Today’s post is the third in a series of posts that will help us better know the folks that we worship with each week. In each post, we’ll play Q&A with a member of the church.

Aaron Damiani

1. Can you share a short bio with us?

I grew up in northeastern Ohio, and moved to Chicago as a college student. I soon discovered that I was an urbanite, and spent a decade there before moving to DC in July 2008. My time in Chicago included theological study at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton Graduate School, marrying Laura, work as a marriage conference coordinator, and ministry as a live-in college chaplain.

2.  How long have you attended Rez?

My first Sunday at Rez was a traumatic experience. It was July 6, 2008. Laura and I moved to DC days before, and we felt very disoriented. Sammy was 13 days old, our life was in boxes, and I was without a job. We came to Rez knowing it would be our church family, but on that Sunday, everybody was a stranger. This hardship ended up being a gracious act of God for our family, and its impact shaped my approach towards ordained ministry.

3.  When did you start following Christ?  What have been some of the spiritual turning points in your life?

My first memorable encounter with Christ was at five years of age, when my Father explained the Gospel to me via the “bridge illustration.” After praying with him, I proceeded to share the bridge illustration with my neighborhood buddies. Later, I told them that Santa Claus didn’t exist, which did not go well at all.

During my undergraduate years, I went through a difficult season of spiritual and intellectual doubt. It turns out that understanding of God was sincere but inconsistent. God had a unique way of letting me walk through that intellectual and spiritual valley without letting me go, and he reconstituted my faith in the process.

In graduate school, I finally experienced what some call “the second naivety,” where my interpretation of the Bible moved beyond critical thoughtfulness to a fresh encounter with the living God to whom my studies were bearing witness. In those formative years, the leaders of my local church (also called Church of the Resurrection) patterned a rich life of prayer, worship, and ministry that I gradually inherited.  These years served as the foundation for my path towards ordination.

4.  What was your childhood nickname(s)?

Most of my nicknames are variations of my last name, which is easy to turn into a curse word. The family friendly nicknames I’ve picked up over the years include “Dam” (rhymes with “Rahm”) and “Trapper-Keeper.”

5.  Tell us a little about your day job.  (What kinds of things are you responsible for at Rez?)

Along with the other pastors, I share the responsibility for preaching, pastoral care, and liturgical leadership. I also give oversight to the prayer ministry, children’s ministry, and discipleship. In this capacity, I help provide vision and support to our Rezgroups, Triads, and our Men’s and Women’s ministries.

No two days are alike, but I often work closely with fellow pastors Matthew Mason and Dan Clare. We are always collaborating on projects, sermons, and personal/pastoral growth.

6.  What kinds of things do you do with your free time?

I love spending time with my family. On my days off, we are usually playing tee-ball in the back yard or taking family outings to the National Arboretum. I covet my uninterrupted time with Laura. I also enjoy running, listening to lectures, reading, and talking on the phone with my good friends.

7.  When you see me on Sunday nights, you should ask me about:

Ask me why Kierkegaard was neither a philosopher, nor a theologian, nor an existentialist. Ask me about the comedic Zen that influences the show 30 Rock (and why it’s so hard to duplicate). I am always happy to talk shop about the next Congressional election and what makes Chicago a great city to visit.

8. What are some of your hopes for the future of the church?

I hope that our church becomes a place known for gospel-shaped transformation. Specifically, I have hope that our church becomes a place where men come to learn how to initiate, protect, and lead others in life-giving ways. It’s hard to underestimate the positive influence this would have on our families, our church, and our city. Additionally, I hope we continue to plant healthy churches at every Metro stop, and become known for being the most sacrificial and loving citizens of DC.

9. What is your dream job?

Obnoxious cable news pundit (ask my wife about this).

10.  How long have you been married?  Tell us a little bit about how you met your spouse.

Laura and I will celebrate 7 years of marriage this April. We started dating 8 years ago, after a mutual friend invited us out to lunch. I knew on our first date that I wanted to marry Laura, but I kept that to myself for a while. My motto in winning her over was “slow and steady wins the race.” It turns out that this is also true in pastoral ministry.

11.  Tell us a bit about your kids.

Gus is looking forward to celebrating his 4th birthday at “Toot Toots,” a Chicago-area restaurant that delivers kid food on a train. Gus enjoys collecting rocks, riding his bike, cooking, wielding tools, and asking uncomfortable questions about God. Sammy will turn 2 in June. He is an intensely strong child that can walk into any house and demonstrate where it needs to be baby-proofed. Sammy loves books and songs, and frequently demands that we read or sing to him. He entertains himself during church by making eyes with the people sitting in the pew behind us.

Today’s post is the second in a series of posts that will help us better know the folks that we worship with each week. In each post, we’ll play Q&A with a member of the church.

Matthew Mason


1. Can you share a short bio with us?
Throughout my life, I’ve moved fairly regularly, so I’ve never been sure how to answer the question, “Where are you from?” Since moving to DC, it’s been easier: I’m from England. I studied Music at Manchester University, and then theology at Oak Hill Theological College, in London. I then served for just over four years as curate (assistant pastor) of St John’s, a Church of England church in Tunbridge Wells, just south of London. I found out about Rez via a listserve I’m on, and contacted Dan. Annabel and I visited DC in June, loved what we saw, and couldn’t wait to join the staff at Rez.

2. How long have you attended Rez?
Since November 7, 2009.

3. When did you start following Christ? What have been some of the spiritual turning points in your life? Do you have a favorite bible verse?
I was born in a Christian family, and was baptized when I was two months old. As I grew up, I never doubted the truth of the gospel, but for a number of years in my teens, I had no interest in following Christ. When I was 20, at university, the Lord brought me back to himself, largely through the faithful prayers and Christian witness of my parents.

4. What is your favorite hymn / praise song? Why?
For All the Saints. It’s a great hymn (11 verses in all!) about Christ’s faithfulness to his people, our place in the fight of faith alongside the church throughout history, and our great hope of joining them in glory, singing praise to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

5. What was your childhood nickname(s)?
This may be an example of selective memory, but I don’t remember any until we started learning French at school. From that time on, one of my friends only ever called me “C’est une”. I’ll leave you to work out why.

7. Tell us a little about your day job / studies.
In addition to preaching and one-to-one pastoring, I’m responsible for Rez’s evangelism, and our new adult education programme.

8. What kinds of things do you do with your free time?
Mostly, I like spending time with my family, and we’re especially enjoying making the most of the great museums in DC. I also edit a theological journal, and enjoy reading novels, biography, and poetry. I tend to take on (in the privacy of my head!) the character of the person I’m reading about, so for the past few weeks, I’ve been Churchill, standing alone for freedom in the early 1940s! Now I’m consumed with the rage of Achilles.

9. When you see me on Sunday nights, you should ask me about:
Why the comic novels of P. G. Wodehouse represent the high water mark of Western literature; how to pronounce schedule, tomato, and Birmingham; how to spell colour, programme, and cheque; what to call the season that follows summer; why the biblically mandated form of government is monarchy.

10. What are some of your hopes for the future of the church?
Psalm 119 tells us that wisdom, understanding, maturity, freedom, life, and happiness come from saturation in and obedience to God’s Word. So, in order that we might flourish in every aspect of our lives together, I long above all for us to be a community of learners in the school of Scripture.

11. What is your dream job?
Opening the bowling for the England cricket team in the next Ashes series against Australia.

12. How long have you been married? Tell us a little bit about how you met your spouse.
Annabel and I have been married for 11 years. We met as students at Manchester University, through mutual friends. I particularly remember long walks to the cinema each week.

13. Tell us a bit about your kids.
Tabitha is 6. She loves playing with her younger sister, dressing up, doing maths, playing the piano, and ballet. Evie is not quite 4. She loves playing with her older sister (thankfully!), dressing up, and ballet. She’s a natural entertainer, and loves nothing better than making us laugh.

Today’s post is the first in a series of posts that will help us better know the folks that we worship with each week. In each post, we’ll play Q&A with a member of the church.

Dan Claire

1. Can you share a short bio with us?
Dan Claire is a fifth-generation Floridian who moved to the District of Columbia in 1999 to lead in the development of theological education programs for metro Washington. Dan went to college and medical school at the University of Florida. He completed ministerial training at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, and is a PhD candidate at the Catholic University of America. Dan is married to Elise, and they have four children.

2. How long have you attended Rez?
We have been part of Resurrection from the very beginning. We began a new church in our living room during the summer of 2002. After struggling for six months, we decided to make some changes and restart in 2003. We began having monthly ‘Taste and See’ meetings at our house in 2003. We moved into another home near Key Bridge during Advent 2003 and began holding weekly worship services at that time. We started meeting at Christ our Shepherd on Capitol Hill on Ash Wednesday, 2004.


3. When did you start following Christ? What have been some of the spiritual turning points in your life? Do you have a favorite bible verse?
I was raised in a Christian home, by parents who know and love God, and taught me to do the same. During my childhood we moved several times, and with each move we joined a new local church. Through these moves, I experienced quite a lot of diversity in the churches we visited and attended. In college, as a young man with many unanswered questions, I found myself leading a campus ministry in moral and spiritual chaos, and through this experience I learned firsthand that beliefs have consequences. It was at this time that an older brother in Christ took me under his wing and began to disciple me in the faith. Over a period of seven years, he taught me how to dig deep into the Scriptures, and to shape my life accordingly as a follower of Jesus.
Elise and I got married in 1994 while I was in medical school at the University of Florida. During the summer of 1995, on the occasion of our first anniversary, we set aside a day for prayer and fasting, and it was during this time that the Lord clearly led us both in a new direction. I would leave medicine and trust God to take care of us financially. He promised that he would show us what to do next. When we returned from celebrating our anniversary, I withdrew from medical school, and spent several months resting and waiting on the Lord. It was a rich, peaceful season of growth for us as a young couple and for me as a disciple of Jesus.
In the summer of 1996, God opened many doors so that I could attend Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. We took a position as the resident managers of the newly opened Ronald McDonald House of Orlando, where we lived and cared for families with children in medical need. In providing us with housing, jobs, money, and direction, God was keeping the promises he had made to us the prior summer.
I inherited from my mom a love for Proverbs 3:5-6, and when I look back over my life, I see the truth of this verse confirmed again and again. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.”

4. What is your favorite hymn / praise song? Why?
I love ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.’ I love the line ‘Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love,’ followed immediately by the offering of my heart to God. It’s a great hymn of thanksgiving, confession, faith and hope.


5. What was your childhood nickname(s)?
As a little boy I was “Danny” to most everyone. By the time I got to Kindergarten, I was too cool for Danny.

6. Tell us a little about your day job / studies.
In addition to preaching and pastoral counseling, I am responsible for the leadership of the parish, including leading the staff and parish council. I am the liaison between our congregation and our bishop, Thad Barnum, and I serve on the executive team of our regional body, the Northeast Network. I also lead in the combined pastoral meetings of our three local churches, and work to promote collaboration as much as possible. I also lead our urban ministry council. With so many activities and ministries, there are quite a few administrative needs, and I tend to be the ultimate troubleshooter. I love leading in worship and ministry, studying the Word, and pastoral counseling. As with most pastors, I would love to be free of many administrative responsibilities.

7. What kinds of things do you do with your free time?
In my free time, I play with my kids, get caught up with my wife, make improvements on our house, work on a PhD dissertation, watch the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, enjoy good IPAs, and play board games. If I had more time, I would ride my bike and play guitar in an 80’s cover band.

8. When you see me on Sunday nights, you should ask me about:
On Sunday nights, please ask me for a concise explanation of the dual nature of Christ. If there’s time, I suggest you follow up with the problem of evil, and perhaps the free will/predestination debate. (This is why we hired Matthew Mason.)


9. What are some of your hopes for the future of the church?
I would love to see the people in our church play a role in addressing some of the systemic problems of Washington. If housing and quality education became affordable, it would be a lot more feasible for people to put down roots and raise their families here. We decry the “brain drain” in the developing world as the brightest and best come to the West, and yet there is a similar phenomenon here in the District. In both cases, it is at enormous cost to the Kingdom of God. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our concern for the city resulted in it becoming a better place to live, and as a result, Washingtonians gave thanks to the God we serve?

10. What is your dream job?
Sometimes I dream about working in agriculture or construction or some other field in which I could work with my hands and at the end of the day, or season, see the fruit of my labors. But most of the time I’m very content to be a church-planting pastor leading a vibrant church in a global city. It’s a dream job, though I would like to see the fruit of my work a little more often.

11. How long have you been married? Tell us a little bit about how you met your spouse.
We are approaching 16 years of marriage. We met in 1993 at the wedding reception of a mutual friend, at a table piled three feet high with shrimp. I asked Elise if I could get her a drink, and she said yes, so long as it wasn’t alcoholic or caffeinated or carbonated. She was Anglican, and this was her Lenten vow, though she didn’t tell me at the time. I got her a cup of water and we talked for quite a long time. I asked for her address, and we wrote letters to one another for several months before we started dating. We married about a year after our first date, on June 25, 1994, when I was 24 and she was 22.

13. Tell us a bit about your kids.
The day after I turned 30, Annelise was born at Georgetown University Hospital, as have all of her other siblings. She is nine years old, and loves reading and drawing and dolls. She’s a night owl and loves to sleep late in the mornings. She is named after Elise’s mother, Anne Taber, and Elise, of course.
Joseph will turn eight on March 10. He is named after both of my grandfathers, OJ Claire and Joe Stidham. His middle name, Ransom, comes from the protagonist in the Space Trilogy by C S Lewis. Joseph wakes up at 6 am daily, and often has finished his math schoolwork and his chores before his older sister wakes up. Joseph loves to play with other boys 24/7; he likes legos and video games and other fun boy stuff.
Vivian is five. She is named after my maternal grandmother. Vivian loves animals, and would much prefer to play dogs instead of dolls. When Vivian grows up, she will settle for becoming a veterinarian if she can’t become a dog.
Lucia is three. She was born on “a dark and stormy night,” but her eyes were wide open, and she so lit up the room that we gave her the name Lucia. Her first name is Margaret, as is Elise’s, who also was the fourth-born child in a series of girl-boy-girl-girl. Lucia loves candy, chocolate, chocolate milk, milk and honey, sweet cereal, cherry lip gloss, donuts, cookies, and ice cream. She also likes to wake up early with her brother and help make coffee.