Ministers

Hello to Parishioners of Island Chapel, Upper Saranac Lake , NY. 

 With hope and joy Island Chapel, Upper Saranac Lake, NY will be opening this summer 2026.    Church services will begin at 10 am with a selection of ecumenical services, each Sunday a different clergyman.  It is truly a special place of peace.  Know we are thinking of you, and we hope you are of us. We look forward to another great year at the chapel for summer 2026 Season.   Thank you and Peace be with you!

Ministers for the 2026 Summer Season

June 28 ,2026 Andrew Culp
Andrew Culp serves as the Executive Director for The Anvil Academy, and alongside his wife, Katie, and their children, has cherished summers on Upper Saranac Lake for the past three decades. Andrew and Katie enjoyed years of leading high peaks wilderness trips with Camp Forestcraft in Gilpin Bay, while more recently serving on the pastoral staff of The Parish, an Anglican Church in Alpharetta, GA. Andrew has worshipped at Island Chapel since the early 2000s and is grateful for the opportunity to teach and serve within the chapel community this summer.

July 5, 2026 Rev. Dr. Colin Tuggle
Rev. Dr. Colin Tuggle pastors the Tupper Lake United Community Church. He is also the founder and executive director of ADK Mission: a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works across denominations to strengthen local churches and ministries (ADKMission.org). Colin was born and raised in southeastern New York, and his family has owned property outside Tupper Lake for nearly 60 years. He served in the military and business before transitioning to full-time vocational ministry in 2006. Colin and his wife, Lisa, have lived with their children in Saranac Lake since 2013.

July 12,2026 Bruce McCulley Rev. Bruce Pastor- High Peaks Church
Bruce has lived in the Saranac Lake region most of his life.  In 2012, after a 31-year career at Whiteface Mountain Ski Center, he started his second vocation and was ordained as Pastor of High Peaks Church in Saranac Lake, where he currently serves. Bruce has also ministered to the body of Christ in prison for over 20 years. The joy of assembling with the church to worship Christ is his great passion.  Bruce and his wife Zoe enjoy mountain biking, skiing and outdoor recreation. They have one college age son Micah.

July 19,2026 Derek Hansen
Derek Hansen and his wife Becky met at family church camp as junior-high students and have been serving in ministry together for over 15 years. They have three children – Liam, Sam, and Hollis. Pastor Derek is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and currently pastors Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid and First United Methodist Church of Saranac Lake. He loves preaching and teaching, leading the church in mission, and seeing people’s lives transformed by God’s grace. Pastor Derek is a Western New York native and long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan. He enjoys spending time with his family, watching and playing sports, playing video games, and walking in the woods with the family’s energetic springer spaniel.

July 26,2026 Nathanial Van Yperen
Nathaniel Van Yperen is a teacher and department chair of Religion at The Pennington School. He earned a MDiv, Th.M. and Ph.D. (Religion and Society) at Princeton Theological Seminary. Nate’s writing has appeared in Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, Wild Roof Journal, The Common, The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and The Land Speaks: New Voices at the Intersection of Oral and Environmental History (Oxford, 2017). He is the author of Gratitude for the Wild: Christian Ethics in the Wilderness (Lexington Books, 2019).  Nate lives in central New Jersey with his wife, Dr. Elaine James, their two boys, Hank and Forest, an impolite dog named Hayduke, and several backyard chickens. A proud 46er, Nate has spent part of every year of his life in the Adirondacks. He has visited family on Upper Saranac Lake for more than twenty years. 

August 2, 2026 Stuart Smith ECUSA
Rev. Charles S. Smith (Chuck) was ordained in 1990 and has served churches in Connecticut, Long Island, and five churches in St. Lawrance County, NY. For 21 years Fater Chuck was a chaplain in four NYS facilities. Currently he is the Board President for Grace House, a transitional housing ministry for women in recovery. He serves on the Executive Board of the NYS Council of Churches, chairing the Commission on Chaplaincy; which recruits and certifies clergy to be Chaplains for the NYS Department 0f Corrections. And Father Chuck has recently made several mission trips to India, drilling wells for tribal churches and doing ministry with the Church of South India.

August 9, 2026 Rev. Dr. Renée Tembeckjian
The Rev. Dr. Renée Tembeckjian is the Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, New York. Prior to this, she served on the bishop’s staff as Diocesan Director of Spiritual Formation, as well as Pediatric Chaplain at Golisano Children’s Hospital.  Renée is a licensed psychologist in longtime clinical practice, and frequent presenter on topics in psychological and spiritual health.  A Manhattan native, her personal interests range widely in the arts, sciences. and baseball!   Renée lives in Manlius with husband, Thomas Zino, and they have two sons, James, William, and new daughter-in-law, Murui!   

August 16, 2026 Dennis Lowe
Dennis has served Ukrainian Orthodox, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and independent churches in the American South and in Northern New York, as well as being trained in the Episcopal Church.  He currently serves Lake Clear (Adirondack) Presbyterian Church.  He and his wife moved to the Potsdam area when she finished her doctorate and became professor of bassoon at the Crane School of Music, nearly 20 years ago.   He is also a musician, playing professionally since 1977, including two enlistments with the US Army as a multi-instrumentalist, playing trombone, guitar, bass, euphonium, and as a vocalist.  This has come in handy on rare days when Lake Clear’s organist can’t make it to church Sunday morning, due to the weather.  He and his wife share their home with two dogs and three cats.

August 23, 2026 Rev. Joann White
Joann White is a writer, pastor, spiritual director, and enthusiast of wild places. She is a graduate of Colgate University, McCormick Theological Seminary, the Institute for Spiritual Leadership, and Pittsburgh Seminary’s innovative doctoral program in creative writing and public theology. Since 2005, she has pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake. When she isn’t at church, you might find her wandering the local trails with her husband Duane Keith Gould and their Cardigan corgis Gybi and Teilo. Her 2021 book Blest Be the Tie: Fables of Faith from the Far North is available from Amazon, Wipf and Stock, and area bookstores.

August 30, 2026 Rev. Amanda Cash
Rev. Amanda Cash has been a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene since 2004, and was ordained in 2009. She studied at Asbury University and Nazarene Theological Seminary, and has spent time in youth ministry, church planting, and senior pastoral leadership in the local church. She and her husband, Daniel, moved to the Adirondacks with their two older children in 2012 and their third child was born right here in Saranac Lake in 2015. Amanda is currently serving in ministry at Adirondack Community Church in Lake Placid as the Director of Discipleship. When not serving the church, Amanda and her family love to be active outdoors mountain biking, skiing, and enjoying all the Adirondacks have to offer.

Jack VanYperen

 Minister Coordinator