Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86388028916
The Personal Theology Committee is thrilled to have as our speaker, Dr. Stephanie Krusemark, the new president of the Starr King School of the Ministry. Dr. Krusemark’s presentation is entitled “A Theology of Light and Darkness: A Personal Theology for Worship.
This theology an embodied, liberative reflection on the sacred rhythm between illumination and shadow. Drawing from scripture, global spiritual traditions, and the lived experience of Black resilience, Dr. Stephanie Krusemark invites worshippers to release the false binary that names light as good and darkness as evil. Instead, she frames both as necessary partners in spiritual formation: light as clarity, revelation, and communal hope; darkness as incubation, refinement, and truth-telling.
Through prophetic witness, ancestral memory, and pastoral tenderness, this theology affirms that darkness is not abandonment but gestation, not failure but formation. It calls leaders and communities to resist shallow brightness and despairing shadow alike, and to trust the divine rhythm of becoming—where justice, healing, and transformation are born not in perpetual daylight, but in the faithful integration of both sun and stars.
Dr. Stephanie Krusemark, President of the Starr King School of the Ministry
BIO
Dr. Stephanie L. Krusemark is an accomplished higher education leader with more than 20 years of experience in strategic enrollment management, student success, and advancing equity and inclusion. She earned her Doctorate in Higher Education with a specialization in Diversity and Higher Learning from the University of Denver’s Morgridge College of Education and has built a career centered on creating institutions where all students can thrive. Her leadership spans spiritually affiliated institutions, including Iliff School of Theology, Naropa University, Santa Clara University, Trinity Washington University, and the University of Portland, where she championed access, belonging, and transformative enrollment strategies. A published scholar focused on mentorship and equity, she contributes nationally through AACRAO and NAGAP. Raised in Minnesota by a Baptist father and an Episcopal mother and shaped by an early engagement at Unity Church in St. Paul, she brings a deep commitment to compassion and justice to her role as President of Starr King School for the Ministry, where she is guiding the institution into its next chapter with a bold, equity-centered vision.
