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 heavenly Father as a five-year-old in an Assemblies of God church in the greater Pittsburgh area. In the 32 years since, He has brought her on an adventure of coming into an ever fuller knowledge and love of Him. She hasn’t arrived yet.
For a season during her years earning a B.A. in sociology from Grove City College, God inspired her to wear a pearl necklace nonstop as a reminder that she was His beloved and precious daughter.
Various seasons of struggle have hewn in Melissa deep wells of compassion and empathy. God has especially given her a heart for those on the fringes of Christ’s church. 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 the community life administrator, her favorite job yet.
After a long friendship, she and her husband, TJ, 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
Born into a Christian family, Matt spent his formative years in Kentucky, where he first felt a nudge from the Lord in his teenage years to devote his life to serving Christ’s church. After completing a degree in Christian thought at Grove City College, he encountered the grace and love of Jesus afresh while doing camping ministry at HoneyRock of Wheaton College in the north woods of Wisconsin. Matt developed a passion for helping people encounter Jesus in an experiential way.
Married to Kate in 2011, he served in ministry at the Christian International School of Prague, Cup EPC in Chippewa, Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, and the Anglican Parish of Christ the Redeemer in Canonsburg. Meanwhile, he completed an M.Div. at Trinity Anglican Seminary and began discerning church orders.
Having long felt an interest in bi-vocational ministry, Matt entered the home renovation industry in 2020, and started his own business in 2022. He has discerned a call to the vocational diaconate while serving alongside the brothers and sisters at Redeemer Canonsburg. Matt is excited to continue to see families and friends encounter Christ’s transforming love together in genuine fellowship that is centered in prayerful engagement with His Word and sacraments. Matt and Kate live in Canonsburg with their children Liam, Silas, Elisabeth, and Esther.
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.