Clergy and Staff
The Rev. Dr. Paul Jacobson, Missional Priest
Paul Jacobson has served the Church as a pastor, musician, educator, and writer for more than forty years. As a musician, he has served parishes in more than a half-dozen denominational traditions.
A native Midwesterner, he received a BA in Music (Organ Performance) at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. He was a George Marshall Fellow at The Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, studying with Grethe Krogh (organ) and Dan-Olof Stenlund (choral conducting). Dr. Jacobson earned dual Master’s degrees in Organ Performance and Religion through the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music, where he studied organ with Gerre Hancock and Charles Krigbaum. He has taught at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul (MN), and the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (CA).
His PhD is from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where his dissertation focused on liturgical history in the Early Middle Ages. He has served as the Minister of Music & Organist at Fairfield’s First Church Congregational since August 2016.
An ordained Priest in the Episcopal Church, he has served parishes in New Jersey and Connecticut. In June 2018, he was called to be the Missional Priest in Charge at Grace Episcopal Church in Trumbull. He is also a Chaplain at the Greater Bridgeport Community Mental Health Center.
Karen Behar, Bookkeeper
Karen did her MBA in Accounting and Finance at Pace University. She has worked in accounting for large international companies and as a bookkeeper for small family owned businesses and more recently not-for-profits. She has twenty years of experience that includes work on accounting systems migration, development of reports for man-agement decision-making and preparation of materials for Church Treasurers, Chief Ex-ecutive Officers, and external auditors. She, her husband and their sixteen year old son have lived in Norwalk for the past 20 years.
