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Chemberlin is elected president elect
of the National Council of Churches 

New York, November 7, 2007 – The Rev. Peg Chemberlin, a Moravian clergywoman and executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches, was elected President Elect of the National Council of Churches in annual meetings this week.

In November 2009, Chemberlin will become the leader of an organization whose constituency is 45 million people in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.   She is the first Minnesotan to serve as national president.  

The National Council’s member faith groups include Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace churches.  Since its founding in l950, the National Council of Churches has been the leading force for ecumenical cooperation among Christians in the United States. 

Chemberlin has led the Minnesota Council for 13 years.  According to Dr. Nancy Jo Kemper, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, the Minnesota Council of Churches is one of the most vibrant and effective state councils of churches in the United States. 

 “The National Council of Churches will be blessed by the leadership of the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, a woman whose very soul is filled with ecumenical passion and whose adult life has been invested in building bridges and relationship within the Christian Church, and in interfaith circles, as well," said The Rt. Rev. James L. Jelinek, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota and the immediate past president of the board for the Minnesota Council of Churches.   "She is both a professional and a volunteer, with the gift of leadership and the gift of inspiration.”

“She has an amazing stable of relationships one of the broadest sets of relationships both in and outside of the faith community in Minnesota,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. 

“Under the Rev. Chemberlin’s leadership, the Minnesota Council of Churches has been a model of the best practices for ecumenical and conciliar organizations.”  

During Chemberlin’s time at the statewide council it has grown 30 percent in membership, half of which is from the historic Black Churches.  She is known for developing an organizational culture of collaboration and relationship-based programming, establishing MCC as a gateway organization between the faith community and other sectors.

She has opened up the council’s interaction with Native American tribal leadership throughout the state, brought the MCC into the cross-sector effort to eliminate poverty in Minnesota by 2020, and launched Decade for Development of Leadership for the Common Good.   

She organized faith leaders for a massive gathering at the State Capitol after 9/11.  The Council of Churches organized a broad group of religious leaders including Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and member denominations of the Council to pray after the 35W bridge collapse.  This gathering received international media attention. 

Before moving into leadership with the MCC, Chemberlin was director of Minnesota FoodShare.  Chemberlin is a member of the clergy of the Moravian Church in America-North.   

She will continue to serve as executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches when she assumes the president’s role in the national organization.


Contact:  Rev. Peg Chemberlin, Executive Director, Minnesota Council of Churches, 612-870-3600
Ginger Sisco, Sisco Public Relations, Inc., 763-544-0629, ginger.sisco@tela.com
Philip Jenks, Director of Interpretation, National Council of Churches USA, 212-870-2228, pjenks@ncccusa.org

Photo by Kathleen Cameron

 

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