The Rev’d Phillip Channing Ellsworth, Jr., Rector
The VIII Rector of St Stephen’s, Fr Ellsworth is the son of Akiko Tamaoki & ‘Bud’ Ellsworth. Trained at Wheaton College and at Yale University in religion and literature, biblical languages, and historical theology, in 1995 the President and Fellows of Yale awarded him the Wolcott Calkins Prize for excellence in preaching. Sometime Associate Rector of St Francis, Potomac, MD, and St Bartholomew’s in the City of New York, he and his wife Victoria have four children and two grandsons. He enjoys those grandsons Jack and Samuel, leaves of medieval illuminated manuscripts, his share of the Green Bay Packers, and hikes next to the woman he gets through the nights with and enters every new day beside.
Contact the Rector by calling Elizabeth Gravely at 415-435-4501, or email him using this form.
The Rev’d Alberta Brown Buller, Deacon
Like our patron Stephen, Deacon Alberta loves Jesus and she has a passion to bring the ministry of the Church to the needs of the community. A Chaplain at Marin General Hospital, Dn Alberta is also on the clergy staff of the church which mothered us, Christ Church, Sausalito. She serves each parish liturgically on alternate Sundays, and she engages in joint ministries common to the two parishes between those times. She and her husband Dave live amongst the redwood trees in West Marin. Dn Alberta grew up attending St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Britain, CT. She loves spending time with a blended family of five adult children and six grandchildren, being near the ocean, traveling the world, and taking photographs.
Contact Dn Alberta by calling 415-435-4501, ext. 16, or email her using this form.
David Hirsch, Director of Family Ministry
David has worked in Student and Family Ministry for fifteen years with four churches and with a national youth conference parachurch ministry, Youth Conference Ministries, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He has also worked in the business startup space and he began a ministry to youth workers called Haven. Using a relational model, his ministry emphasizes relationship-building. David is married to his lovely wife Anna. They have two energetic, curious and determined little girls. He enjoys music (he plays a mean guitar, and sings), movies, the outdoors, good food, travel, family, and community. He wonders if you believe any of this because stuff on the internet isn’t true just because it’s there.
Contact David by calling 415-435-4501 ext. 12, or email him using this form.
John Karl Hirten, Organist and Choirmaster
In nearly thirty years as a church musician, our Organist and Choirmaster John Karl Hirten has served Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City, St James Cathedral, Brooklyn, Old St Mary’s, San Francisco, and now, for more than twenty years, St Stephen’s, Belvedere. Organist at Fordham University Chapel, Temple Beth Israel Judea, San Francisco, he’s been an Adjunct Faculty Member of Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, Mill Valley. His background in church music has earned him the description “an ecumenical wonder” (GIA Quarterly). A highly regarded composer, he has published over thirty compositions, including a symphonic composition for the Mill Valley Philharmonic. For more information on John's compositions, and his other professional work, see his website hirten.com.
Contact John by calling 415-435-4501 ext. 17 or use this form to email him.
Elizabeth Gravely, Executive Assistant to the Rector
A member of the Board of the University of California Marin Master Gardeners, Elizabeth was Executive Assistant to the CEO of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., of Arlington, Virginia, where she was also a registered sales assistant. After earning a BS in Business/Finance from Virginia Commonwealth University, she worked in real estate sales and with a Washington, DC full brokerage firm. She lives in Larkspur with her husband and their Australian shepherd, Miles. A member of the San Francisco Road Runners, Elizabeth has run 18 half-marathons and 9 marathons, including the Marine Corps, New York City, Sacramento, Boston, Big Sur, Napa, DC, San Francisco, the Double Dipsea, and the Angel Island Half numerous times. She runs the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 10a to 4:00p.
Contact Elizabeth by calling 415-435-4501 ext. 10 or use this form to email her.
Betsy Menzel, Financial Accounting Manager
Betsy was baptized, confirmed, and married at St John’s Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, she moved to Chicago where she earned her MBA at Northwestern University while working in a management training program at The First National Bank of Chicago. She and her husband Walter moved to the Bay Area in 1983 and settled in Tiburon a year later. Betsy worked in the municipal bond business both in trading and sales until 1990 when she took time off to raise her two children who are now both adults. A member of St Stephen’s, she served on the recent Rector Search Committee. When she isn’t in Rwanda keeping a gimlet eye on mama gorillas, she is in the office on Mondays from 10a to 5p and other times as needed.
Contact Betsy by calling 415-435-4501 ext. 15 or use this form to email her.
The Rev'd Shari Young, Assisting Priest, trained at Church Divinity School of the Pacific and was ordained in 1988. She has served as Chaplain and Priest Associate at Cathedral School for Boys and Grace Cathedral; parish priest at St Aidan’s Bolinas, and St James San Francisco, and here at St Stephen’s where she was Associate Rector from 2010 – 2015. Her ministry has focused on preaching, liturgy, contemplative spirituality, social service, pastoral care, and the spirituality of children. Before ordination, she was trained for five years by Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Rinzai Zen master in the lineage of Myoshinji Temple, Kyoto. As an Episcopal priest, she led Buddhist-Christian dialogue retreats around the Diocese of California with Taigen Leighton, a Soto Zen priest, for 10 years. She is an artist and writer, and is retired from parish ministry.