The Rev. Dr. Pat Youngdahl, Ph.D., arrived as Co-Pastor of Downtown Church in June 2004. Pat brings gifts of poetry, preaching and a passion for spiritual seeking.

Born in Chicago, Dr. Youngdahl graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, with a double major in English and creative writing, and a double minor in psychology and religion. Her senior thesis won the Star Prize for the best honors thesis in the English department that year. She went on to win a three-year North American Ministerial Fellowship for outstanding promise as a pastor-theologian, and earned her master’s of divinity degree through studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville and McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. She was ordained by the Presbytery of Chicago in 1981.

Upstate New York is familiar and beloved terrain for Dr. Youngdahl. Her first call after divinity school was as Associate Pastor at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester. A strong believer in co-ministry, she collaborated with members to design a comprehensive program for adult spiritual development, to organize conferences on racial justice and on human sexuality, and to create a process of study and discernment that led the congregation to declare itself a More Light Church, thus welcoming the ministry of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans gender persons.

Dr. Youngdahl next answered a call to become Pastor and Head of Staff of First Presbyterian Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Here she worked with members in a process of biblical and theological study, goal-setting, and implementation that resulted in increased membership, growth in monetary giving, and expanding involvement in the congregation’s inner-city neighborhood. In May 2001, Dr. Youngdahl returned to preach for First Church’s 125th Anniversary celebration. On that day, the congregation also honored Dr. Youngdahl and her life partner, Michal McKenzie, as an openly lesbian couple.

Before her return to Rochester to become Co-Pastor of the Downtown Church, Dr. Youngdahl earned her doctorate in rhetoric and taught writing and literary interpretation at the University of Arizona in Tucson. During these years she won a Jacob Javits Fellowship for her research in the rhetoric of liberation theologies and received the Johnnie Raye Harper Award for distinguished teaching. She was also a guest facilitator of the weekly group meeting at Casa Paloma, a transitional housing program for homeless women.

Dr. Youngdahl’s book, Subversive Devotions: A Journey into Divine Pleasure and Power, was published in Spring 2003. She is also the author of two essays, "A Way to Hope Now," in the 2003 edition of The University Book and "Sacred Erotics" in Louise Erdrich’s The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse in the Fall 2002 issue of Red Ink, a magazine devoted to cultivating Native American intellectual and cultural expression. Most recently, she co-authored a chapter, "Gaining a Scholarly Voice," with Kamolthip Phonlabutra, Donna Fontanarose Rabuck, and Sheril Hook , in Centers for Learning: Writing Centers and Academic Libraries in Collaboration, which examines the potentials inherent in partnerships between libraries and writing centers.

Dr. Youngdahl’s current writing focuses on the interplay of spiritual practice and social justice. She is also a Faculty Associate at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester

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