When the Rev. Jacqui Lewis spoke for the Interfaith Lecture Series in 2017, she told Chautauquans: “We are the church. We are the morally courageous leaders of this land who are called by God to demand that God’s dream be reality for God’s people in all the ways, in every way, that we can.”
Lewis, the senior minister at the Middle Collegiate Church in lower Manhattan, will again call Chautauquans to bring God’s dream to reality as chaplain for Week Two. She will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday ecumenical worship service in the Amphitheater.
Her sermon title is “After a Long Dark Night of the Soul, Joy.”
She will also preach at the 9:15 a.m. Monday through Friday morning worship services in the Amp.
Her sermon titles include “Time to Eat, Drink and be Merry,” “When the Trees Clap their Hands,” “Just Love, So our Joy Might be Full,” “When Weeping Turns to Laughter” and “When There are No More Tears.”
In 1992, after graduating with a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, Lewis led two churches in Trenton, New Jersey, and fell in love with urban ministry.
Fascinated with how faith heals the soul — so we can heal the world — she returned to graduate school for a Doctor of Philosophy in psychology and religion from Drew University in 2004.
Lewis went to study Middle Collegiate Church and received a call to join the staff, which she did in January 2004. Middle, she says, is the church of her dreams and prayers, a multiethnic rainbow coalition of love, justice and worship that rocks her soul. She uses her gifts as author, activist, preacher and public theologian toward creating an antiracist, just, gun violence free, fully welcoming, gender-affirming society in which everyone has enough.
A womanist theologian, Lewis has preached at the Festival of Homiletics, the Wild Goose Festival, The Children’s Defense Fund’s Haley Farm and was a featured speaker on the Together national tour with best-selling author Glennon Doyle.
In her activism, preaching, speaking, writing and teaching, Lewis advocates for racial equality, gun control, economic justice, equal rights for all sexual orientations/genders and marriage equality. Because of her dynamic leadership, Middle Church was featured in a national broadcast on CBS. “A Bold New Love: Christmas Eve with Middle Collegiate Church” aired on Dec. 24, 2018, to more than 1 million viewers.
Lewis has been on the “The Today Show,” “All In with Chris Hayes,” “AM Joy,” “The Melissa Harris Perry Show,” NY1, ABC, NBC, PBS, CBS and WPIX, where she covered the Brooklyn memorial for George Floyd. Lewis created two national television programs: “Just Faith,” an on-demand television program on MSNBC.com, and “Chapter and Verse” at PBS.
Lewis’ work has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, the front page of The New York Times website, New York Times Video, The New York Post, CNN i-report, Essence, Ebony.com, the New York Daily News, the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, U.S. News, The Public’s Radio, the Houston Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Yakima Herald-Republic. She has blogged for Huffington Post, GLAAD, Patheos, and Believe Out Loud.
Her books include The Power of Stories; Ten Essential Strategies with John Janka; Becoming Like Creoles with Curtiss Paul DeYoung and other contributing authors; and the children’s book You Are So Wonderful! Harmony, an imprint of Random House published her book Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World in 2021. Her latest book, published in 2024, is the Just Love Story Bible with author Shannon Daley-Harris and illustrator Cheryl Thuesday.
