At the ACNA Provincial Council morning session on Thursday, June 18th, Chancellor Bill Nelson introduced Kate Harris, the Director of Outreach and Development. Chancellor Nelson said, “…her title does not adequately describe everything that Kate does for the Province. She is a strategic thinker and a tireless, indefatigable laborer in the vineyards and servants of our process.” Harris went on to provide several provincial updates.
Sometime between the Provincial Council and the Provincial Assembly, Bishop Julian Dobbs fired Kate Harris. According to The Rev. Amanda Holm Rosengren from Church of the Redeemer in Highwood, IL Harris was fired “without much explanation of why.” Rev. Rosengren said that Harris was one of the big architects of the Provincial Council. In his Provincial Letter of March 2025, Archbishop Wood said of Harris:
Kate Harris, our new Director of Outreach and Development, brings a diverse background in non-profit and ministry leadership, most recently serving as the founder and principal of Pulley Advising, a strategy firm helping mission-driven clients grow their impact. She began her career as a press officer for the Colorado State Senate and worked in strategic communications for U.S. Senate leadership. She later helped found and manage stakeholder relationships for Wedgwood Circle, supported business development for the University of Oxford Estates Division, and managed special projects for Oxford Analytica, a global consultancy. Subsequently, Kate served as Interim Executive Director of The Fellows Initiative and as Executive Director of The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture, where she authored Wonder Woman: Navigating the Challenges of Motherhood, Career, and Identity (Zondervan, 2014) and was Assistant Producer of ReFrame, a 10-week film-based course developed by Regent College to help Christians connect their faith with all areas of life. She has an MA in English Literature, was an Ingram scholar at Vanderbilt University, and graduated with a BS in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Kate and her family are active members of Restoration Anglican Church (Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic) in Arlington, Virginia, a church plant of The Falls Church Anglican, where she worshipped for more than 17 years after first arriving as a Falls Church Fellow in 2002. Kate is wife to a good man and mother to their four children. Kate says, “I am so grateful for Anglicanism’s faithful witness and practices that prioritize unity and shared hope in Christ. I am excited to learn from all of the amazing ministry leaders who have built the Church into what it is today, and I’m eager to help discern and contribute to its next season of mission and growth.”
I assume Harris is bound by an NDA and so will not address in public what occurred in this situation.
16 July 26 UPDATE: Deborah Tepley said that ACNA does not use NDAs, however, they have separation agreements: "And so, like any other organization—whether business or nonprofit—we really seek to fulfill this kind of duty that we see ourselves have by protecting that sensitive information, by providing our employees when they come on board, we have an employee handbook, and that clearly explains our expectations that they, you know, kind of how they will hold this information in confidence about third parties, both during and after employment.
And like almost other—I would say virtually all other organizations—we also ask our departing employees to enter into kind of a standard separation agreement. These are not NDAs, but they're separation agreements that cover a range of matters which include compensation and kind of severance benefits. They include the return of provincial property, tax matters. And so these also include a standard confidentiality clause that requires the departing employee to preserve confidentiality of sensitive information—so, specifically information about ecclesiastical personnel, any kind of confidential disciplinary matters that they've been a part of, confidential financial information.
And so, I do want to make sure that I say this very clearly: that what the separation agreement does not do is it does not restrict any departing employee from discussing or disclosing information about wrongdoing that they've witnessed. Um, it explicitly states that nothing in the agreement is intended to limit or restrict the employee's legal rights, or to prevent the employee from discussing or disclosing information about unlawful acts—um, such as harassment or discrimination, or any other conduct that an employee has reason to believe is unlawful." END OF UPDATE
Harris is the latest in a string of resignations and firings that have occurred amongst those working misconduct in ACNA. As Father Lance Lormand pointed out, “Every person who has ever led in working misconduct in the ACNA has resigned. Think about that. Rachel Thebeau, Andrew Gross, Tiffany Butler. Every single one.” Many other names could be added to the list, such as C. Alan Runyan.
Dr. Tiffany Butler was introduced to the Province as Director of Safeguarding and Canonical Affairs in the same Provincial Letter of March 2025. She lasted nine months until January 2026, when she resigned her post. “Supporters of Ms. Butler tell Anglican.Ink she was not properly resourced by the ACNA and her work did not have the support of the church’s top leaders – leading to frustration from victim advocates and from current and former ACNA staff.” (source)
When Rachel Thebeau was fired, she wrote:
Just as the Archbishop’s letter hit your inboxes Sunday night, I received a notification in my inbox from the COO and ACNA Chancellor that they wanted to meet with me first thing Monday morning.
Given that I know this case, its history, its facts, and its evidence more comprehensively than anyone in the ACNA, I expected the call would be to hear my perspective of what happened and to discuss my willingness to continue to help. Instead, I was invited to consider my termination that day.
It struck me that the two of the people whose actions directly undermined the court process were now the same two wanting to discuss my termination. Oh, the irony! In the real world, the judge would be disciplined for judicial misconduct and those who gave him improper access to a party’s files would be fired and disciplined.
When Runyan resigned, he wrote:
I believe that full transparency is in the best interests of the entire ACNA and this trial record and full transcript, subject to redaction of the names of victims and witnesses, should be disclosed to the Church. Because the entire process likely will be threatened by false narratives about the prosecution and the defenses against it, the entire record including everything submitted to the Court since this prosecution began should be made available to the ACNA, its churches and members.
Meanwhile, the Court for the Trial of a Bishop in the case of Archbishop Wood stated, “The Court asks the faithful to refrain from speculation and public contention, and instead to pray for all involved…”—A request that seems absurd given the constant misdeeds of the denomination and its leadership.
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