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FEATURED AUTHOR: Craig Rennebohm

Craig Rennebohm, D. Min

Craig Rennebohm devotes his life relating to and journeying with the most marginalized in society. In his nearly 20 years as a Chaplain with Seattle’s Mental Health Chaplaincy, Craig served as first-hand witness to the gentle, restorative work of God in those living on the streets and struggling with mental illness. Despite the humble grounding of his ministry, Craig is internationally renown for his work, and in demand as a gifted speaker and educator.

Craig’s highly effective outreach and engagement methodologies extend across denominational boundaries and are internationally respected and emulated by professional and volunteer caregivers and faith communities, along with those in medicine, government, and higher education. His work has been instrumental in helping to address the homeless problem that persisted in Bosnia after the Bosnian war, and his writings have even been utilized at the United Nations.

Craig is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and Chaplain with the Mental Health Chaplaincy in Seattle. His pioneering work with the homeless mentally ill community is known around the U.S. and overseas.

He has taught and presented in many local, national, and international settings, and he served for ten years with an international, interfaith working group on Spirituality and Social Work active during and after hostilities in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia.

Craig was the first recipient of the Tipper Gore Award of the National Council of Health Care for the Homeless, and his methodology of working with the most marginalized members of our society has put him in demand as a speaker, teacher, and consultant by faith communities and advocacy groups. Besides the Tipper Gore Award, Craig’s numerous recognitions include a Seattle Post-Intelligencer Jefferson Award, an Exemplary Service Award from the King County (Wash.) Division of Mental Health, and an alumni Distinguished Achievement Award from Carleton College.

Craig graduated from Carleton in 1967 and Chicago Theological Seminary in 1970, where he worked with street gang members on the city’s South Side. He entered the ministry and served parishes in Lowell, Mass., and Seattle, Wash. In 1986, he entered the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., where he earned a D.Min. in pastoral care. He returned to Seattle in 1987 to found the Mental Health Chaplaincy, an ecumenical ministry working with mentally ill people on the streets and in the hospital. The Chaplaincy has grown to serve families, create mental health ministries in local congregations, and advocate for an effective and readily accessible community mental health system.

Rennebohm’s elegant and intelligent narrative blend of real-life experience, his accessible insight and expertise, and his reflective inspiration and faith set apart his first book, Souls In The Hands of A Tender God, as transformative. Those who read it will be compelled to change the world as Craig has--from within the heart of the community.

Souls In The Hands of A Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets, written in collaboration with David Paul, PhD, will be released in the Spring of 2008 by Beacon Press.

David W. Paul, PhD
Collaborator

David W. Paul

David W. Paul, a Seattle-based writer and editorial consultant, is a Princeton PhD and an escapee from Academia.

David has authored or co-authored six books and many articles, ranging widely across territory that includes language and culture, politics and history, film criticism, fiction, screenplays, software documentation, and the Internet. His translations of poems by a young Algerian, Nina Ould-Ali, appeared in The Raven Chronicles and the collection Poetry in Praise of the Islamic Woman. His recognitions include awards from the Seattle Arts Commission and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. He has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, and a scholar in residence for the Washington Commission for the Humanities and the Washington State Arts Commission.

As editor or ghostwriter, David works with authors on subjects including business strategy, information technology, religion, self-improvement, and personal memoirs. He worked with Craig Rennebohm previously to develop A Ministry of Presence, a booklet used as a text in church workshops on ministering to people who are homeless and mentally ill. In a past career, he taught political science and international studies at Princeton and the University of Washington (Seattle.)