Guest Preacher: Al Fuertes

Al Fuertes, Ph.D., is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and currently serves as Covenant pastor of Wellspring UCC in Centreville, VA. Rev. Dr. Fuertes is a professor and currently a University Life Faculty Fellow at George Mason University (GMU). Al is a teacher-field practitioner and consultant who specializes in community-based psychosocial trauma healing as an integral component in peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He travels extensively around the world, particularly in places affected by war, armed conflict, and natural disasters. Al’s areas of interest are facilitation and dialog, global education, psychosocial trauma healing, conflict transformation, theology of struggle, anti-human trafficking, and displacement issues. He works with government, religious, military, and community leaders, as well as NGO development workers, school administrators, teachers, youth, refugees, and internally displaced persons.

Dr. Al Fuertes was a recipient of the 2019 Global Peacebuilder Award by the Daniel Fissell Music Foundation, the 2019 Outstanding Sillimanian Award for his work in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, the 2015 Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award, the 2014 Oscar Mentoring Excellence Award, the 2008 GMU Teaching Excellence Award and the 2001 AT&T Asia-Pacific Leadership Award.

His sermon is titled “We Are A Spirit-filled Community.”