Joy Cole
• Introducing Our Ministers •
The Rev. Christopher
Augustus Barber
Changed by Faith – and Paying it Forward
C
hris Barber had a loose relationship with faith growing up in New Jersey.
He attended a Methodist Church with his grandmother for a while, but
when she stopped going he did too, becoming “functionally an atheist.” A
series of providential experiences led him to Bryn Athyn College where he
found his calling – to be a minister and teacher – and also found his wife.
“My life and perspective really were changed by faith,” he says – the faith
he discovered at the College. “I felt more alive and like there was a purpose to
life that was intangible.”
He admits he may have been a bit obnoxious about it at first. “I was so
startled and shaken and awakened and enlivened by my connection with God
that I had a hard time keeping it to myself.”
His introduction to the New Church came from his step-father, Andrew
H. Bown, who had married his mother, Rosalyn Barber.
While at college in Bryn Athyn he met Annika Fitzpatrick. They married
in 2010, Annika is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.
They are the parents of Jaiell Spencer Barber who is 12 years old.
Since his ordination in 2013 he has taught Religion in the Academy
Secondary Schools.
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