Speaker Bio

The name, Andreades, is so challenging because it is Greek. But you say it like the man's name, "Andre" plus the first two syllables of "Odyssey": Ahn-drae-ODD'-iss

(If you really want to sound authentic, you can trill the "r", and pronounce the second "d" as more of a "t").

The Mission

Pastor Andreades is on a mission to help people restore the gender binary, to celebrate the precious identity God gave us when He said, “Let us make man in Our Image…male and female.” His 2015 book, enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship, written to fill the need to speak about gender as God’s gift, won World Magazine’s Accessible Theology Book of the Year. The book grew out of his qualitative research project on men with a same-sex attraction background who are now married to women. Logos Software also selected the volume for its "Studies on Sexuality and Gender" Course. (Available in Paperback, Kindle, Logos, Spanish.)

Counseling scores of singles, engaged and married couples precipitated his 2021 book, Dating with Discernment: 12 Questions for a Lasting Marriage, which has helped many begin lasting unions on a firm “intergendered” footing. (Available in Paperback, Kindle, Audio.)

Dr. Andreades’ most recent book, Across the Kitchen Table: Talking about Trans with Your Teen, based on his experience helping the gender troubled, became Amazon’s #1 Best Seller in New releases in Christian Relationships in the month it released (2023). (Available in Paperback, Kindle, Audio, Spanish.)

The Pastor

Rev. Andreades' work as a minister (PCA) spans twenty years, having pastored churches all that time in Greenwich Village, NYC, in Quarryville, PA, and in his current post at Iron Works Church in Phoenixville, PA. Much of this pastoral work put gender issues front and center. In 2008, he founded Higher Ground NYC, a ministry of Christian discipleship serving those with unwanted same-sex attraction.

Sam also travels around the U.S. as a seminar speaker helping Christians to build a theology of gender. He regularly affirms gender as a real gift from God with weekly posts on his website, AffirmingGender.com, and frequently speaks on how to understand transgenderism from a Biblical perspective.

The Scholar

Dr. Andreades draws on an extensive formal education in his teaching. He holds a B.S. in Geology & Geophysics with a minor in Biblical Studies from Yale University (1984), where he was awarded the Yale Geological Hammer Award for Thesis Research in sonic wave measurement through granite. He earned an M.Div. in Pastoral Ministry from Reformed Theological Seminary (2001), as well as an M.S. in Computer Science from New York University - Courant Institute (1997). Building on historical geography study at Jerusalem University College (2008, 2014) in Israel, he obtained a D.Min. in Mission and Ministry at Covenant Theological Seminary (2013). But most valuable is how he has brought this education to over four decades of serious study of the Bible.

The Relationships

Sam grew up with three older sisters who have constantly challenged him in his understanding of what it means for him to be a boy. He has been married for thirty-four years to his wife, Mary K., whom he describes as the truest woman he knows, and without whom he says he could not do what he does. Together they have raised three sons and one daughter, and now have two daughters-in-law, a son-in-law, and a grand-daughter.

Submission to the body of Christ has always been an important part of Sam's Christian walk. As a member of a local church since becoming a Christian at seventeen years old, he has bonded to brothers and sisters of God's family through the dozen churches to which he has joined himself in each phase of his life.

Being a Presbyterian pastor means ministering in relationship. It requires working closely with his session (the church’s board of elders), which affords Sam some of the most meaningful friendships of his life. Chairing the Shepherding Committee of his presbytery (a collective of local ministers and elders) in New York also afforded him important people-linking lessons.

His favorite Bible verse is Luke 23:43, Jesus' words to the thief on the cross: "This day you shall be with me in paradise." Sam hears through these words the Lord's amazing forgiveness of Sam's own sins.