Rev. Elder Nancy L. Wilson has been a part of the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches since 1972 when, at age 22 and in her third week
of seminary at Boston University School of Theology, she became associate pastor
of MCC Boston. Her journey as a pastor and leader with MCC has been an
extraordinary one and covers the period of the development of feminism, gay
rights and the period of devastating losses of lives to HIV/AIDS.
She served as pastor of MCC Detroit from 1975 to 1979
and was elected an Elder in the MCC in 1976. She moved to Los Angeles in 1979
and became Clerk of the Board of Elders, a position she held 10 years,
seven of them full-time at UFMCC headquarters. In 1986 she became
pastor of MCC Los Angeles where she served
from 1986 to 2000. She also held the post of UFMCC's Chief
Ecumenical Officer for 23 years, representing UFMCC to the World Council of
Churches as its official observer in Canberra, Australia (1991); Harare, Zimbabwe (1998); and
Porto Alegre, Brazil (2006). She served as Vice-Moderator of the Board of Elders from 1993
to 2001.
In 2001, she was elected senior pastor of the Church of the Trinity MCC in
Sarasota, Florida. Upon the retirement of the Rev. Troy
Perry, Wilson was elected to the position of Moderator of the UFMCC in
2005 and was installed on October 29, 2005, at the National Cathedral in
Washington, D.C. She has her office in Sarasota, Florida.
Rev. Wilson was involved in the move of the MCC LA Church from the theater on
Hill Street to its present location in West Hollywood with UFMCC headquarters.
She oversaw the rebuilding of that facility after the 1994 earthwuake. She
started a Latin Ministry and a youth outreach program for which a Ford
Foundation grant was obtained. Wilson was founder of Free Spirit MCC, an
outreach to women incarcerated at California Institute for Women, and sponsored
the first three UFMCC conferences on MCC Women in Ministry.
Wilson was a member of a group of lesbians in Los Angeles in White Women
Against Racism during the early 1980’s. She was founder of the Progressive
Religious Alliance in Los Angeles and worked in many political campaigns in Los
Angeles for civil and human rights, such as The Coalition Against the Death
Penalty. She was co-founder of the Lesbian and Gay Interfaith Clergy
Association in Los Angeles and partnered with Bienestar (Latina/o AIDS
organization), St. Odelia’s Roman Catholic Church and others, for common
ministry and mission.
Her published works include: Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus and
the Bible (Alamo Press) and, with Rev. Malcom Boyd, of Amazing
Grace. Her poems and prayers are included in Race and Prayer
edited by Malcom Boyd and Chester Talton (Morehouse Presss). A popular
preacher and speaker, she was honored with the first Lazarus Award from the
Presbyterian Church, Pacific Synod. She was invited to preach at the Earl
Lectures at Pacific School of Religion in January, 2002.
(This statement provided by the Rev. Nancy Wilson.)