The Reverend Jennifer Deaton is Rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Indianola, and Vicar at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Leland, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, where summer sounds like crop-dusters, combines, and cicadas, and there’s always someone singing the blues. She came up to the Delta from Jackson after serving more than ten years as Canon for Pastoral Care at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral.
Jennifer grew up singing in church choirs, serving as an acolyte, and going to youth group at Episcopal churches in South Carolina and Tennessee. She earned a B.A. in Religion at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she sang in the touring Concert Choir and at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip. Jennifer has a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology from the University of Mississippi, and earned her M.Div. from the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where she worked in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd under Dr. David Hurd.
As a spiritual director, pilgrimage leader, and frequent chaplain and presenter at retreats and conferences at the Gray Conference Center in Mississippi and Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Jennifer is especially interested in the ability of liturgy and music to provide pastoral care for individuals and worshipping communities. While at the Cathedral in Jackson, she helped develop and lead an evening service centered in song and contemplative prayer.
Jennifer’s husband, Charlie, is Rector at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Clarksdale, Mississippi. They met over a shared fondness for Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo. Their son, also Charlie, is a junior at the University of Mississippi.