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St. Bartholomew’s Church
Park Ave at 51st St
New York City

Mailing Address
109 East 50th St
New York, NY 10022

Clergy & Staff                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Our Church > Who We Are > Clergy & Staff

The Clergy & Staff

The Rev. William McD. Tully
RECTOR

The Rev. William McD. Tully has been rector of St. Bartholomew's since September 1994, and his passion for its mission and his work is undiminished.

Bill is a native Californian, educated in the public schools and a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles. His first professional call was to journalism; he edited the college paper, became a copy boy and then local reporter at the Los Angeles Times, and his first full immersion into New York life was as a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He then learned more about the city as a community worker for its Model Cities program, and while there it was an "underlying call" that turned him toward ordained ministry and study at the General Theological Seminary.

After ordination in 1974, he served as Curate at the Church of the Epiphany, Manhattan; associate rector at St. Francis Church, Potomac, Maryland; and then as rector of St. Columba's Church, Washington, DC. The people and mission of St. Columba's taught him about church growth, Christian hospitality, and hope for the future of the church.

Working with a dedicated group of leaders and an enlarged clergy and professional staff, Bill has led the growth and renewal of St. Bart's, which had entered the 90s in a size and state too diminished to do effective ministry in its location. "It's a great time to be the church, and to be St. Bart's," he says. "Our Episcopal/Anglican tradition offers a home for an increasing number of spiritual seekers who want meaning and community and who aren't afraid of growth, of commitment, and of a thinking faith."

In other words, he loves his ministry and is always eager to meet and work with others who have found a home and a ministry at St. Bart's.

What a "rector" is and what this rector does: In the Episcopal system, the rector is the chief pastor and preacher in the parish, and is authority for the liturgy and sacraments. In institutional terms, he is a member of the Vestry, the church's legal and fiduciary body. In broad terms, he is expected to lead with vision and to craft a strategy for mission and a viable and transparent operating plan for the church's business.

Bill Tully's direct phone: 212 378-0251
Email: tully@stbarts.org


The Rev. Buddy Stallings
VICAR

Assuming his position as Vicar on Monday, April 14, 2008, the Reverend F. M. “Buddy” Stallings is the newest addition to the clergy at St. Bartholomew's Church.  Ordained to the priesthood for 15 years, he has served parishes in Mississippi and New York, most recently as the Rector of the Church of the Ascension on Staten Island.  After almost ten years at a large parish in Jackson, MS, St. James’ Episcopal Church, he was the founding director of the San Francisco based non-profit, the KRB Group, from which EveryVoiceNetwork, an online community of progressive churches, and Via Media, a curriculum for evangelism in the 21st Century derived.  Shortly after the events on 9/11 Buddy followed a long held dream of returning to New York City.  For the past six years, he has lived and ministered on Staten Island.

Buddy holds degrees from Mississippi College, The University of Tennessee, and the General Theological Seminary with additional post-graduate work completed at the Florida State University.  Prior to becoming a priest, he was the Executive Vice President of the Waverley Group, a national firm, which owned and operated nursing homes and retirement centers throughout the United States.  Functioning as its principal operating officer, he was responsible for annual revenues of more than a 100 million dollars.

His passionate belief about the church is that it exists at a critical crossroad within our culture, offering an increasingly secular society the opportunity for meaningful discourse about what truly matters in the world and in our journeys as human beings.  Concerned with questions about the relevancy of our worship and particularly with how it engenders within us the desire to bring about the Realm of God on earth now, Buddy’s conviction is that the Eucharist, our common worship, provides the best chance we have for transforming the world one person and one community at a time.

A proud father and grandfather, Buddy is a “southern expatriate,” who found his home of choice, New York City, as a young man on his way home from a summer in Europe.  Visiting that August in the mid-70’s in the midst of a garbage strike, Buddy was “smitten – go figure” and has never really wanted to live anywhere else!

Buddy Stalling's direct phone: 212 378-0215
Email: stallings@stbarts.org


Tom Ehrich The Rev. Tom Ehrich
DIRECTOR OF CHURCH GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Tom Ehrich is the founder of Morning Walk Media Inc. (www.morningwalkmedia.com), a web-focused publisher of materials for congregational development, faith formation and education. His Church Wellness Project is a “best practices” guide to nurturing congregational health. He leads Church Wellness workshops around the world. (See www.churchwellness.com.)

Tom’s daily “On a Journey” meditations reach a worldwide audience (See www.onajourney.org). He began writing them in 1993 while serving as an Episcopal pastor in Charlotte, NC. He had previously served parishes in Indiana and Missouri. Prior to seminary, Ehrich was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. In 1995 he moved on to writing and publishing, forming Journey Publishing Company, and to business consulting in the area of enterprise software implementations.

Tom’s weekly newspaper column is syndicated by Religion News Service to more than 100 newspapers in the United States and Canada. He is the author of three books, most recently “Just Wondering, Jesus,” published by Morehouse. His next book, to be published by Morehouse in 2008, will be “Church Wellness.” He has written three quarterly editions of Forward Day by Day.

Tom and his wife Heidi, a teacher of English as a Second Language, are the parents of three sons (ages 28, 26 and 16).

Tom Ehrich's direct phone: 212 378-0209
Email: ehrich@stbarts.org



The Rev. Bruce Forbes
HONORARY ASSOCIATE

The Rev. Bruce W. Forbes has been on the clergy staff of St. Bartholomew’s since 1964, undoubtedly a record of sorts.

Bruce was born in the far reaches of western New York, where he went to the same public school for twelve years. Then on to the University of Michigan, where he received his bachelor's degree in French. He then continued his education at Harvard, where he received a master's degree in Romance Languages.

Almost immediately thereafter he joined the Foreign Service and was sent to Palermo, where he perfected his Italian for five years. A short stint in Prague followed. Bruce found himself among the expendables when the Communist government ordered a drastic cut in U.S. personnel. He drove on into Paris and offered his services at the Consulate. He then began eight years in that city, the latter part of which was spent as an employee of the American Express.

It was during this period that he received a call to enter the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. He had been involved in various ministries at our cathedral church in Paris, then a hurried trip back to the states to meet with the Bishop of Western New York, who accepted him as a postulant. He enrolled at the General Theological Seminary and entered the three-year program, emerging with a master's degree in divinity.

His bishop assigned Bruce as curate at St. Luke’s Church in Jamestown, New York. Ordination to the priesthood followed after six months. After 2 1/2 years he was called to St. Bartholomew’s by the then rector Terence J. Finlay.

Thus Bruce’s odyssey to St. Bartholomew’s. After various ministries he has become chiefly involved in pastoral work among the elder members of the parish and those in the hospitals. He has baptized the children of those at whose marriage he has officiated and perhaps even has prepared for confirmation.

 

The Rev. J.D. Clarke
DEACON
 
The Rev. John David Clarke was a parishioner at St. Bart's before he joined the lay professional staff as Director of Community Ministry in 1994. It wasn't long before he and others noticed that he was already doing the classic work of the diaconate, the servant ministry of the church. After completing EFM (Education for Ministry) he entered the discernment process for ordination. He was ordained a permanent deacon May 19,2001.

J.D. was born and grew up in New England, where he began his life long association with the Episcopal Church. He was a boy soprano at St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston and graduated from The Lenox School for Boys in Lenox Mass. He received an AA degree from Boston University and a BS in Public Administration from The University of Arizona. He spent 20 years as an actor/stage manager in Arizona and New York.

Before Joining St. Bart's he was a member St. Clement's Church in Manhattan where he was on the vestry and worked in their community outreach program.

Now ordained, he continues his work as Director of Community Ministry, overseeing our year-round shelter, feeding programs, food pantry and directing and recruiting more than 150 volunteers who serve others through these programs.

 

The Rev. Elizabeth Garnsey
ASSOCIATE
 
The Rev. Elizabeth Garnsey grew up in Greeley, Colo. As an infant, she was baptized in the Episcopal Church, but when Elizabeth was 13, her family joined a new Pentecostal church on the edge of town. The contrast between these two traditions eventually sent her on a personal mission to make sense of this wide range of religious expression. Her years-long quest led her back to the Episcopal Church more than ten years ago.

Elizabeth brings a diverse background to her priesthood. She worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a legislative correspondent for a couple of years and then, in a moment of youthful impulse, sold her few earthly possessions to move to Paris, where she worked for two years as a journalist, a career she continued in New York for several more years.

Eventually Elizabeth was drawn to study theology at Yale Divinity School with an eye towards becoming a religion reporter. She served for eight months at St. Paul's Chapel during the clean-up effort after 9/11, and during seminary, served as a seminarian at Christ Church New Haven, an Anglo-catholic parish located near the Yale College campus. The church drew her undeniably in and, in a reversal of sorts, writing now serves her work in the church rather than the other way around.

She joined the staff of St. Bartholomew's Church in August of 2005 and was ordained a priest in the New York Diocese on September 23, 2006. She co-created an evening alternative worship service, Emerge, and developed a category of adult formation and pastoral care classes titled "Soul Care, Self Care." Classes and workshops under this umbrella address life in its many dimensions, from health and end-of-life issues to living single in New York and managing one's finances, with many more subjects in-between.

 
The Rev. Lynn Sanders
ASSOCIATE

The Rev. Lynn Sanders joined St. Bart’s in 1988, and was active in a variety of lay ministries here while enjoying a career in business and management consulting. Following her ordination as priest in the Diocese of New York in 2004, she served a parish in Austin, Texas, where she discovered how much she loved the holy and challenging work of pastoring. Lynn recently joined the staff of St. Bart’s, where she delights in sharing the sacramental, preaching, teaching and pastoral ministries that nourish this faith community.

 

Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRY™
 
Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman became the director of The Center for Religious Inquiry™, a unique interreligious adult education program at Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York, in April 1999. Rabbi Schoolman was previously the founding director of the Center for Theological Studies at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in Houston, which served as a prototype for the program at St. Bart's.

The Center for Religious Inquiry based on the premise that there are few opportunities for religious seekers who can study their own and other religious traditions in a safe and non-judgmental environment. Courses at CRI, which generally run four weeks in duration. are taught by academics of sterling reputation and highly developed teaching skills. Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and Union Theological Seminary are some of the institutions whose faculty have participated in CRI programs since its inception in the Fall of 1999.

Rabbi Schoolman serves on the board of the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation, and on the board of the Stimulus Foundation, publishers of Stimulus Books. He is also the president of the New York Chapter of the American Composers Forum and a former member of the forum's national board.

Rabbi Schoolman was the national director of program for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism), the central agency of Reform Judaism in the United States and Canada, for 18 years. He served congregations in Los Angeles, Miami and St. Paul, Minnesota.

He was the administrative editor of The Torah: A Modern Commentary, published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Rabbi Schoolman is the author of numerous books and articles.

He was educated at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he was ordained a Rabbi. He earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters degree, a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters there, and a Doctor of Divinity was conferred on 1988. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.


PROFESSIONAL LAY STAFF

Joan Asher
BOOKSTORE MANAGER
 
Joan Asher grew up in Massachusetts where she was raised in the Episcopal Church. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University with a B.A. in English she moved to New York City. Her first job was in advertising working for the fashion director at Wells, Rich, Greene when Mary Wells painted the Braniff planes colors and dressed the flight attendants in Pucci. She worked for a licensing/merchandising firm and then joined Celanese Fibers Marketing Company where she had 18 different jobs over 15 years in fashion, sales, marketing, retail, and management. After leaving Celanese she formed her own independent textile sales agency. In early 1996 she read in Crossroads that St. Bart’s was looking for someone to start a bookstore. She volunteered and with Co-chairman, Ann McClellan, established the Book & Gift Shop/Visitor’s Center in the Narthex. She currently manages the store, does all the buying, and oversees the volunteers who staff the store 7 days/70 hours per week. She is on the Board of Directors of the Episcopal Booksellers Association, a group of over 85 Episcopal booksellers in the U.S. and Canada.

 

Linda Flynn Bayer
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND EVENTS
 
Linda Flynn Bayer has been a member of St. Bartholomew’s Church since 1988. She has served on the Rector Search Committee, Parish Council, Lay Ministry, Development, Annual Fund, and Hospitality committees, She was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and, attended the Ohio State University as a voice major with a Bachelor of Music degree, she has been a model in NYC for over 25 years with the Ford Modeling Agency, and appeared in many soap operas, commercials, sit-coms, and dinner theater. In 1995 she joined the staff of St. Bart’s, part time, as Special Events Coordinator. This has expanded into a more than full time position as Director of Marketing & Events. The largest undertaking, so far, has been the Café. This entailed writing an RFP and interviewing vendors to manage it. Other duties include the renting of our various spaces, keeping the wedding records, and helping brides with necessary arrangements.

 

Wendy Boyd
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGER
 
Wendy Boyd manages the day-to-day operations of the network resources and services while providing technical support to the staff to meet their work objectives. She has a key role in the development and implementation of a plan for the improvement and growth in technologies at St. Bart’s.
 
Prior to joining the staff, Wendy served for 12 years as systems manager for the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center. Wendy is a graduate of Utica College of Syracuse University with a BA in journalism, and she also holds a JD from Fordham Law School.


Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Ph.D.
DIRECTOR OF CHILDREN'S, YOUTH & FAMILY MINISTRIES
 
Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Ph.D. serves as director of Children's, Youth & Family Ministries at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York. This involves directing the Sunday School and Family Chapel programs, the Youth Group, Childcare, CY&F Planning Team, seasonal family events, and serving as chaplain to the on-site Preschool. She is currently involved in adapting the Godly Play curriculum for use at St. Bart's and is a member of the Children and Family Ministries committee for the Diocese. Prior to coming to St. Bart's, she served as lay Minister for Christian Formation at St. James's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was responsible for lay leadership formation and coordination of parish ministries.

Kathy's doctoral work in Theological Ethics at Boston College focused on developing a method for engaging Christians in lifestyles defined by mercy. She holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University, a B.A. in Music/Literature from Smith College, and a certificate in International Mission from the Boston Theological Institute. She is on the advisory board of Children at Worship: Congregations in Bloom, a non-profit that focuses on liturgical renewal.

Having had vocal training for many years, Kathy enjoys incorporating music into her work with children and families. She is currently writing a daily devotional book for Christians desiring to face and deepen their understanding of their participation in racist structures and other oppressions. Her essay, 10 Lessons in Ten Days: Suffering and Liberation on the Merciful Way, a theological reflection on her missionary experience in Honduras, was published in Sewanee Theological Review. Other pieces appear in the edited volumes, Living Water and Race and Prayer. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Mark (also on staff at St. Bart's), and son, Mark Anthony, who achieved enlightenment at age 3 and remains patient with his parents.


Alan L. Chisholm
PSYCHOTHERAPY & SPIRITUALITY INSTITUTE

Alan is a Pastoral Psychotherapist who has been in practice for over 35 years. His journey has taken him from an undergraduate major in Physics, to seminary and 15 years in parish ministry as an Episcopal priest, to training and certification in Pastoral Psychotherapy.

He has been director of the Psychotherapy and Spirituality Institute office here at St. Bartholomew’s since 1993, and has been associated with PSI and its predecessor, CHDC, since 1975. In addition to an active practice of individual and couples therapy, he offers premarital counseling using the PREPARE inventory. He has offered a workshop in marital enrichment, and for two years led the Between Jobs Support group at the church.

Among his special interests are working with people struggling with depression, in Twelve Step recovery programs, in helping people work through blocks to growth, and in facilitating more connected communication with couples. Envy and shame are two powerful forces that interest him, as well as the challenge of managing hate in relationships.

Alan is a Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, a Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and a Certified Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.


Michael Collins
VERGER
 
Michael Collins, Verger, came into the Episcopal Church while an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley in 1960. His original attraction was the singular personality and engaging, if not heretical, theology of Bishop James Pike, the then unofficial chaplain to Berkeley.

After earning degrees in philosophy at Berkeley under the direction of Paul Feyerabend and John Searle, he went on to study at Stanford under Donald Davidson. Following an unexpected path, he became the president of the international division of a major US distillery, and then a vice president of Grey Advertising in New York, and a partner in a San Francisco agency.

In 1995, he was encouraged to become active in the liturgical life of St. Bart's by his friend, the Rev. Denver Hart, in the early days of Bill Tully's rectorship. Serving in a volunteer role, he began by helping orchestrate most services, and scheduling our then relatively small number lay ministers. With worship at the center of all we do and are, our growth mandated more devoted attention, and Michael joined the staff as full-time verger in 2001. Working closely with the clergy staff in liturgical planning, he now trains and coordinates almost 200 lay ministers including acolytes, Lay Eucharistic Ministers. lectors and daily office officiants. If it happens in the church, Michael will usually be right in the midst of things. Being our verger is his last, and most rewarding, calling.

He is married to Catherine Collins, a former vestry and current CRI board member, and their daughter, Emily, an acolyte and lector, was baptized here.


Millard Cook
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE RECTOR

A native of the Beech Mountain Community of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, Millard came to St. Barts after a varied and colorful past in which he served in ministry, as an educator, and as a technical support trainer and technician for relational databases.  Along the way he earned a B.A. in history (Appalachian State University) two masters degrees in theology (M.A. in Systematic Theology and the M.Div. from St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, PA) and two masters degrees in history (M.A. and M.Phil. in Early Modern European history from Fordham University).  For 15 years Millard was a Benedictine monk of St, Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe (the oldest Benedictine monastery in the US) and served for 12 years as a Roman Catholic priest (mostly in the Archdiocese of New York).  A dedicated student of Romance languages, he earned minors in French and Spanish and after high school lived for a semester in France. He was worked hard to maintain his fluency in conversational French and Spanish.  Millard has been a parishioner of St. Bart's for almost three years  and describes the day that he was received by Bishop Catherine Roskam as one of the most meaningful experiences of his adult life.  Millard is the son of Janice Storie Davis and the younger brother of Jackie Miller and Debbie Nobles-all of NC.  He is a proud uncle of three nephews and of six great-nephews and nieces.  Millard is an avid amateur photographer, reader, and music lover (everything from Southern Gospel to Pop Latino).