Grace Cathedral

Christine Bensen is a longtime member of the Grace Cathedral congregation. She served on Congregation Council for 6 years, and on the Board of Trustees for 4 years. Additionally, she is active in Children, Youth, and Family Ministries and bakes the Eucharist monthly. A native New Yorker, Christine relocated to Southern California in 1989 but found her true home in San Francisco in 1994.  Christine lives in Bernal Heights with her husband Grant and their son Ronan who attends Cathedral School for Boys.

Professionally, Christine is a Digital Marketing/Media Consultant and Principal of Ben-Her Marketing. As an experienced marketing executive, she brings both domestic and global experience developing both digital and traditional media strategies that have positively impacted brands. She has worked with clients like LG, Intuit, Visa, L’Oreal, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Xbox, Palm, and Verizon. Additionally, she has a background in both research and information systems, which fuels her knowledge in database marketing, data modeling, segmentation, reporting, and marketing database design. 

After joining the Grace Cathedral congregation with my husband in 1999, I have served several times as a Deanery delegate, representing the Cathedral in the Diocesan Convention. Since 2009, I have served as Chancellor (outside general counsel) of the Diocese, advising the Bishop and the Diocese’s senior governing bodies. In that capacity, I serve as the Parliamentarian of the Convention and as chair of the Diocese’s Committee on Canons. I also represent the Diocese as a Deputy to the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, where I recently co-chaired the legislative committee on clergy discipline. At the churchwide level, I chair the Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, Constitution & Canons. I have also served on legislative and policy committees for marriage, safe church, and the place of women in the church (#MeToo). I am a partner at the Ragghianti Freitas LLP law firm in San Rafael, representing individuals, businesses, and churches in litigation, arbitration, and mediation. My practice areas include complex commercial litigation, insurance coverage, and religious and nonprofit organizations. I am admitted to practice law in California, New York, the District of Columbia, all federal courts in California, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Cathy and I are long-time members of the Cathedral congregation. During this time, I have been active in governance through numerous leadership roles at both Grace Cathedral and within DioCal. For GC, these have included the Congregation Council, the Board of Trustees, and the Cathedral Delegation to the SF Deanery, among others. Within DioCal, examples include the Committee on Governance, the Standing Committee and the Deputation to General Convention of the national church, among others. 

As a baptized Christian, church governance is part of my DNA. It is inspired by a sense of call around congregations being in right relationships with each other. Additional reasons to run for re-election this year are to ensure we include experienced leadership during a bishop transition and to assist in growing our GC delegation with a new generation of delegates. 

When I was two years old, my family moved to San Francisco from the Midwest. After a few years, we moved to the Peninsula, where I was baptized in a Presbyterian Church at age six. My parents were not churchgoers, but when I was twelve, I began attending the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, then under the leadership of Dr. Hall. I loved Sunday School as well as Dr. Hall’s sermons and became a believer there. I went east to Smith College and attended their chapel services regularly. I graduated with a degree in Art History in 1963 and worked for an art gallery in New York City for several years before returning to California and settling in San Francisco.

In 1966, I met my future husband, and we married soon after at St. Marks Lutheran Church. We raised our two daughters in the Forest Hill neighborhood, and during this time, we attended the San Francisco Covenant Church, now renamed Dolores Park Church. After our daughters went east to college, I taught second grade for seventeen years in nearby Daly City, loving every minute of it, until I retired in 2004. I collect artworks on paper from Europe and America, for the most part, created from the 16th to 19th centuries. These include watercolors, drawings, etchings, lithographs, engravings, and Pictorialist photographs. I have a smaller collection of works on paper from the 20th century. Due to a dispute at the Covenant Church in 2013, the congregation split, and we left.

I immediately began to attend Grace Cathedral and soon started pledging. The artworks will eventually be given to Smith College. I have always had a heart for the poor and marginalized, so at Grace, I have volunteered at the Bayview Mission. (Due to the pandemic and my husband’s compromised immune system, I have temporarily stepped back from volunteering there in person, but still, support them financially and hope to be able to resume my weekly work there at some point.) I believe strongly in exchanging ideas that work in ministry and widening outreach. I am excited about the possibility of collaborating with others in the Deanery.

I live in San Francisco with my spouse and beloved rescue-dog, Max, and work as an attorney for the State of California. I was not raised with a religious tradition but was thrilled to find the Episcopal Church as an adult, being baptized at Grace’s Easter Vigil in 2009 and getting married in the Chapel of Grace in 2013.  First elected to the Deanery in 2020, I am still hoping for a safer and healthier 2023, allowing for deanery meetings and connections beyond the virtual screen.  I’ve very much appreciated how much I’ve learned about church governance, am thankful for Regina’s leadership of the deanery, and would be honored to have your vote to continue to serve and represent our community. 

A very good friend brought me to Grace about 23 years ago. I liked the service, the clergy, and the parishioners.  What keeps me here is the spirit and caring of the Christian Community that exists here at Grace. 

I have been a pledging member of the congregation for 21 years; giving my time and talent as I could, and circumstances would allow.  Over the years, I have been a member of the Hospitality Ministry, a greeter, an assistant at the Welcome Table, and an usher. I have also been a Docent and tour guide and assisted with the Community Lunch program. I also have served on the Congregational Council and as a member of the Deanery. 

Last year I was elected as a delegate to the Deanery for the second time and would like to continue to represent Grace Cathedral as a Deanery Delegate. 

I have been an active member of Grace Cathedral since 2016 when I arrived in San Francisco from Boston. My spiritual journey began as a Roman Catholic and then was deepened through a Master of Divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School.  I joined my deep commitment to social justice with a Doctorate of Medicine and now serve as a physician–researcher and Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.  My research is focused on eliminating health and healthcare disparities in cardiovascular care for all patients with limited resources.  Finally, I serve on the Board of Trustees and the Stewardship committee. 

It is my pleasure to run for the Cathedral’s Deanery delegation once more. Over the last twelve years, deanery service led me to build relationships with other Episcopalians and congregations across the diocese, and even across the Church. The relationships built there, and the work done in diocesan conventions, led me to the diocesan Task Force for Disability and Deaf Access, the Commission on Ministry (COM), and TEC’s State of the Church Committee, breaking down barriers and bringing more people to the table however they are called, and to DioCal’s deputation to the 80th General Convention of The Episcopal Church next July. I look forward to continuing those relationships, and to the shared ministries the deanery supports in our City and diocese, in the work our delegation does in deanery meetings and diocesan conventions. 

In addition to the deanery delegation, I’ve previously served as a greeter, on Congregation Council and the Social Justice Working Group, and sponsored baptisands at Grace.  

Outside of church, I am the Director of Advocacy with the Community Alliance for Special Education and a committed women’s education and disability rights advocate. My husband Asit and I are the parents of Sofia and Axel, who you’ll see either in Godly Play or mastering the steps of the font and fountain. 

I am excited to run for Deanery Delegate to represent Grace Cathedral at the Diocesan level. If elected, I will serve with commitment, integrity and discernment.  I have been a member of this Grace Cathedral community since 2004, when I was greeted with what I have come to understand as Radical Hospitality. I immediately became a pledging member and have never looked back.  Over these past 19 years, I have built some of my most important friendships in this community and have worked for the good of this Cathedral.   I want to help everyone find their church home the way that I found mine.  We face a challenge in that, how do we bring the many people who attend Grace virtually more fully into the life of the Cathedral and the Diocese.  We will all benefit if we are able to successfully bring them closer.  I respectfully ask for your vote.  Thank you. 

I was baptized at Grace Cathedral in 2009. I love this church and was elected to Grace Cathedral’s Deanery a few years ago. For the last two years, I’ve been the convenor for Grace’s Deanery and am also the Lay VP for the San Francisco Deanery.  

I specialize in marketing: community management, and events. I’m currently the Director of Customer Advocacy and Community at Vyond, a SaaS animation software company. I’ve led SFTech4Good since 2011. SFTech4Good is a Meetup focused on how technology is used to further social change. Because of the pandemic, I merged it with LATech4Good, which takes the lead with data for good events, and I handle writing the monthly newsletter, which sits on Substack.  

I earned my B.A. from UCLA and my law degree from UC Hastings, but I chose to move to South Korea to take a university teaching position and travel over the bar exam. While abroad, I earned my Master’s in International Studies from Ewha Womans University. I moved back to the States in 2009, and after I was baptized at Grace, I moved to NYC. I moved back to the SF Bay Area in 2011 and started attending services at Grace again. 

I’d love to continue serving as part of the Deanery Delegation. Thanks so much for this opportunity. 

I am excited to be running for Deanery for my fourth year in a row! I started as the Official Youth Presence at 16, served as an adult delegate the following year, and returned to the ministry after college. I am currently a postulant for Holy Orders in the middle of my second year of seminary at CDSP. Although I always knew that I wanted to work in churches, Grace Cathedral and its wonderful people inspired me to pursue ordination to the priesthood there. College and the pandemic have prevented me from being present in-person on Sundays for years, but I have stayed involved through summer jobs, small group leadership, online worship, and my ordination process. I deeply value the importance of church governance, particularly Diocesan Convention, and its power to effect change throughout the Diocese and the Episcopal Church as a whole. I hope to continue serving in this role, fostering both local connections and wider change.