Meet our Apprentices and Residents

Shelby Andrews

Decatur, GA

Shelby Andrews is a student at Columbia Theological Seminary pursuing masters’ degrees in divinity and practical theology. She is in the candidacy process to become a minister of Word and sacrament in the PC(USA). Shelby is also the director of ministry with children at Ormewood Church, a new church development in southeast Atlanta.
Through 1001, she will be working with the congregation at Ormewood Church to start an initiative focusing on outreach and justice in the community. In her spare time, she loves reading mystery and fantasy novels, playing with her dog, Gus, and hanging out with her soon-to-be-husband, Patrick.

Sharon Bell

Scott Depot, WV

Sharon Bell is excited about creating churches where people are encouraged to be the authentic person God made them to be. She grew up in Houston and then moved to California to attend Fuller Seminary.

In her first call as an associate pastor, she spent half of her six years there as the only pastor and acting head of staff. She then took several years off to focus on raising kids. Most recently she served as an interim pastor. Sharon has a desire to see people grow spiritually in a place that affirms them for who God created them to be. She is married to her wife, Kim, and is a mom/stepmom/foster mom to six kids.

Nathaniel L. Carter Jr.

North Braddock, PA

Nathaniel L. Carter Jr. was born and raised in the Mon-Valley area. He is a community advocate who serves in capacities related to ministry and community revitalization. He has experience serving in many diverse churches with diverse theological context. Nathaniel is an innovative and passionate servant-leader who has served locally and globally. He desires to produce a space where Christ is encountered physically and spiritually. He believes this would invite others into a healthy growing relationship with Christ, his creations and his community. He is currently in the graduate program for church planting and revitalization at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He aims to serve this generation well!

Amy Dusatko

San Clemente, CA

Amy Dusatko is a stay-at-home mom to her two children and one on the way in Orange County, California. She and her husband, Chad Dusatko, have been attending Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo, California, for the past four years where Chad works as the young adults and high school ministry pastor. During her time there, Amy has volunteered in the women’s ministry and pioneered a MOPS program for mothers with young children. Amy has also worked at local churches as an elementary children’s director at The Crossing Church in Costa Mesa, California; a high school ministry intern at Trinity United Presbyterian Church of Santa Ana, California; and a small group leader at Mission Hills Church.

Chad Dusatko

San Clemente, CA

Chad Dusatko is the high school and families pastor at Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo, California, and has been serving in this role for the past four years. He has also helped start a ministry working with drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, providing teaching and counseling from a Christian perspective. He is in the process of attaining a master of divinity at Fuller Theological Seminary. Chad and his wife, Amy, plan on starting a New Worshiping Community in San Clemente, where they live with their children. Chad and Amy enjoy spending any day off at the beach surfing and playing with their kids, and they also enjoy camping, fly fishing, rock climbing and making new friends at coffee shops.

Liz Johnson

Tucker, GA

Liz Johnsoncurrently serves as the major partner coach for Friends of Refugees and founding director of The Kaleid Project. Liz has also served as campus minister and regional coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, founding co-director of the nonprofit Embrace Refugee Birth Support, and family discipleship coordinator and transition pastor at Kairos Church. She also enjoys a side-gig as a birth doula and childbirth educator when time allows.

Liz and her husband, Nick, have three children: Elijah, Selah and Judah. Liz and Nick enjoy mobilizing others to start new things in their neighborhood, church, work and hobbies. Liz enjoys meeting and connecting people to one another, being outdoors, improv comedy, CrossFit, thrifting and starting house projects. Liz and Nick’s love of CrossFit and seeing people know and grow in following Jesus has led them to start a missional community through their CrossFit gym.

Nick Johnson

Tucker, GA

Nick Johnson graduated from Emory University, where he started following Jesus during the fall semester of his senior year through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Two years later, he felt a calling to reach out to students like himself who were spiritually seeking in college. He now serves as the area director for Georgia and Alabama and is working on a master’s degree in missional church movements.

Nick and his wife, Liz, have three children. He and Liz love starting new things, whether at work, in the neighborhood or at church. Nick enjoys CrossFit, wellness and nutrition, learning, being outdoors, good friends and food, and local sports. Nick and Liz have started a missional community through their CrossFit gym called With All Your Strength.

Lisa Nelson

Colorado Springs, CO

Lisa Nelson lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She has served as a medical chaplain in her community since 2011. Last year she transitioned out of chaplain ministry to pursue the vision of starting a New Worshiping Community. In April, Lisa launched Still Waters Yoga. This community seeks to connect mind, body and soul through the practice of holy yoga. She also serves as a parish associate pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church, a partner congregation to Still Waters Yoga. During the apprenticeship program she hopes to learn new insights from her colleagues, as well as offer support and encouragement and share ideas. Lisa is married to Chris and they have two children, a daughter who is 9 years old and a son who is 5.

Rafael Viana

Suwanee, GA

Rafael Viana is passionate about planting new churches and, since 2017, is leading a new Latin immigrant multicultural community in Lawrenceville, Georgia, with Portuguese and Spanish speakers called On the Way.

Rafael is happily married to the Rev. Ivette Llano, who is Bolivian, and they have two beautiful kids, Gabriel, 14, and Rachel, 12. He has served as missionary pastor in the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil for 13 years. As a good Brazilian, his favorite sport is soccer, and he claims that his favorite soccer team, Botafogo, is the best in the world. He says that On the Way is a community that loves God and loves people and has a motto that expresses its mission: “walking together.”

Dr. Angela Boyd Wyatt

Lithonia, GA

Dr. Angela Boyd Wyatt is the founder and CEO of The Spiritual Wellness Center, a nonprofit ministry for young adults. The Spiritual Wellness Center explores learning that engages their triune-being, mind, heart and soul so they live out their truest and highest expression of themselves and discover purpose and meaning for life’s spiritual journey. Angela earned her doctor of education ministry from Columbia Theological Seminary. She is a theological minister of education who has taught seminarians and church leaders and serves as a chaplain in urban communities. Angela’s interests are spiritual development, evolving relationships with the sacred, servant leadership and applying family system theory.

Alicia Beyer

Altadena, CA

Alicia Beyer is a second-year master of divinity student at Fuller Theological Seminary and part-time barista. Originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, she is currently serving in a FourSquare house church in Altadena. Previously, Alicia served in various positions at her home church back in St. Paul. She hopes to experience a variety of church planting models to better understand the pragmatics of church planting outside her tradition. Alicia is deeply passionate about relational-based, mutually transformative communities. She’s seen the power of relational-based community within her own church community and hopes to live with that intentionality of bringing that transformative power to everyday relationships.

Connor Cipolla

Altadena, CA

Connor Cipolla is the director of youth ministry at La Canada Presbyterian Church, and has been serving in this capacity the past four years. Connor is working toward completing the master of divinity program at Fuller Theological Seminary and is a candidate for ordination in the San Fernando Presbytery. Connor and his wife, Sara, are locals of the greater Pasadena area and now live in Altadena, California. As the newly minted father of a 6-month-old named Micah, Connor’s hobbies now include rolling around on the floor and making strange faces for laughs. Connor hopes this internship with 1001 will be the next affirmative step toward a call to new church starts.

Brendan Dry

Glendale, CA

Brendan Dry and his wife, Kimberly, belong to Church of the Resurrection, an Anglican church plant in Highland Park. Brendan works as a lay minister, overseeing a youth mentoring initiative and community-building ministry that he started with an awesome team of people last year. Brendan graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary in June 2018. His road to Los Angeles began in Connecticut, with long stops in both Colorado and Chicago. During the apprenticeship with 1001 NWC, Brendan will be working on expanding the ministries he oversees at Rez L.A. while beginning to discern whether God would call him and his wife to start a NWC in the next few years.

Mark Fields

Pasadena, CA

Mark Fields is a passionate follower of Christ and is the high school ministries director at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California. Mark grew up in San Bernardino in an under-resourced single-parent home. A rare opportunity in high school propelled him toward extensive experience in after-school programs, para-church ministry and local church leadership, as well as foreign and domestic missions, which gives him a broad base of experiences to leverage in ministry. Mark is joining the cohort to discern and more deeply understand what it would look like to start a faith community/social enterprise/community development center. Mark is a loving husband to his lovely wife, Caryn, and a loving, active and playful daddy to his daughters Gianna, Brielle and Kadence.

Michael Kinsman

Pasadena, CA

Michael Kinsman is a student at Fuller Theological Seminary completing his master of divinity this summer. Michael has worked with LINC Los Angeles, an organization that plants/replants churches, helps churches engage in visioning and strategic planning processes and develops other ministries across L.A. He was also the director of spiritual life at Trinity Lutheran College, his alma mater, from 2013–14. Currently, Michael lives in Pasadena, California, and works as a barista part-time while finishing his career as a student.

Brian Terada

Pasadena, CA

Brian Terada graduated from Azusa Pacific University just two weeks after he came out to his community. From friends and family to superiors and subordinates, Brian was overwhelmed with love and compassion. Since this is not always the case, Brian created Be Free to help highlight all of the safe people to come out to.

He was born in Upland, California, but grew up in Beaverton, Oregon, before returning to Southern California for college. Since graduating, he has been building Be Free via his photography business, a podcast, Instagram, YouTube channel and now through products and events. Brian is 27 and currently lives in Pasadena, California, with some of his best friends.

Kristi Van Nostran

Pasadena, CA

Kristi Van Nostran currently serves as a pastoral intern at Claremont Presbyterian Church and is pursuing a master of divinity through Fuller Theological Seminary after recently graduating with a master of arts in global leadership, also through Fuller. Kristi returned to the United States last summer after seven years in El Salvador, where she helped develop and facilitate an ecumenical Joining Hands network for advocacy and action for food justice as a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-worker. Originally from Vancouver, Washington, Kristi is a member of First Presbyterian Church, and she looks forward to the 1001 Apprenticeship as an opportunity to explore the new ways God’s Spirit is moving and to further discern her call to ordained ministry in the PC(USA) in the midst of that movement.

Tony Beyer

Kansas City, MO

Tony Beyer is the curator resident at The Open Table Community. A Kansas City native, he is working on his master of divinity at Chicago Theological Seminary and is under care of the Heartland Presbytery. As a cradle Presbyterian, Tony has served as a ruling elder and clerk of session for Central Presbyterian in Kansas City.

Victoria Litardo

Kansas City, MO

Victoria Litardo is one of The Open Table’s pastoral residents in Kansas City. She comes from the nonprofit sector, where she’s worked with the refugee population in environmental education, and has integrated her knack for photography in helping nonprofits tell change-making stories as a means of photo-activism. Her bicultural upbringing as a first-generation American has shaped the way Victoria engages with the world, seeing intersectionalities as an opportunity to create something that celebrates and contributes to the diversity and strength found in those spaces. Her hope is to facilitate spiritual formation practices with her new community as they continue to do the work of being people of “peace and reconciliation in a city divided.” When she’s not doing community organizing, you can find Victoria practicing Capoeira and yoga.

Erin Angeli

Pittsburgh, PA

Erin Angeli graduated in June 2018 with a master’s degree in divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Erin is originally from the upper peninsula of Michigan, where she grew up loving the outdoors and later worked in outdoor education and leadership. Erin lives in the Sharpsburg neighborhood of Pittsburgh with her fiancée, Sarah, and their pitbull, Winnie. In her free time, Erin enjoys gardening and exploring prayer through artistic expression. Erin is starting a ministry as a pastoral resident for the 1001 New Worshiping Community called the Commonwealth, which focuses on uniting college students, the housing insecure and longtime locals of the Oakland neighborhood. Oakland is known for its universities and world-class hospitals.

Debra Avery

Oakland, CA

In 2015, in the midst of a season of activism, Debra Avery put a daily reminder in her phone: “Ask yourself what it means to be a chaplain in the movement,” because she saw in others, and has experienced for herself, what it means to be a committed justice worker with little time for spiritual self-care. She has also listened to co-workers who tried to engage within their faith traditions, but found too much resistance there. Her call to form Justice House comes out of the desire to offer that safe space and time for rest and reflection, and ultimately for organizing for action. She believes the residency will offer two things: 1) It will provide her with the guidance and community of care she needs to gather a team to help create Justice House; and 2) She will be able to share what she’s learned and what she is learning within her presbytery and the wider church.

Whether working with community leaders in a redlined neighborhood in Yonkers, providing support for Native Americans and Latinx immigrants in Phoenix, partnering with neighbors in Oakland, or standing with LGBTQ Presbyterians in presbyteries and at General Assembly, Debra has chosen to work in the intersections where multiple oppressions are often felt the strongest. Her sense of justice has been shaped by her work as a pastor in settled congregations in New York, Illinois, Arizona and California, and living with her family in Mexico, Japan, Iowa, Wisconsin and Maryland. In addition to her service as a pastor, she has served as moderator of the Presbytery of San Francisco and as co-founder of two grassroots organizations (in Yonkers and in Oakland) that focus on racial equity.

Kearni Warren

Chester, PA

Kearni Warren has a bachelor of science in business administration and has studied television management at the Westphal School of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University’s School of Graduate Studies. While enrolled at Drexel, she was hired as a freelance assistant director for The Sunny Side Up Show LIVE on the PBS Kids Sprout Network and served as a student news producer and reporter for Drexel University’s DUTV News Magazine on Philadelphia television stations. While employed with Kieserman Media, she worked behind the scenes as a business strategist and in front of the camera as a senior correspondent for a health and wellness web series and a host for both the Philadelphia Business Leaders Video Series and the Healthcare Executives Video Series, where she interviewed top medical and business executives and CEOs in the Greater Philadelphia region.

Kearni is not only passionate about her career, but she also has compassion for those less fortunate. Demonstrating her commitment to social responsibility, she supports local and global community improvement efforts and educational programs. She often volunteers her time as a mentor and advocate for youth. For six years, she hosted annual fashion show fundraisers for local junior high school girls to help raise self-esteem and to keep music and arts alive within a local public-school system. In this new role, Kearni is excited to explore the connection between injustices such as racism and sexual assault in the hopes of healing and enlightening not only youth but the city of Chester.