The following is a sample profile from the book Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints by Daneen Akers.

Rev. Jacqui Lewis

Rev. Jacqui Lewis vividly remembers her first communion. The year was 1966, and she was seven years old. Brightly colored stained-glass windows showed scenes from the life of Jesus.There were oak pews and deep red carpet there at 7th Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

The church was very familiar to her. Her aunt played the piano every week during worship, and her father, a church elder, helped to serve communion. That day, the pastor spoke some words about what the bread and grape juice meant. Little Jacqui didn’t understand much of what the pastor was saying, but as she was passed a small bite of bread, her mother whispered in her ear, “This bread means God will always love you.” She ate the bread. Next, she removed a small glass from a golden tray with red velvet in between the small cup holders. This time, her mother whispered to her, “God will never leave you.”

That message about God’s endless love and presence has stayed with Jacqui ever since that day. “I fell in love with God in that church,” she says. “I sang in the choir, and by age nine I was helping to teach the little kids in Sunday school.”

Jacqui felt called to be a minister. At first she was told that girls couldn’t be pastors, but her deep love of God, and her sense that she was supposed to help other people find unconditional Divine love too, kept her on track. When Jacqui was 30, she went to Princeton Seminary to study to become a pastor.

Rev. Jacqui now leads a multi-cultural, multi-racial congregation in New York City called Middle Collegiate Church.Originally established in 1628, it’s a community where everyone is welcome, especially people who aren’t welcome in other churches. Jacqui cares about us having a better world where immigrants, refugees, Indigenous people, people of color, and LGBTQ people are treated fairly. Love is what matters most. Jacqui tells her congregation often that everything in the Bible comes down to love. “Love. Period,” she says. “Everything else is commentary.”

Paying attention to the injustices of the world can be hard—a lot of people don’t get treated fairly. But Jacqui helps her congregation to stand up for justice, and she also models contagious joy. “I am a joyful person,” Rev. Jacqui says. That isn’t because her life has only been happy. Growing up, Rev. Jacqui had some difficulties, including being injured by an extended family member when she was young.

“I’ve always felt God holding me, even in the toughest of times,” Rev. Jacqui says. “I think that’s how I’ve survived—that and having a silly bone that loves to play and laugh. Being joyful is part of survival.”

In her church today, Rev. Jacqui helps people to acknowledge, accept, and honor the fact that life includes both joy and pain. She invites people to feel their pain and to experience their joy, sometimes in the very same moment.

Rev. Jacqui finds herself speaking not only to her congregation but also to larger and larger groups. She also writes books about the power of God’s love and our call to love each other. What her mother whispered in her ear so many years ago is now what Jacqui proclaims loudly every day: “God will always love you, and God will never leave you.”

How might joy help fuel us in loving others?

Glossary Terms

Called
The sense that God, or a messenger of God, has specifically assigned a person a certain job; often applied in religious job settings, such as, “I was called to become a minister.”

Communion
The act of receiving bread and wine(or, in some churches, crackers and grape juice)in a church service to remember Jesus’s last supper with his disciples; also known as Holy Communion, Eucharist, and The Lord’s Supper.

Elder
A wise, older person who leads, guides, or governs in a family, tribe, or community; in a church setting, a person who helps with rituals like Communion and serves the church community in various ways.

Indigenous
The original or Native people in a region or country. Indigenous people are descended from the original inhabitants of the land they live on. In the U.S., Indigenous people are usually called “Native Americans.” In Canada, they are called “First Nations” people. Today there are an estimated 370 million Indigenous people in 90 countries who speak 7,000 languages.

LGBTQ
The acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people; other commonly used acronyms for gender and sexual minorities include LGBTQI, LGBTQIA, and LGBTQ+.

Minister
A member of the clergy, especially in Christian Protestant churches, also known as a rector, preacher, pastor, or reverend.

Presbyterian
A branch of Protestant Christianity that traces its roots to the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin.