About City & Spire

About Stephen V. Schneider

Stephen V. Schneider, the principal of City & Spire, has been a community organizer, an urban educator, and for over thirty years an Episcopal priest serving congregations in the Portland, Oregon area.

From 1994-2014 he was the Rector of Grace Memorial Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon. Along with preaching and teaching he led Grace through a sustained time of growth and revitalization which resulted in a range of new ministries in the arts, faith formation and education, social action and service, and global outreach. He also established two non-profit affiliates of the parish—Grace Memorial Episcopal Church Foundation and  Grace Institute, sponsor of the widely acclaimed Grace Art Camp.

While serving at Grace, Stephen also lectured widely on religious and urban issues. In 2004 he gave two lectures on water at The Chautauqua Institution in western New York State and has twice been a speaker at Lewis and Clark Law School conferences on animal welfare law.

An honorary trustee and former Board President of Pioneer Courthouse Square, known as Portland’s Living Room, Stephen has also served on a number of community boards including the City Club of Portland (Board Secretary), Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (Board President), Oregon Episcopal School (Religious Life Committee Chair)  Holladay Park Plaza (Board Vice President), St. Andrew Legal Clinic (Board President), and Burnside Projects/Transition Projects (Board President).  His public service appointments include committees on school closures, affordable housing, cable television policy and for the 2014 Portland Parks bond measure.

Before coming to Grace as Rector, Stephen was Canon Residentiary at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (now the Parish of St. John the Baptist) in Portland. Prior to his ordination in 1989 he was Associate Director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and Director of the Center for Urban Education (CUE).

Between 1967 and 1970 he was a community organizer in the Los Angeles area working in poverty neighborhoods and in alliance with indigenous people who had been resettled in the city.

In the fall of 2014 Stephen was honored by PHAME (a nonprofit arts organization serving individuals with developmental disabilities) as an inaugural recipient of their Community Champion Award. Among other recognitions Stephen was named “Ecumenist of the Year” by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (1996) and received the Cecil W. Drinkward Award for Trustee Excellence from Oregon Episcopal School (2006).

He has an extensive history as a planning consultant and workshop leader with congregations and non-profit organizations in the Northwest United States and Canada.

He has a special interest in the creative use of public spaces to build community and was involved with the former Placemaking Leadership Council of the Project for Public Spaces.

Stephen is currently an Associate Priest at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portrland, Oregon.

He holds a M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and has a Certificate in Anglican Studies from The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. His undergraduate degree is from Wheaton College (Illinois) where he majored in philosophy..

Stephen has lived in Portland, Oregon since 1970 with his wife Ann Lee Herzog Schneider, now deceased. They have two adult daughters Kimberly Branam and Lindsay MacLarty and two grandchildren.

You can follow him on X (formerly known as Twitter): @urbanpriestpdx and @cityandspire You can also follow him on Instagram: @cityandspire