It was late in 2007, and the Rev. Sarah Fisher was serving as rector at St. Peter’s Church in Chicago. It was growing cold in the Windy City, and though the church building, as the parish’s website described, “is a sterling example of Arts and Crafts Gothic Revival,” its newest part wasn’t working as expected and required the rector’s attention.
“We bought a new boiler,” Fisher wrote in her blog, Caffeinated Priest. It needed tweaking, and when she tried to recycle the pump, it didn’t work. “So it’s cold in here,” she wrote. Adding to the heap of troubles, “the radiator just exploded (not really) and now there’s water all over the parish hall floor.”
She remembers advice from her former rector during her discernment process of becoming a priest.
“Great! You want to be a priest. First, go to Athens Tech [a trade school] and learn how to be a plumber,” her rector said. In that boiler moment, the nugget of wisdom made a lot of sense.
Fisher wrote the blog post titled “Plumbing” on November 16, 2007. Eighteen years later, almost to the day, she would open a new chapter in her ministry—one that would require her to deal with more than a few church properties (and possibly boilers).
On November 15, with 36 clergy votes and 70 lay votes, the Episcopal priest—who now serves as rector of St. Catherine’s Church in Marietta, Georgia—was elected the ninth bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina. The diocese serves several military bases and a large Latino population, and comprises 67 parishes and two college campus ministries.
“I’m rarely at a loss for words, so take this moment as the one time that I’m at a loss for words,” Fisher told the convention over Zoom when she was elected. Speaking to The Living Church on November 24, she described the feeling as one of “delighted awe.”
“I was in awe that they elected me and delighted because I am already head over heels in love with this diocese,” Fisher said. “There is so much heart and soul in this place. Their spiritual depth is wonderful and deep and evident in the people and in the churches, and so evident in the ministries that I see them doing.”
In an essay for the search committee, she wrote about her two ministry gifts—congregational development and the ability to listen attentively and with care. On the former, TLC sought her thoughts about the Episcopal Church’s membership decline and religious statistics predicting the doom of mainline Protestant denominations.
She responded with her parish’s numbers: a 21 percent increase in attendance in the past year and a 31 percent increase over the past four years. “And I think even the Pew research tell us that the decline is actually reversing a little bit,” Fisher said.
“I don’t know how long it will stay. But, yes, we have to acknowledge that there’s a decline. And I think there is a growing need for community and connectedness that exists within the church today,” she said. “And what I’m seeing firsthand in my community is that need [is] embodied by coming back to church or looking for a church for the first time. So I am a big believer in congregational development and the work that happens there.”
The Georgia-based rector, who cited the Apostle Paul as a role model in her approach to ministry, believes that all churches—no matter their size, location, or financial capacity—have the “capability to become more healthy, more effective, and more faithful.”
“That doesn’t always mean that we’re going to suddenly see the church of the 1950s return,” she said. “But it does mean that we can grow in our own vitality and what we’re offering the community around us, and what we’re learning about Jesus and … the transformations we’re experiencing in our own lives can have a ripple effect.”
Fisher has been married to the Rev. Mandy Brady, another Episcopal priest, for 25 years. In a story for the regional Albemarle Observer, Miles Layton described Fisher’s election as “a historic milestone for LGBTQ+ inclusion.” Brady had served as interim rector at St. Christopher’s By-the-Sea Church in Key Biscayne, Florida, and as a supply priest at St. Peter’s Church in Key West.
Brady described herself in a news article as a “dyed-in-the-wool Anglican who claims Georgia as home.” Fisher, on the other hand, told TLC, “I am one of those rare birds who’s a cradle Episcopalian.” Both share an interest in congregational development, as Brady has also served as a trainer for the College of Congregational Development, a program organized by the Diocese of Olympia.
In today’s context—when rights for marginalized and vulnerable communities, including the LGBT community, are being rolled back, and when, at one point, the federal guideline that allowed same-sex marriage was threatened—Fisher’s approach to day-to-day realities as a church leader is guided by “two core loves.”
“One is love of Jesus. And the other is love of Jesus’ people. And that means we don’t always agree, but that we are united in something bigger than self and that our divisions—our divisions have nothing—if we are rooted in the love of God,” she said.
“So my hope and my experience has been when folks disagree or struggle, that they’ll come talk to me and that we can be in conversation about those things together,” Fisher added.
“You can have different views and come together and recognize that the love of God, the love of Christ, is bigger than what we disagree about and that the Holy Spirit is alive and working in our lives and in our churches,” said Fisher, who was ordained in 2005.
In this regard, Fisher remembers the late Rt. Rev. John Bayton, who served as Bishop of Geelong and Western Region in the Diocese of Melbourne, Anglican Church of Australia. She met him when Bayton was interim dean at St. George’s College, an Anglican center for pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Fisher was early in her formation and was serving as a course aide, whose job included ensuring that pilgrims were on the bus.
Bayton made a mark on the future bishop for his love of people. He “always listened before he spoke” and engaged in tense situations “in a part of the world that knows conflict well,” Fisher said.
“He never forgot whose heart was at the center, that Jesus’ heart is at the center. He saw beauty in places that sometimes looked desolate,” she said, describing the late bishop as a “spiritual giant.”
Bishop Robert Wright of Atlanta is among those who celebrated Fisher’s election, congratulating her on Facebook. Agnes Scott College, a private women’s college in Decatur, Georgia, congratulated its alumna for being its first Episcopal bishop.
Once Fisher’s election receives consent and when she’s consecrated in May 2026, she will be the first woman to serve as chief pastor of East Carolina. She is the third partnered lesbian to be elected as bishop, following the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, Suffragan of Los Angeles and, later, New York, in 2009 and the Rt. Rev. Bonnie Perry of Michigan in 2019. Fisher is also the seventh LGBT bishop to be elected in the Episcopal Church since the Diocese of New Hampshire chose Gene Robinson as its bishop in 2003.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
