Our Rector

Bio

The Rev. Dr. Lisa Hahneman grew up in Maryland, just outside the Washington D.C. Beltway, with a three-year hiatus living in Paris, France as a pre-teenager. While in Paris, studying at the Lycee de Sevres and surrounded by classmates from all over the world, her love for the great diversity of God’s People began to take shape. In those formative years, she discovered that her world view, her life experiences and expectations, were not the same as everyone else’s – not better, not worse, just different. And in that difference, she found her passion for life-long exploration of “the others” in our midst.

Lisa graduated from Catholic University in Washington D.C.in 1977 with a B.A. in psychology and then completed both an M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Virginia in 1982. She spent the first half of her career as Director of Research and Planning for Chesterfield County Public Schools just south of Richmond Virginia.

Succumbing to what she laughingly refers to as “God’s wonderfully warped sense of humor”, Lisa returned to school, receiving an M.Div. from Virginia Theological Seminary, and was ordained in 1999. She served parishes in Portsmouth Virginia, Falmouth (Cape Cod) Massachusetts, and Oxford Connecticut, before coming to the Church of the Holy Spirit. The openness to diversity, the willingness to welcome the stranger, and the enthusiasm for seeking Christ’s real and tangible presence in every person we encounter continues to be her guiding zeal.

Lisa is married to the Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Hahneman, Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bridgeport. Having no children of her own, she readily “adopts” the children of the parish and has been known to dance with them down the aisle during worship when the music is especially joyful!

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