The Rev. Dr. Rachel Anne Nyback (she/her)
The Rev. Dr. Rachel Anne Nyback is rector at St. Cross Episcopal Church in Hermosa Beach. She has served St. Cross since her ordination in 2004. She was the associate for family ministry and rector-elect. She has been rector since 2010. She enjoys working with the clergy and staff to build a team that supports the many ministries of the parish they serve. St. Cross is a lay-lead parish and she sees a main focus of her ministry to be sustaining lay leadership for current ministries while encouraging new leaders and ministries when the Spirit calls forth a new ministry. She teaches through her preaching, her pastoral care and her care for the parishioners of St. Cross. She is constantly challenging her congregation about where they can be active in the wider South Bay community and not just within the parish community.
Rachel has served on many boards and with varied ministries in the Diocese of Los Angeles. She is active in two clergy groups and also is part of a weekly sermon workshop with four seminary classmates.
Rachel’s love of ministry come from the combination of two of her passions: Jesus and people. No matter where Rachel lands, she enjoys making new friendships, hearing peoples’ stories, and sharing the love of Jesus Christ through relationship. She has lived and worshiped in Massachusetts, Paris, Kuwait and Virginia. Each parish helped form her into the priest she is today though the multicultural experiences of worship in foreign countries with many nationalities worshiping together in common prayer, and in other parts of the United States which gave perspectives very different than that of Southern California.
Before following her call to priesthood, Rachel was a fifth grade teacher in Southern California public schools and in Kuwait. She received her MDiv from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2004 and her DMin from VTS in 2015. She benefited greatly in her first years of ordination as a participant in the Lily Foundation First Three Years program, which seeks to form newly ordained priests in healthy practices that will sustain them throughout the lifetime of their ministries. This program along with her passion for teaching formed her doctoral thesis on best practices for the formation of newly ordained priests. She has led mentoring groups both in her diocese and within the larger church.
Rachel is a child of the Diocese of Los Angeles. Born in Long Beach, baptized at St. Timothy’s, Compton and raised at St. Paul’s, Pomona (both congregations served by her father who is also a priest). In her free time she loves to read, cook for friends and family, embroider (which you will often see her doing at convention while listening) and go camping in the summer. She cannot decide if she loves the beach, mountains, valleys, or desert the best, as it all depends on where she is at the moment.
