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Our Priest
Rick McCracken-Bennett
Rector
All Saints Episcopal Church
New Albany, Ohio
Rick is the founding pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church. He began his
ministry as a Roman Catholic priest for the Diocese of Toledo in 1976 after
his studies at St. Meinrad School of Theology (Indiana). His undergraduate
degree was in secondary music education from Findlay College (Ohio). After
serving several years in Sandusky, Ohio Rick took a leave of absence from
the priesthood and moved to Springfield, Ohio where he began work in the alcohol
and drug treatment field, first as a counselor and later as the director of a
hospital-based treatment center and then as the director of McKinley Hall, a
county-wide treatment outpatient center for adults and children.
He was called back into the ministry in 1989 as an Episcopal priest, at the
Church of Our Saviour, Mechanicsburg. He was instrumental in clustering three
congregations together into what became known as the Northern Miami Valley
Episcopal Cluster.
In 1997, Rick was asked by the Bishop of Southern Ohio to "plant" a new church
in the New Albany area. The following summer he began work on his doctorate at
the Seabury Institute (part of Seabury-Western Seminary in Evanston, Illinois)
and earned his D. Min. in Advanced Congregational Studies in 2002. His doctoral
thesis, "Future Story", showed how congregations could learn to navigate their
spiritual, strategic journey through the use of a carefully crafted story of
their future.
Rick serves on the Commission on Congregational Life for the Diocese of Southern
Ohio and as a consultant and coach for other ministers and
congregations.
Rick has been married to Nancy McCracken-Bennett, an Elementary School Guidance
Counselor for Big Walnut Schools, for 26 years and they have two children,
Gavin (24), and Ashley (21). He is passionate about helping All Saints become a
large, vital congregation in the Gahanna, New Albany area.
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