Kenda Dean is an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference and Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she works closely with the Institute for Youth Ministry. She hails from a family of Ohio farmers and Kentucky coal miners, but Kenda and her sister grew up primarily as P.K.s (“politician’s kids”), thanks to their dad’s career in the Ohio legislature, which introduced them to theological concepts like election(s), vocation, and the salutary benefits of White Castle. In off-election years, her mom and dad were both teachers (her dad was her high school government teacher and debate coach, and her mom taught third grade). When Kenda was fifteen, she attended a church camp on Lake Erie that pretty much changed everything.
A graduate of Miami University (Ohio) and Wesley Theological Seminary, Kenda served as a pastor in suburban Washington, DC and campus minister at the University of Maryland-College Park before earning her doctorate in practical theology/Christian education from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1997. She and her husband Kevin are the ridiculously proud parents of Brendan, a senior in college, and Shannon, a senior in High School. Her current guilty pleasures include the TV show “Glee” and digging her toes into the sand in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
