Our Rector-Elect, the Rev. Sara Fischer, was raised on the east coast and baptized as a young adult at Emanuel Church in Boston. She has lived in Portland since 1986 and served as a lay person at St. Stephen’s and then at Grace Memorial before going to General Seminary in 2000, where she earned her M.Div. in 2003. Over the decades her ministries in the wider community have included anti-racism work, baptismal formation, and advocating for the poor and outcast in the public square. In particular, while not an artist herself, she believes that opportunities for creativity are a basic human need and works to bring the arts to those with limited access to creativity. She is a huge fan of the Book of Common Prayer and is nurtured, energized, and renewed by what she calls “good, clean liturgy.”

Ordained in 2003 at Grace Memorial, Portland, Mother Sara brings a wealth of experience from her previous roles as rector at Saints Peter and Paul, Portland; St. Paul, Seattle; Saint David of Wales, Portland, and St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukie. Since April 2024, she has been leading Hope and Bread City Mission, a street church in East Portland dedicated to serving our unhoused neighbors.

Sara is the author of a memoir, Open: Adventures in Radical Hospitality, which reflects on Rahab’s Sisters, a ministry she helped to found in 2003, as well as her own development as a priest. She is working on a second book, about street chaplaincy.

On the diocesan level, Mother Sara has served on the Commission on Ministry, Clergy Conference Planning Committee, Bishop's Search Committee, Deputy to General Convention, and Standing Committee. In 2014 she served on the Bishop's staff as Canon for Congregational Development. 

In her spare time, Sara loves to knit, read, run, hike, and swing kettlebells. Her husband, Mark, is a semi-retired professor of computer engineering at Portland State who, luckily for Sara, loves to cook. The two love to travel around Oregon and overseas. Their adult son, Nathan, lives and works in Northwest Portland.

She will assume the position of Rector at St. Aidan’s on February 12, 2025. We look forward to Mother Sara’s ministry among us.