Pax Ressler is a genderqueer composer, performer and theatre artist living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are a graduate of Goshen College, where they studied music, education and theatre. Since July 2016, Pax has served as the Minister of Music at Tabernacle United Church in West Philadelphia and works as a freelance theatre artist at various theatres in the Philadelphia region. Pax is a winner of the 2015 Anabaptist Songwriting Competition for their song "Camina Conmigo (Walk With Me)". 

 

In April 2011, Pax founded GC Open Letter, a student-led advocacy group working to end hiring policies that excluded LGBTQ people from employment at Goshen College. After Goshen College changed its hiring policy, they worked to create the LGBTQIA Student Leader Scholarship, a crowd-funded scholarship for LGBTQIA students dedicated to social justice (contact Goshen College Development to contribute).

 

Pax was a part of Pink Menno leadership circles from 2013 - 2015. A lover of hymnody, they curated a Pink Menno songbook and was a Pink Menno songleader at the Phoenix and Kansas City MCUSA conventions (see videos here, here, and here). After the Phoenix convention, Pax released an album of soulful meditations on Mennonite hymns entitled "Stand By Me: Hymns of Hope & Healing" as a way of reclaiming Mennonite hymnody as evolving, justice-oriented and queer. 

 

As a hymn composer, Pax has written hymns for churches, events and also for BMC. They are interested in writing songs and hymns that speak to our spiritual call to work for social justice. To listen to Pax's work and learn more about their compositions, visit Tailor-Made Compositions or their Artist Page.

 

Pax has contributed to BMC's Oral History Project and curated a series of interviews by Bobby Switzer for the Pink Menno Press in three parts, entitled "How Can I Keep from Singing?" (one, two, three).