The Rev. Dr. Donald Fishburne

Denomination: The Episcopal Church (TEC)
Organization: St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Chattanooga, TN

The Rev. Donald Allston Fishburne, D. Min.

Donald Fishburne has been Rector of Saint Paul's Church in downtown Chattanooga since 2008.

Saint Paul's is the Mother Church of Episcopal congregations in the greater Chattanooga area in the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee. The church has a substantial endowment for music ministries and for extension of the Kingdom and is served by four fulltime clergy and by a non-stipendiary priest and a deacon. The parish enjoys a close relationship with The University of the South, Sewanee, and its School of Theology and the parish serves as a Field Education site for multiple seminarians.

Donald Fishburne led congregational development as Rector of Saint Michael and All Angels Church, Sanibel Island, in the Diocese of Southwest Florida for seven years, focusing on preaching and worship, developing ministry leaders and teams, Stewardship of the Riches of God's Grace, outreach ministries, and endowment building. 

For ten years in the decade of the 1990s Donald specialized in city ministry at Saint Paul's, Augusta, Georgia.  He has also served parishes large and small in the Carolinas in his 33 years of ordained ministry. He has served in five dioceses on diocesan standing committees, conference center boards, commissions on stewardship, congregational development, Christian education, youth and college ministries.  He has been a consultant to the Mission Committee of a new congregation and to the Chapter of a Cathedral and now mentors several rectors of other parishes.

Donald and his wife Sarah Vann Fishburne have been married for 26 years. She is a former diocesan coordinator of youth and college ministries.   They have a son Allston, 25, and daughter, Sarah Hart, 22.

He is a native of Charleston, SC, a lifelong Episcopalian and a graduate of The University of the South (B.A.) and The Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div.). He also earned a Doctorate in Ministry from Sewanee where he now serves on the Board of Regents (Chairs the College Committee; Committees on Property & Finance, The School of Theology, University Relations, and Regents' Affairs / Honorary Degrees).  He also served on the Visiting Committee to the School of Theology and on the Advisory Committee of the new Center for Religion and the Environment.

He is President-elect the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes and serves on the Board Development Committee. He recently served on the Search Committee for the Bishop of East Tennessee.

He enjoys time with his family, prayer walking, hiking in national parks, the mountains, the coast, travel, writing, mentoring other clergy, and environmental studies / stewardship of creation.