Sunday Worship - October 31
Join us this Sunday—in person or online—at 10 am for worship. The Rev. Dawn Jefferson, guest preacher, preaches on Ruth 1:1-18 in a sermon entitled “Accompanied by Unexpected Love.”
Listen to the sermon on-demand »
Guest Preacher: Dawn Jefferson
The Rev. Dawn Jefferson is a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School, having earned a M.Div. and completed ordination in the United Church of Christ through the New Haven Conference. She accepted her first call to ministry and now serves as the Minister for Mission and Justice at Hope UCC in Alexandria. She is a native New Yorker from Westchester County whose 20-year career as an educator included living in Annandale for over a decade, having taught and been an administrator at The Potomac School in McLean. She is delighted to have returned and settled back into Northern Virginia after living in Oakland, CA, teaching English, and serving as a dean at a private school in San Francisco four years ago. Her work in education has been focused on building community, promoting diversity and equity, cultivating leadership, and developing stronger advising programs.
In seminary, Dawn researched the practical theology of dementia, considering the intentional ministry we offer to older adults and the people who care for them in order to investigate intersections of pastoral care ministry and end-of-life theology. At YDS, Dawn was a member of the Andover Newton Theological Seminary community where she served with the student steering committee and belonged to Yale Black Seminarians and DivOut. Dawn spent her supervised ministry summer as the ministerial intern at Little River UCC in Annandale, VA during the summer of 2020, and served as the Sabbatical Pastor of Trinitarian Congregational Church (TriCon) of Concord, MA this past summer. Dawn claims City of Refuge UCC, TFAM, Spring Glen UCC, and Pink Robe Chronicles as her spiritual family. She enjoys singing and worship, poetry, drama, and film. In her spare time, she is passionate about exploring technologies that connect communities, researching electric vehicles, and visiting national parks. Dawn lives with her wife, Marquita, in Alexandria, VA.
