Amani Legagneur is the Northside Hospital System Director of Spiritual Health and Education, a role in which she has served for nearly two decades. Amani graduated from Amherst College with Distinction as a dual major in Interdisciplinary Biochemistry and Spanish Language and Culture. Her career started in the biomedical sciences with research aimed at fighting breast cancer and AIDS Wasting Disorder. She earned her Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, and completed an additional four years of post-graduate ACPE Certified Educator training at Emory Spiritual Care, where she went on to become the Associate Director of Emory Clergy Care. Amani completed Cognitively-Based Compassion Training through the Emory Center of Contemplative Sciences. She earned her Doctor of Ministry degree from the Ecumenical Theological Seminary.

Amani is an ordained minister endorsed for chaplaincy in the United Church of Christ. She is a Co-Active Coach through the Co-Active Training Institute. An avid writer, she published a volume of poetry entitled, Cymbals and Thyme (Legagneur, 1999), and authored a chapter entitled, “The Healing Welcomer: A Postcolonial Image of Spiritual Care Response” in Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care: Challenges of Care in a Neoliberal Age (Moon and Lartey, 2020). Most recently, she contributed a case study about Northside’s innovative Covid-19 telechaplaincy program to Melinda Hsu’s Leading with Kindness: How to Change the Culture of the Workplace and the World (Hsu, 2026). Amani is an inspirational speaker and leader who has been featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Personal Journeys series as well as a variety of publications and serval podcasts. She is an experienced retreat facilitator who is most honored to have co-led an international leadership retreat, Renewing the Spirit of Leadership, with the renowned founders of the Center for Courage and Renewal, Parker Palmer and Marcy Jackson.

In 2021, Amani became a radio presence on behalf of Northside Hospital to promote Talk About It, a campaign that offered support for women’s holistic health during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has since spearheaded innovative spiritual care, creating a “Calm Center” for staff support with offerings ranging from the creative arts to aromatherapy, massage, and meditation. Amani views spiritual healthcare and education as resources for developing greater resilience, equanimity, compassion, healing potential, virtue, and faith in a world of infinite need and extraordinary potential. Of all her roles, Amani is most proud of those she occupies with her loved ones—mom, spouse, daughter, sister, and friend.

Jonathan Ball is the System Coordinator for Clinical Pastoral Education in Northside Hospital’s Department of Spiritual Health and Education. He is a graduate of the University of Tulsa and Columbia Theological Seminary. Jonathan is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church USA. He is an ACPE Certified Educator and a member of the National Faculty of ACPE Inc.

Jonathan’s professional development has taken him through a variety of contexts. He began as a hospice and a hospital chaplain. He served as the Director of Chaplaincy and CPE at Grady Memorial Hospital before joining the team at Northside Hospital in 2011. Since 2011 Jonathan has worked to provide an exemplary CPE experience for students at Northside Hospital.

Jonathan’s supervisory approach is a relational style founded on Carl Roger’s theories of education and the work of the Transformative Education school of thought (Mezirow, Cranton, and Dirx primarily). He connects to the innate learning potential of every student through the engagement of one’s deepest values, assumptions, and beliefs in a learning community. He utilizes many learning methods in work with students—from reading and writing to painting and drama. His educational ideal is to engage the whole student in learning how to be truly present, connected, and pastoral with others in crisis.

Jonathan is a chaplain, pastor, husband, father, son, brother, friend, and educator. His deepest sense of call is found in the educational process. He loves learning and enjoys sharing ideas with students. Jonathan values the CPE process as an experience where one’s training in seminary, one’s call to ministry service, and one’s personhood meet in the process of becoming a competent and authentic spiritual care responder to persons in crisis.

Dave Spence was born in the island paradise of Jamaica, he is the first of four siblings raised by their parents within a close-knit family system. Dave came to the United States in 2010 to pursue doctoral studies, an experience that subsequently led him to Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).

Dave maintains a meaningful connection to his cultural heritage as a member of the Caribbean Cricket Club, in Decatur Ga., where he indulges his passion for the game of cricket. His other interests include photography and art. In his leisure time, he enjoys listening to a wide range of music, from Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky to Bob Marley and Tony Rebel, and everything in between. More recently Dave has been honing skills in writing poetry and songs representative of his diverse music taste. At his core, Dave is guided by a strong commitment to social justice and to accompanying individuals on journeys of growth and development.

Dave has served as a board member and chair of several schools and nongovernmental organizations, including the Council for Voluntary Social Services, an umbrella organization comprising 44 member agencies, including United Way, the Jamaica Red Cross, and other local NGOs.

He is ordained and endorsed for chaplaincy by the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands—Congregational, Disciples of Christ, and Presbyterian traditions—for the past twenty-seven years. His professional background includes work in banking with the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Inter-American Development Bank, as well as managing a small business in the medical supplies sector.

Since 2011, Dave has served in the Northside hospital system in several capacities, including as a CPE student and a PRN staff chaplain. He holds an MDiv. from the United Theological College of the West Indies and is an ACPE Certified Educator.

Songyin “John” Paik was born in Suwon, Republic of Korea and grew up in San Francisco, CA and Seoul/Daejon in South Korea. John pursued studies in the fields of advertising and international studies before being called and ordained as a Presbyterian minister in the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA).

John was called into chaplaincy and clinical pastoral education (CPE) during his theological studies and following the discovery of his son’s disability and his wife’s illness in 2014 – she is a sepsis survivor saved by God’s grace and the dedication of the medical team at Northside Hospital Atlanta. He has served Korean-American congregations as an English Ministry director/educator. He has worked as a chaplain intern/resident at Northside Hospital; a staff chaplain at Agape Hospice; and an ACPE Certified Educator Candidate (CEC) at the VA Healthcare System (Atlanta, GA), CPE Center of California (Fresno, CA), and CHRIS180 (Atlanta, GA). John is currently continuing his CEC training and serving as the Supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education at Northside Hospital Gwinnett (Lawrenceville, GA).

John’s approach to spiritual care education is relational and experiential. Formed by his own bicultural, in-between experience, he treats liminality – the space of standing between worlds – as a generative place for formation and growth. He teaches through experiential learning that immerses students directly in the practice of spiritual care, and he understands education itself as the work of making room: creating the safety, worth, and space in which learners can grow into competent and authentic providers of spiritual care.

He earned his Bachelor of Political Science and Advertisement degree from Hannam University (South Korea), Master of International Studies degree from the University of Denver (Colorado), Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Columbia Theological Seminary (Georgia), and Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Care Education and Leadership degree from Union Theological Seminary (New York). John is a military veteran who served in the ROK Air Force. The newest member of his family is May, a Golden Retriever.