Our Leadership
Our Leadership
Seattle First Baptist has a long tradition of empowering and inviting leadership of diverse backgrounds. In our community, we are served by a Pastoral Leadership team, dedicated staff members, and a robust lay leadership who serve both on our Diaconate (like a board) and in the various committees and task forces who manage the various areas of ministry in our community.
Clergy
Rev. Anita Peebles
Pastor
Rev. Anita Peebles (she/her/hers) began her ministry with Seattle First Baptist in July 2018. She graduated with a Masters of Divinity at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. in May of 2018 with the project “Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me: Non-Traumatizing Alternatives to Atonement Theology for Early Christian Education.” She was ordained April 15, 2018 by Glendale Baptist Church, an Alliance of Baptists affiliated congregation.
Anita was born and raised in Michigan, where her family still lives. She completed her undergraduate education in Religion and Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in northeast Ohio with a final project entitled “Ecotheology and the Parables of Jesus: Creative Re-readings of Parables In Light of the Environmental Crisis.”
Anita is a contributor to Growing in God’s Love: A Storybook Bible (John Knox 2018), Deep Blue Sunday School curriculum (UMC), and Journeys (ABC Judson Press). Anita serves on the board of directors for the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America~Bautistas por la Paz. For sabbath time, Anita finds restoration in gardening, writing, kayaking and singing.
Phone: 206.325.6051 x106 | Email:
Rev. Leigh Curl-Dove
Pastor
Rev. Leigh Curl-Dove (she/her/hers) began her ministry at Seattle First Baptist in October 2023. She was born and raised in Memphis, TN, and attended Baylor University where she earned a B.A. in Religion with a concentration in church history. She then attended Duke University Divinity School where she received a Master of Divinity with a certificate in Baptist Studies and a concentration in preaching. Leigh was ordained October 4, 2020, by Wilshire Baptist Church, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists congregation.
Leigh has served in various pastoral roles in churches in Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas. She has also worked in the non-profit world for a refugee resettlement agency. Additionally, Leigh has contributed articles to Baptist News Global and The Welcome Table, and to the Connections curriculum for Smyth and Helwys Publishers.
Leigh loves women’s soccer and basketball, good food, and spending time outside—hiking, fly fishing, and camping—with her husband Keith and their dog Bells.
Email:
Staff
DARREN HOCHSTEDLER
Church Administrator
Darren Hochstedler joined the staff of Seattle First Baptist as our Church Administrator in January 2016.
Darren has extensive experience in church administration, most recently serving as administrator at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church for nearly 10 years. He also brings his knowledge from a previous career in theater management and lighting and set design.
Phone: 206.325.6051 x102 | Email:
CHRISTINA SUNSTONE
Office Manager and Small Groups Coordinator
Christina Sunstone is a Pacific Northwest native with a professional background both in teaching and church administration. She is recently returned from Bratislava, Slovakia, where she lived and taught English at a bilingual high school and became very fond of sheep-milk cheese, Slovak wines, and the sweet, smart, goofy students she taught there. Christina manages the SFBC office and supports and coordinates small group ministries, which have been an important part of her own faith journey.
BEN LUEDCKE
Minister of Music
Ben Luedcke is the choir director at Seattle First Baptist Church in downtown Seattle and was recently promoted as the new Minister of Music. In addition to directing the choir, Ben coordinates special music and congregational singing, as well as organizes outsides collaborations and musical outreach. He is currently finishing his Doctorate of Musical Arts at University of Washington, studying with Dr. Geoffrey Boers and Dr. Giselle Wyers, and he has held teaching positions in the choral, musicology, and English departments. Ben was recently appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Bellevue Chamber Chorus.
Before moving to Washington, Ben was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Monmouth College and also served as faculty at Grinnell College. Ben is known in Madison, Wisconsin for several of his startup organizations: he was the co-founder and director of Voces Aestatis, a Wisconsin-based professional choir that specialized in the a cappella repertoire of the sixteenth century. Likewise, Ben was the founder and artistic director of Madison Summer Choir, a community chorus that performed large orchestral works. Ben completed his Masters of Arts in choral conducting at the University of Iowa where he studied with Dr. Timothy Stalter, and he holds a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Vanessa, and their two dogs, Luthor and Oona.
CHRISTIAN J. BROUGHTON
Organist and Communications Manager
Born in Tacoma, WA, Christian J. Broughton was reluctant for many years to learn the art of organ playing. Though he grew up hearing a number of great pipe organs, he was content to keep his musical training focused on the piano. He began his studies in piano at age 5 in the Suzuki program at the University of Puget Sound, eventually studying in more traditional methods with Annette Klover and later JoAnn Geller in Rome, NY. It was not until he started his studies at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester that he finally gave in to learning a second keyboard instrument. There, he studied organ with Dr. Dianne Maynard-Christensen, piano with Julie Runion, and graduated in 2012 with a B.S. in Graphic Design and Photography with a minor in music. He then went on to become Director of Music at Zion Episcopal Church in Rome, NY, and began what became 7 important years of organ study with Steve Best in Utica. In 2016, he additionally took on the role of organist and choir director at First Baptist, Rome. From 2017 to 2022, he served as Director of Music at Christ Church, Episcopal in Cooperstown, NY. Moving back home to the Pacific Northwest this past August, he has now taken on the dual roles of Organist and Communications Manager at Seattle First Baptist Church. Christian also serves as a committee member of the Special Projects Advisory Commission (SPAC) for the Seattle chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO).
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