Rev. Dr. Katie Hays is the founder and Lead Evangelist of Galileo Church, a quirky Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregation in Forth Worth, Texas. Since its founding in 2013, Galileo has been missionally focused on being a community of belonging for "spiritual refugees," especially LGBTQ+ folks, neurodiverse people, and young adults who have been excluded or disillusioned by other churches. Every Sunday, the close-knit community meets in a corrugated sheet metal barn under an interstate to pursue real, authentic relationship with God and with one another.

Katie's new book, We Were Spiritual Refugees: A Story to Help You Believe in Church tells the full story of Galileo in short, funny, and poignant vignettes. It is not a book about being cool for Christ—in fact, Hays considers herself deeply uncool and deeply devout. It's a book about church reimagined for a new day, for Jesus-loving (or at least Jesus-curious) outsiders.

Prior to her life at Galileo, Katie had been a pastor for over twenty years in more traditional congregations in Alabama, New York, Georgia, and Texas. At M.I.T, Katie had originally pursued engineering, before moving on to seminary at Yale Divinity School and Princeton. She now lives with her husband, Lance Pape (homiletics professor at Brite Divinity School), their two college-aged kids Lydia and Jack, and Lance's parents—as well as several goats, chickens, dogs, cats, and honeybees—on the rustic seven-acre "Hays-Pape Homestead" in Tarrant County, Texas.

More information about Katie Hays and Galileo Church can be found online at the Galileo website and katiehays.net.