The Reverend Jennifer Melnyk-Deaton is Rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Indianola, and Vicar at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Leland, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, where summer sounds like crop-dusters, combines, and cicadas, and there’s always someone singing the blues. She came up to the Delta from Jackson after serving more than ten years as Canon for Pastoral Care at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Jennifer grew up singing in church choirs, serving as an acolyte, and going to youth group at Episcopal churches in South Carolina and Tennessee.

She earned a B.A. in Religion at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she sang in the touring Concert Choir and at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip. Jennifer has a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology from the University of Mississippi, and earned her M.Div. from the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where she worked in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd under Dr. David Hurd.

Jennifer’s husband, Charlie, is Rector at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Clarksdale, Mississippi. They met over a shared fondness for Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo.