Ok, so if I am narcissistic enough to have a blog, then pulling off a bio page should be no big deal right? Maybe so, maybe not, but here we go anyway.
If you want it in bullet points, my professional resume is here.
I grew up in Brentwood, Tennessee just south of Nashville. My parents were from Nashville and their parents were from Nashville and their parents were from North Carolina. (I did not know that when I moved to North Carolina to “do my own thing in a new place.”) Just south of Brentwood is Franklin, Tennessee where I went to grade school at the public schools and high school at Battle Ground Academy. Battle Ground Academy was named for its location on the historic site of the Civil War battle which took place in Franklin and has been called “The Gettysburg of the West.” The school has since moved to not the battlefield.
I also moved to attend college at Warren Wilson just outside of Asheville. While studying History, Political Science, and English, I worked — as all Wilson students must — in things as diverse as building maintenance, student government, and the College Relations Office. That last assignment landed me a position at Christ School just out of college. After four years I was convinced that I was called to be an Episcopalian but not a monk. The following year I spent at Carolina Day School.
I was called back to Warren Wilson, where I worked first as Annual Fund Director and then as Director of Development for a total of seven years. My child, Archie, was born during this time and we initially lived on campus. After we moved off-campus, we lived two miles away and got to visit often. Many of the relationships I formed while I was there have endured, and many of the professional lessons I learned have been invaluable since.
I took those lessons first into the world of consulting, where I found that consulting was not what I had been called to do. I then took them to the service of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western North Carolina and experienced the transforming power of one to one, mentoring relationships. Later, I joined MANNA FoodBank where I served as Director of Development as well as focusing on building relationships with corporate and foundation partners. My career as a professional fundraiser was capped off by working for the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina and The Wild Goose Festival.
In 2014, my family and I moved to Austin, Texas, so that I could pursue a seminary education at Seminary of the Southwest. After three incredible years among people I hope to always be close with, I graduated with a Master of Divinity in 2017. We returned to Western North Carolina that summer, and I was ordained a priest on August 9. I served for eight years as Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Fletcher, just south of Asheville. I will be forever grateful for this amazing community that helped me learn to be a priest and a pastor in their midst.
In September of 2025, I became the Rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Loveland, Colorado. When people ask what motivated me to move half way across the continent, I think about this quote from Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men
For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that there’s gold in them-there hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.
There is more to it than that, of course. All Saints’ is a wonderful community of people who are earnestly seeking to find out what it means to be faithful witnesses to the Gospel these days. They are dedicated to the idea that we are called to be truly welcoming, and they are intent on learning how to stretch themselves to be more inclusive. Together we eat, laugh, sing, pray, work, and love.
I enjoy reading thick books because that decreases the number of times I have to choose what to read next. Swapping memes with Archie is my hobby. I like to write (duh). Listening to music is a huge part of my life, and I enjoy everything from classic rock to yacht rock, country AND western, Hip-hop, classic funk and R&B, and jazz. I used to run a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Maybe I will again some day. I like to hike, especially in Rocky Mountain National Park, and I’m trying to make it my whole damn personality.
If, for whatever reason, you have come across this page and persisted this far, you deserve a prize. Feel free to email me TheRevJ.Clarkson (insert the @ symbol) gmail.com to claim yours.