Tessa Pinkstaff is a spiritual director and the founder of Practices for Life, a ministry that invites people to explore Christian spiritual disciplines as a way to experience God’s healing and transformative presence. She is passionate about helping people become more like Jesus. Tessa is currently the Care Coordinator at Emmanuel Covenant Church in Shoreview, Minnesota, where she leads the prayer and care teams in addition to preaching and teaching. She also hosts the weekly Dwelling in the Word webcast, serves as a project consultant for Luther Seminary’s Faith+Lead, and writes articles for the Faith+Lead blog.

Tessa is an assistant adjunct professor at Hope International University in California, where she teaches online courses on spiritual disciplines and mentors ministry students. She co-authored the book Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future with Dwight Zscheile and Michael Binder (Fortress Press, 2023), and she facilitates workshops and retreats where people can try a variety of spiritual practices for themselves. Besides her training as a spiritual director, Tessa has a Master of Arts in Ministry from Bethel Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science from Northwestern University—St. Paul.