Writer - Spiritual Director - Creator

Taryn Montgomery lives in Duluth, Minnesota, the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary home of the Ojibwe people. Her family moved to the Northland in 2021, desiring to live among towering pines and rivers stocked with trout. She feels strongly that Lake Superior, or Mother Superior as she calls Her, beckoned her north. It's wideness and wildness inform Taryn's own spiritual journey and curiosity.

Taryn is an ordained Lutheran Pastor and certified Spiritual Director. Currently, she serves as the Synod Minister for Discipleship & Christian Community in the Northeastern Minnesota Synod, ELCA. In this role, she oversees inter-generational faith formation, stewardship, and leadership development. Prior to this work she served as a hospice chaplain, accompanying individuals and families as they explore their beliefs, experiences of grief, and life's meaning at the end of life. She previously served congregations in North Dakota and Minnesota.

An emerging writer, Taryn has authored several articles on Christian stewardship, the church in society, and grief and loss. She wrote, compiled, and edited a Contextual Bible Study Manual (FECCLAHA, 2006) addressing gender violence, primarily for use in African churches. Taryn has traveled extensively, having lived in Namibia, Kenya, and Slovakia for periods of time.

Montgomery is a past participant of “Writing the Spiritual Life” with author Lauren Winner (2021) and "Writing Toward God" with author Mary Lane Potter (2023), through the Collegeville Institute. She is the winner of the Richard Peterman Award for Stewardship (2016) and the Atonement Lutheran Church Preaching Award (2011). In college, she served as editor of the “Faith and Reason” newsletter in the Department of Theology, Philosophy, and Classical Languages at Texas Lutheran University. She has led numerous women’s retreats and workshops.

She and her husband are proud parents of four lovely children. When she's not working with congregational leaders, chauffeuring children, or managing the 'crazy' that is their household - you can find her playing outdoors, reading a good book, creating something artsy, or sipping chai tea with a dear friend. And she loves a good thrift store.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

- Rumi