The Christian Community of Chapel Hill, North Carolina will be welcoming our first two full-time resident priests on November 17, 2024. This is a joyful moment in our congregational life and is the culmination of over thirty years of fruitful work as an affiliate of the Washington-Baltimore area congregation, whose help and support we gratefully acknowledge.

A little about Rev. Claire Jerram in her own words:

I grew up in Louisville, Ky, where I sang in a church choir. I studied art in college, and traveled also to China. But at age twenty-three I began a Waldorf teacher training in California, and there discovered my life’s teacher in Rudolf Steiner. I first came into close contact with the Christian Community in marriage preparation meetings with Reverend Peter Skaller. Soon after this, I left my class and went to England to study at Artemis School of Speech and Drama for four years. Over the course of this training, my first husband and I divorced and I met my second husband.

We moved to Philadelphia where I rekindled my connection to the Christian Community, now in the nearby Devon, PA congregation. After this I taught for seven years at the Waldorf School of Baltimore, Maryland, driving every Sunday down to the Christian Community in College Park. In 2019 I passed my class to another teacher, and prepared to join the seminary. I felt I could no longer bear to be away from the altar, where I had received much help and healing. I wished to help this altar reality become real for others. The Seminary of the Christian Community is in Toronto, and during 2020 no one could go to Canada, so some of us seminarians studied in 2021 in a “pop up” seminary in Hillsdale, NY. Over the following two years, I entered into two internships, one in Stourbridge, England, and one in my home congregation in Maryland with Revs Matthias Giles and Emma Heirman. During this time I visited the Chapel Hill affiliate with Reverend Giles and served it as an intern. Then in 2023, I studied at the seminary in Toronto, and was ordained in July 2024. I am delighted to help bring to birth the new congregation in Chapel Hill, NC, with this dedicated team.