Nadia Bolz-Weber embarks upon being a full-time public theologian
Her last Sunday with the church she founded was earlier this summer.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, a popular author and preacher, has left her role as pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, the Denver church she founded a decade ago as a 39-year-old divinity student.
Bolz-Weber, who is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will now focus on being a full-time public theologian. She hopes to increase her contact with secular audiences—“preaching to the Gentiles,” as she calls it.
“Most people aren’t going to show up to church on Sunday morning,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean that the message of the gospel can’t still be freeing to them.”
In 2015 the church hired Reagan Humber, an Episcopal priest who became copastor. Now pastor, he wrote in an email that he expected the leadership change would benefit the community. He previously served at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where another popular author, Sara Miles, ministered for a decade.
In deciding to leave, Bolz-Weber was aware of the dangers of a founder staying too long.
“This church has never been mine,” she said. “It has always been God’s.” —Religion News Service
A version of this article appears in the print edition under the title “People: Nadia Bolz-Weber.’”
