More about tonight's speaker: Amy Butler was nominated on April 27, 2014 to serve as senior minister of the Riverside Church in New York City. Rev. Butler was officially elected on June 8 as the first woman called to be pastor of the 84-year-old congregation. Prior to this position, Butler served Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., for 11 years.
Since it was organized in 1930 by industrialist John D. Rockefeller, the 1,670-member Riverside Church has been a bastion of progressive Christianity. Officially affiliated with both the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ, it describes itself as interdenominational.
“I’ve come to believe that the call of God is a strange and beautiful thing. It invites us out of our comfort zones, often into places of fear and unfamiliarity. But I’ve found that these places are most often the places that give birth to things more beautiful than we could ever imagine,” says Butler in her spiritual biography.