to create a tightly knit relationship with God.
Carrie is grateful to get to be pastoral to pastors; she began designing and facilitating future ministers’ cohorts in 2013 and interdenominational pastors’ cohorts in 2017.
Among many topics, Carrie particularly enjoys helping people, including but not limited to pastors, align their values with their budget life story. This goes for organizations, too. She loves supporting others as they align an organization’s mission with its financial model, where the financial model ceases to take a mission hostage and instead nurtures it at every possible level.
Experimental ministry work, paired with walking with pastors, has created a passion in Carrie for equipping fellow leaders to engage experimental ministry within their calls. She believes that by walking together through experiments in ministry, we can faithfully help the Church find her future.
When it is play time, Carrie loves singing, dancing, going on travel adventures and hiking with her dog Addy, who is of course named after the best liturgical season of Advent.
Ashlyn Brown - Bookkeeper
Ashlyn Brown is an accounting student at Purdue Global with a deep-rooted passion for community service, nurtured through her longstanding involvement with The Church Lab since high school. Currently honing her financial analysis and management skills, Ashlyn aims to merge her accounting expertise with her commitment to community development, aspiring to make a meaningful impact through her future career endeavors. Ashlyn currently lives in Georgetown, TX with her partner and her dog. She enjoys in her free time exploring the Georgetown square and reading.
Jillian Shannon - Pastoral Assistant
Jillian is a recent Master of Divinity graduate from Perkins School of Theology. She is passionate about theology (particularly the merging of science and theology), philosophy, reading and dialoguing with different cultures, and looks forward to practicing these passions with The Church Lab’s innovative initiatives! She is driven by the desire to connect beyond divisions and to share knowledge that sheds new light on old ideas. Jillian lives in San Antonio, TX with her husband, Chris, and five-year-old son, River.
Pastoral Facilitation Team for our
Reimagining Service Program
Rev. Laura Murray is an ordained pastor, author, speaker, and certified Spiritual Director. For over 15 years she has worked closely with individual leaders and groups in the areas of leader development and spiritual formation. As the Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Highland Park Pres, she wrote formational devotion guides and studies, and created and led worship services. One of her greatest joys is strengthening others in faith and life with God. Alongside a Masters Degree in Theology, she is currently working on her Doctorate in Leading Change at Fuller Seminary and is a Fellow for Fuller’s Center for Missional and Spiritual Formation. She is married to Craig, has two incredible children, an energetic pup, and lives in the Dallas area. She believes dessert is only dessert if it involves chocolate.
Jenelle D’Alessandro is a Ph.D student at Fuller Theological Seminary in Old Testament working with Dr. John Goldingay. Her research interests include the ancient songs of the OT, Ancient Near Eastern poetry, and theories of translation and memory. She holds a M.A. in Theology and a M.A. in Global Leadership. Jenelle served on the teaching-team of a Vineyard church plant for many years and also volunteers with Young Life in East Los Angeles. She formerly ministered overseas as a staff-person with Young Life International in Lisbon, Portugal. Jenelle has served on the Boards of The Church Lab (Austin, TX) and Wema Ventures (Arusha, Tanzania). Now in Los Angeles for the last 13 years, she currently works in online course development, creative consulting, and in serving the non-profit realm. In her free time you will find her making hand-rolled pasta, cheering loud for the Los Angeles Football Club, and searching for the perfect breakfast burrito.
Stephen Norberg served for 5 years as the founding pastor of Bar Church, a faith community in Washington D.C. that hosted diverse discussions in bars to bring down religious walls and provide a safe place for people to explore spiritual questions and lessons. Stephen has a degree in Psychology from Harvard, and has facilitated around 500 small group discussions on topics including spiritual growth, disillusionment with church, emotional health, and navigating challenging life experiences and traumatic events. He is the founder and director of Fight Monsters, a non-profit in Austin, TX that supports people facing adversity. Stephen swam competitively for 15 years, and met his wife when she bought a root beer float from him at a farmer's market.
Rev. Carrie Graham is part of the Pastoral Facilitators’ Team for the Reimagining Service Program as well. See above for her bio.
The Church Lab Board of Directors
Wendy Cooper, MSW, chair - Houston, Texas: 2020-2023
Andrea Ballard Carroll, 10th Anniversary Celebration coordinating chair - Austin, Texas: 2019-2022, 2022-2025
Jenna Pontious, fundraising chair - Riverside, California: 2021-2024
David Dashifen Kees, treasurer - Alexandria, Virginia: 2022-2025
Rev. Candice Combs - Austin, Texas: 2023-2026
TCL Advisory Council, 2020- present:
Dr. Jen Rosner - Lake Tahoe, California
Rev. Matt Gaventa - Austin, Texas
outgoing council member: Rev. Elizabeth McLean - Austin, Texas
TCL Interns:
2021 Summer: Julia Burkley, MDiv student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary- Austin, Texas
2020-2021: David Dashifen Kees, MDiv student at Iliff School of Theology - Alexandria, Virginia
2019-2020: Marianne Garvey, MDiv student at Fuller Theological Seminary - Fargo, North Dakota
Previous Board Members:
Quashane Chambers - Atlanta, Georgia: 2020-2021
Rev. Stephanie Cooper - Austin, Texas: 2020-2021
Rev. Treighton Haddon - Bloomington, Illinois: 2019-2021
Sara Burback - Washington, D.C.: 2018-2021
Kelly Dunlap - Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina: 2018-2021
Rev. Sabrina Chan - Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina: 2013-2020
Aaron Karr, MMFT - Nashville, Tennessee: 2013-2020
Jenelle D'Alessandro - Los Angeles, California: 2013-2020
Dr. Jen Rosner - Lake Tahoe, CA: 2013-2020
Stacey Schwenker, LCMFT - Washington, D.C.: 2013-2019
Rev. Justin Fung - Washington, D.C.: 2013-2018