Kelsey Rice Bogdan
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Kelsey Rice Bogdan (she/her/hers), a Life Together fellow from 2009-2010, has served on Life Together's staff since 2015. Kelsey is passionate about the ways in which God is calling the Church to be a prophetic voice of transformation in the 21st century, and has sought to build up that movement through a variety of young adult ministry and leadership development roles. Following her year as a fellow, Kelsey worked for nearly five more years in the Stewardship Office at her site placement, Trinity Church in the City of Boston. In addition, she was one of the founding board members of the Boston Food Justice Young Adult Volunteer program in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Kelsey’s commitment to young adult ministry began as an intern with the National Network of Presbyterian College Women in Louisville, KY.
A native of central Washington State, Kelsey holds degrees from Whitworth University and Harvard Divinity School. Kelsey is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Brookline, MA, where she has served in both congregational and regional leadership roles. She lives north of Boston with her partner and two sons. Favorite things include traveling near and far, dancing poorly to 90s pop music, and watching her son play baseball on a warm spring morning.
Lydia Strand
Prayer Partner and wellness coordinator
Lydia Strand (she/they) is an organizer, spiritual director, facilitator, leadership coach, and a Life Together alum (2013-2015). Over the last ten years, her work and passion has been at the intersection of contemplative spirituality and social movement organizing – learning about and experimenting in the symbiotic transformations at the personal level and at the systemic and structural levels. She has moved between local and national organizing on pressing social issues (specifically worker rights, anti-sexual violence, and reproductive freedom) and the development of communities to make fertile grounds for spiritual and intellectual paradigm shifts. She’s lived in intentional communities in Boston since 2014 and loves reading, going to the farmers market, and biking.