J. Lee Hill, Jr.

J. Lee Hill Jr., is the senior pastor of Christian Fellowship Congregational Church (UCC) and director of the Interfaith Justice Coalition in San Diego, California.He has served in ministry since 1999, most notably at The Riverside Church in the City of New York. Hill is a licensed and ordained minister with full standing in the Alliance of Baptists and the United Church of Christ.

He attended Florida A&M University and graduated from George Mason University with a Bachelor of Arts in integrative studies with a concentration in management and leadership, and a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest University.Upon graduation from Wake Forest, he received the coveted John Thomas and Dorothy Porter Award in Vocational Formation and Community Ministry, given in honor of John Thomas Porter, and returned to the university to receive the highest honor to be conferred upon an alumnus of The Divinity School, the Bill J. Leonard Distinguished Service Award Pro Fide et Humanitate [1]for his work and advocacy as a public theologian.Additionally he has earned a diploma in biblical studies from the Howard University School of Divinity, a certificate in youth, church and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, several units of Clinical Pastoral Education, and a doctorate from Emory University, for his investigation of the Narrative Lectionary's impact on biblical literacy, spiritual development and social actions within the Black Church.In 2017 he was inducted as a fellow of the College of Pastoral Leadership at the Martin Luther King International Chapel at Morehouse College, and later earned a graduate Certificate in Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego.

His other research interests include preaching, worship and liturgy, religious education, and emerging models of Narrative Leadership.

Following his graduation from Wake Forest University, Hill served on the ministerial staff of Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he became the first African-American ordained to Christian Ministry through that Alliance/American Baptist congregation.Before joining the senior staff of The Riverside Church in the City of New York where he served for a number of years leading ministries with children, youth and young adults, additionally he was a ministerial intern at Metro Baptist Church in Hells Kitchen, New York.Since 2010 he has served as the senior pastor of Christian Fellowship Congregational Church (UCC).

Christian Fellowship UCC is a progressive, inclusive, bible-based congregation that seeks in every way to recontextualize Christianity through black liberation theology and praxis.The church is located in Emerald Hills community of southeast of San Diego, atop a beautiful bluff, with sweeping viewings.In the congregation's long history the church it has hosted a variety of notable persons, among them Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., and more recently James Forbes, Yvonne Delk, Robert M. Franklin, Charles Ogletree and Jeremiah A Wright.

Hill was born in the Commonwealth of Virginia, is married and has two children.