Sausalito Presbyterian Church

Rev. Paul Mowry

After graduating from Evanston Township High School (near Chicago), he studied filmmaking at New York University, graduating with academic and production honors. He then spent a decade working in the film industry; in distribution with Orion Classics and then in production with directors Susan Seidelman and Herbert Ross. During this time, he and his partner, Joe Silverman, founded the Free Randall Adams Campaign, a nationwide effort to free a Texas man sentenced to life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. (Mr. Adams was finally exonerated and freed. His story is the subject of the Errol Morris film A THIN BLUE LINE.) He was a volunteer mediator for child custody and visitation cases in the Manhattan Family Court, and worked to establish and support peer mediation programs in troubled Bronx middle schools. Part of his motivation in taking on conflict resolution work was the commitment he learned from his family for inclusion and reconciliation. He has always been interested in helping people get closer to one another. Paul says he "felt called since I was knit together in my mother's womb," and he embraced all life as ministry in his varied secular work. "Wherever I went, wherever I worked, be it in the film industry or corporate banking, I found that everyone yearned for connection, to fellowship; to purpose; to Creation around them and to their Creator within. I relished these opportunities to connect with people who weren’t church-goers, who maybe didn't even believe in God. I think the "Good News" is that God created you and loves you. " When he applied to Union Theological Seminary (NYC), his grandfather's alma mater, Paul says he felt "all my life was coming into perfect alignment." He received a Master of Divinity, with honors.