The Rev. Timothy J. Yanni (Fr. Tim) is a priest in the Episcopal Church. With a strong education and a wealth of ministry experience in a variety of contexts, Fr. Tim is a caring, knowledgable pastor who is willing to model the importance of learning from our humanity.

He lives in Phoenix with his wife Brandy, the love of his life. Together, Fr. Tim and Brandy are raising a mischievous rescue dog, Ari (short for Arizona). They were married in 2018.

Raised in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, Fr. Tim has always appreciated the importance of cultural diversity. In fact, he lived in Mexico for a time. He is bilingual in English and Spanish (although his Spanish is admittedly a bit rusty).

Prior to his seminary studies, Fr. Tim was a newspaper reporter. He was a sports journalist for the Imperial Valley Press and the paper’s correspondent for the National Football League’s San Diego Chargers and Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres. He also covered a wide range of community, high school, college, and professional sports. He also was the City Reporter for the City of Imperial, California. He continued freelance reporting well after ordination, writing for the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News.

A lifelong Christian, Fr. Tim became interested in Church liturgy from a young age. He was confirmed at his childhood parish of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in El Centro, California, during his senior year in high school.

While he always deeply loved the Church and his relationship with Jesus, he had some fallings out with some of the social teachings of Roman Catholicism in his late 20s. He found the Episcopal Church to be a better fit. He attended seminary and became ordained at the age of 34, making him the youngest priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Utah.

He served as the chaplain for Ogden Regional Medical Center for several years, and moved to Arizona in 2019. He served as a parish priest and elementary school chaplain and religion teacher before being called as Rector at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in early 2022.

He holds graduate degrees in theology from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He also holds an MBA.

An experienced writer and speaker (he also was a radio disc jockey for five years!), Fr. Tim writes a weekly blog (subscribe here). His demeanor is playful and jovial. He models taking faith seriously while embracing our humanity.