N. Graham Standish

The Rev. Dr. Graham Standish has been the executive director of Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting since November 2017. He led it through a process to adopt a new vision and oversaw an organizational restructuring that enabled Samaritan to grow from 5000 to 13,000+ counseling sessions per year, while expanding its growth of satellites throughout Western Pennsylvania.

He is also the director of Samaritan’s Caring for Clergy and Congregations program, and has grown it from a small operation offering mostly clergy counseling, to one providing:

· One-on-one clergy coaching and spiritual direction with regional, national, and international clients.

· Small clergy groups devoted to developing healthier leadership.

· Two workshops a year on congregational health and transformation.

· Consultations with churches and judicatories leading to healthy transformation and growth.

He is an experienced teacher, retreat leader, and speaker, having led hundreds of conferences and workshops nationally and internationally over the past 25 years, and has 30 years of experience as a spiritual director, and 20 as a clergy coach.

Prior to his work at Samaritan, he served for 22 years as senior pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, a church that doubled in attendance and nearly tripled in membership. The church garnered national attention in several studies for its innovative work in adopting a spiritual approach to congregational revitalization, including being a prominent research subject in Diana Butler-Bass’ ground-breaking book, Christianity for the Rest of Us. His experience in growing churches based on discernment and spiritual growth is the foundation of his work with clergy and churches. Nine members of the Calvin Church have gone into ministry.

Before his ministry at Calvin Church, Graham served as a therapist in a psychiatric hospital with teens and children, in a pastoral counseling agency, for a drug and alcohol agency, as an associate pastor at a growing church in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, and served an internship as a hospital chaplain.

Graham earned a Ph.D. and Master of Arts in formative spirituality from Duquesne University; a Master of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh; and a Master of Divinity from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He has an undergraduate degree in psychology from Roanoke College in Virginia.

Graham has authored ten books, contributed to 5 others, and has written numerous articles on the topics of spirituality, spiritual direction, and spirituality in congregations, as well as Op-Eds for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Graham has been an adjunct professor for Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program and its Certificate in Spiritual Formation Program, and for Tyndale Theological Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, focusing in the areas of spirituality and congregational leadership.