October 11, 2020

From Isolation to Innovation

From Isolation to Innovation

Rev. John T. Crestwell is the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis.  He was the founder and lead organizer of UUCA’s AWAKE Ministries, an innovative approach to worship and small groups where he sought and successfully broadened the emotional, racial, and intercultural competencies of children and adults through contemporary worship, music, mentoring, life coaching, and community service.

Rev. John was the Officiant at the memorial service honoring the late Wendi Winters who died in the Capital Gazette shooting.  She was a longtime member of his congregation and in the Anne Arundel County Community.

Rev. John is a member of the UUA President’s Council, and on the Intramural Review Board (IRB) under the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.  He formerly served on boards for Hospice of the Chesapeake, the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Maryland (UULM-MD), where he was briefly the Director of Outreach; and on boards for United Methodist Reporter Communications in Dallas, Texas, and the UU Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).

Previously, Rev. John was an affiliated faculty professor at the UU seminary, Meadville Lombard Theological in Chicago; and also an adjunct professor at Potomac College in Washington, DC, teaching Comparative Religion, African American History and Public Speaking.

He is author of the books, Conversations: The Hidden Truth That Keeps The World From Being At Peace, published in 2001; The Charge of the Chalice published in 2007, which tells the story of his first UU congregation’s growth in racial diversity; and You Were Made for so Much More: Interfaith Lessons to Transform our Worldin 2016. Rev. John is also a contributing author in several Skinner House publications.