First Congregational UCC
Staff & Leaders

Ryan Dowell Baum

Ryan Dowell Baum, a 30-year-old native of Albany, NY, received his undergraduate degree from New York University in 2005. He earned his master of divinity in 2010 at Pacific School of Religion, a UCC seminary in Berkeley, CA, and was ordained by the Northern California Nevada Conference of the UCC the same year. Before coming to Sioux City, Ryan's wife, Molly, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), completed a two-year call as Phillips Talbot Global Ministry Fellow at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, which brought the couple to teach and minister in Zambia, South Central Africa, for 12 months. Ryan is passionate about connecting the Christian scriptural and theological tradition to the needs and questions of 21st-century people. Peace and justice issues, including poverty relief and civil rights for LGBT people, form a major component of his ministry, as do the more traditional pastoral arts of preaching and spiritual formation. Ryan and Molly have a baby son named Dietrich.