God willing, the Right Reverend Alex Whitcomb Cameron, bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, will ordain Melissa Amber Patton, Matthew Scott Ulrich, Thomas Andrew Verner, and Ryan Christopher Wise to the Order of Deacons on Saturday, the sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-six at ten o’clock in the morning.
The service will take place at Trinity Anglican Seminary‘s Trophimus Center, located at 823 Maplewood Ave, Ambridge, PA 15003. The Rev. Ethan Magness, rector of Grace Anglican Church in Grove City, will preach.
All are invited to the ordination service and a reception to follow. Clergy are asked to vest and process, wearing red stoles.
Parking Information
There is a small parking lot at the Trophimus Center, which you can enter from 9th Street, between Maplewood Avenue and Kennedy Drive.
An additional parking lot is available at Trinity Anglican Seminary at 311 11th Street, Ambridge, PA 15003, and another at Park Road Park off Park Rd. between 6th and 7th Streets. Street parking is available on Merchant Street. The residents of Maplewood Avenue have asked us to avoid parking on that road.
Melissa Amber Patton
Melissa met our loving Father, Lord Jesus, and comforter Holy Spirit as a five-year-old in an Assemblies of God church in the Pittsburgh area. In the 32 years since then God has brought her on an adventure of coming into a fuller knowledge and love of God. She hasn’t arrived yet.
During her years earning a B.A. in sociology from Grove City College, she wore a pearl necklace for weeks on end, a symbol of her identity as a beloved daughter of the King of the universe.
Various seasons of struggle have hewn in her deep wells of compassion and empathy. Over the years, she has trained as a Stephen minister and has worked as a peer advocate in community mental health, but most recently God has called her to the diaconate.
Soon after graduating with an M.Div. from Trinity Anglican Seminary in 2025, Melissa started working there as an administrator in the community life division, her favorite job yet.
She and her husband, TJ, share the same birthday. After a long friendship, they married in September 2024. They proudly attend Mosaic Anglican Church in Imperial and live in Aliquippa, right across the bridge from the seminary.
Matthew Scott Ulrich
Thomas Andrew Verner
Born in Kentucky and raised in western Pennsylvania, Thomas has been a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ. In high school, he first perceived a call to ordained ministry. After graduating from Grove City College, he attended an Anglican parish and powerfully encountered the beauty and truth of the gospel through prayer book worship. Raised within the United Methodist Church, he was inspired by the connection to the liturgy and tradition that nourished John Wesley to investigate Anglicanism and eventually to follow God’s calling to holy orders within the Anglican Church in North America. Transferring from Asbury Theological Seminary, Thomas graduated from Trinity Anglican Seminary with a Master of Divinity in 2023.
Currently, Thomas is blessed to serve as lay minister to two Global Methodist congregations outside Brookville, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife Katie and their two daughters, Vivienne and Lilienne. Thomas’ greatest delight is to encounter God’s love and work in the world, by studying Holy Scripture and prayer, discussing theology with friends and family, and by proclaiming the gospel both within and outside the parish.
Ryan Christopher Wise
Ryan grew up in western Pennsylvania and has lived here most of his life. He and his wife Marlene (another native western Pennsylvanian) have raised three boys in the house Ryan was born in, making his sons the seventh generation of his family to live in that house.
Ryan has taught at a Christian school for 14 years across several subject areas, including English, philosophy, and theology. Though he was raised in a non-denominational church, Ryan’s studies and experiences over the past decade gradually drew him to the beauty and depth of the Anglican tradition. He and Marlene were confirmed in 2024.
During a season of change in his life earlier that same year, Ryan and several others began to discern a call to help plant a new Anglican church in the Zelienople area. Holy Trinity Anglican Zelienople began meeting in the fall of 2024 and now gathers weekly. Ryan is incredibly excited to see what plans God has for him in ministry and for Holy Trinity as a church.