The Rt. Rev. Dr. Susan Brown Snook

Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of San Diego

San Diego, CA

The Rt. Rev. Susan Brown Snook has served as the Fifth Bishop of San Diego since 2019, where her ministry focuses on church planting and church growth; strengthening leaders and congregations; and service to neighbors, including migrants along the US-Mexico border. Her previous service in the church included being Canon for Church Growth and Development in the Diocese of Oklahoma, and church planter, vicar, and rector of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Scottsdale, Arizona. Prior to ordination, Bishop Brown Snook was a Certified Public Accountant, working in taxation for major accounting firms in Houston, Texas.

Bishop Brown Snook served as a member of The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council from 2012 to 2018 and chaired its budget committee and its Joint Standing Committee on Local Ministry and Mission. From 2022 to 2024, she co-chaired the Task Force to Advise the Church on the Denominational Health Plan, whose work produced important reforms to the DHP at the 2024 General Convention. She was elected as a deputy to the General Convention from Arizona four times and was a co-founder of the Acts 8 Movement, a group dedicated to revitalization in the church. She has served on the boards of The Gathering of Leaders and of Forward Movement. In current churchwide service, she serves on the Joint Budget Committee of Executive Council and the Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, Constitution, and Canons.

Bishop Brown Snook is the author of God Gave the Growth: Church Planting in the Episcopal Church, and the co-editor of Acts to Action: The New Testament’s Guide to Evangelism and Mission.

She was elected to her first term on The Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees in 2024.

She holds a DMin from Virginia Theological Seminary, an MDiv from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and an MBA, MAcc, and BA from Rice University.