Leadership
Rev. Susan Valiquette
Pastor
In grade 10, on a church youth retreat, she sensed a calling to ordained ministry. After high school, she completed her Bachelors of Art degree in Religion and Communication. She furthered her studies to obtain a Masters of Divinity and was ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC). She was hired as an Associate Minister of a large 1500-member UCC congregation before she completed her studies.
Susan then applied to be a mission co-worker with Global Ministries. Susan was then seconded to serve as the Chaplain of Inanda Seminary, an all-girls secondary boarding school located in a township in Durban, South Africa. Inanda Seminary was started by Congregationalist missionaries in 1869. She served as the school’s Chaplain for 18 years.
Susan has two children, Micah and Madeline and she loves to cook, travel, practice yoga and hike the desert mountains. She believes that the church has the potential to heal the world and she feels called to be a vessel used for healing.
Brendan Mahoney
Brendan Mahoney is a longtime civic leader, attorney, and advocate for equality in Phoenix. He retired at the end of 2023 after ten years as General Counsel for HBI International and previously served as Mayor Stanton’s Senior Policy Advisor, overseeing areas including economic development, arts and culture, historic preservation, and LGBTQ+ and Asian community engagement. He led the Mayor’s team that enacted Phoenix’s LGBT non-discrimination ordinance and helped advance the City of Phoenix Equal Pay Act.
Brendan holds a J.D. from the University of New Mexico (cum laude, Order of the Coif) and graduated summa cum laude from William Paterson University, with postgraduate study at the University of Chicago and Hong Kong Chinese University. He is bilingual in English and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese).
Deeply committed to community service, Brendan has served in numerous leadership roles, including Chair of the Phoenix Human Relations Commission, board member of several arts, education, and human rights organizations, and Moderator of both First Congregational UCC Phoenix and the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ. A founding chair of the Arizona State Bar Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, he helped shape ethical rules prohibiting discrimination in the practice of law.
Brendan has received many honors for his work, including the Equality Arizona Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Echo Magazine Hall of Fame. He lives in Phoenix with his husband of 29 years, Gordon P. Street III, where he enjoys cooking, playing the harpsichord, and doting on their two beloved beagles.
Teresa Blythe
Spiritual Director
Teresa has been working as a spiritual director with individuals, groups and organizations since 1997. Teresa works with people from a variety of faith backgrounds as well as those who are in-between, searching or from the "it's complicated" category.
In addition to running the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction and serving as spiritual director for First Church, Teresa is Director of the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction at the Redemptorist Renewal Center at Picture Rocks in Tucson. She is a published author, blogger for Patheos (Spiritual Direction 101) and the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, frequent public speaker and a full-time advocate for the practice of spiritual direction.
An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), Teresa received her Master of Divinity and Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2000. She is a member of First UCC Phoenix and Spiritual Directors International.
Gordon Street
Commissioned Minister
Gordon focuses on helping people find their own spiritual connection. He grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, moved to Phoenix in 1988, and has been a member of First Church since about 2000. Gordon has served in many capacities in First Church leadership over the years and has worked with other churches and non-profit groups.
Gordon’s thirty years of recovery and working with others gives him special insight into the common struggle (in and out of recovery) of finding a genuine experience with God, which is the essence of spirituality instead of religion and dogma. Gordon likes to say his ministry is a gift from the recovery community back to the wider church.
In Gordon’s spare time, he frequents too many coffee shops, enjoys life with his husband of 24 years and their beagle. His fondness for beagles exemplifies his attraction to stubbornness and endearing bad behavior.