“The church has a great story to tell.”
So where is it?
Bio
Rev. Daniel Ross-Jones currently serves on the pastoral staff of the First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ, as Youth & Young Adult Minister. He is a networker, communications professional, technophile, and unashamed millennial progressive Christian.
A native of northern Minnesota, Daniel was awarded a BA in communication with minor studies in political science from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His senior capstone thesis project dealt with organizational communication practices of a local Lutheran congregation, continuing a lifelong interest in effective, engaged communication in the Christian faith community. Additionally, while a student at Carthage, Daniel participated in a life-changing religious studies pilgrimage to northern India where he received his call to ordained ministry — in the midst of the Baha’i House of Worship in New Delhi.
Following his college graduation, Daniel began work as Director of Communications for the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the local organizational body of more than 90,000 Lutherans in about 130 local churches in southeastern Wisconsin. In this position, he gave back to the Christian tradition of his upbringing as the staff person guiding internal and external communication initiatives, including media relations, maintaining then-emerging social media, two website upgrades, printed and electronic newsletters, managing the congregational communicator’s network, supporting all workshops, events, and assemblies (and providing training sessions at each), and managing a speaker’s bureau and a resource library.
Still nurturing a call to ordained ministry but restricted at the time by a prohibition on openly gay pastoral leadership in the ELCA, in 2007 Daniel transferred his membership from his local ELCA congregation to Plymouth United Church of Christ in Milwaukee, the second-oldest local church in the city and a landmark presence for social engagement and community leadership. In 2008 he was received as a Student In Care of the Southeastern Association of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ, and in the fall of that same year left his position with the Milwaukee Synod to begin studies at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago — further solidifying his budding ecumenical Christian identity, as McCormick is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
While at McCormick, Daniel served internships at DePaul University in Chicago, in the University Ministry office focusing on residence hall and interfaith ministry areas, and St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Auckland, New Zealand. He also was a participant in the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. After his year-long internship at DePaul, he was invited to return to serve in an interim chaplaincy role, overseeing Christian ministry programming for all non-Roman Catholic Christian students at the nation’s largest Catholic university.
In 2011 he earned the Master of Divinity degree from McCormick, and in July began ministry in Palo Alto, California. He was ordained on September 24, 2011 by his home church in Milwaukee into the ministry of word and sacrament under the order of the United Church of Christ. While Daniel remains connected to the Lutheran tradition of his birth and nurture, following the ELCA’s vote in 2009 to rescind the restrictions on LGBTQ clergypersons, he discerned the Holy Spirit’s calling to stay in his adopted United Church of Christ for the time. “God is bigger than the boxes we create,” he says. “Whether I retire from the UCC, the ELCA, or some new box that is yet to be created — I don’t know. But so long as I live and breathe in God’s presence, and as long as I am able to feel the assurance of Jesus Christ’s seal on my life at baptism, the denomination is irrelevant.”
Currently, Daniel lives in the suburban San Francisco Bay Area, and enjoys soaking up the environment of some of his favorite high-tech companies. In his spare time he enjoys reading books — both dead tree and digital — listening to the roar of the Pacific Ocean, talking with people about myriad subjects, and enjoying fine wine.
Bio
Rev. Daniel Ross-Jones currently serves on the pastoral staff of the First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ, as Youth & Young Adult Minister. He is a networker, communications professional, technophile, and unashamed millennial progressive Christian.
A native of northern Minnesota, Daniel was awarded a BA in communication with minor studies in political science from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His senior capstone thesis project dealt with organizational communication practices of a local Lutheran congregation, continuing a lifelong interest in effective, engaged communication in the Christian faith community. Additionally, while a student at Carthage, Daniel participated in a life-changing religious studies pilgrimage to northern India where he received his call to ordained ministry — in the midst of the Baha’i House of Worship in New Delhi.
Following his college graduation, Daniel began work as Director of Communications for the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the local organizational body of more than 90,000 Lutherans in about 130 local churches in southeastern Wisconsin. In this position, he gave back to the Christian tradition of his upbringing as the staff person guiding internal and external communication initiatives, including media relations, maintaining then-emerging social media, two website upgrades, printed and electronic newsletters, managing the congregational communicator’s network, supporting all workshops, events, and assemblies (and providing training sessions at each), and managing a speaker’s bureau and a resource library.
Still nurturing a call to ordained ministry but restricted at the time by a prohibition on openly gay pastoral leadership in the ELCA, in 2007 Daniel transferred his membership from his local ELCA congregation to Plymouth United Church of Christ in Milwaukee, the second-oldest local church in the city and a landmark presence for social engagement and community leadership. In 2008 he was received as a Student In Care of the Southeastern Association of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ, and in the fall of that same year left his position with the Milwaukee Synod to begin studies at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago — further solidifying his budding ecumenical Christian identity, as McCormick is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
While at McCormick, Daniel served internships at DePaul University in Chicago, in the University Ministry office focusing on residence hall and interfaith ministry areas, and St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Auckland, New Zealand. He also was a participant in the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. After his year-long internship at DePaul, he was invited to return to serve in an interim chaplaincy role, overseeing Christian ministry programming for all non-Roman Catholic Christian students at the nation’s largest Catholic university.
In 2011 he earned the Master of Divinity degree from McCormick, and in July began ministry in Palo Alto, California. He was ordained on September 24, 2011 by his home church in Milwaukee into the ministry of word and sacrament under the order of the United Church of Christ. While Daniel remains connected to the Lutheran tradition of his birth and nurture, following the ELCA’s vote in 2009 to rescind the restrictions on LGBTQ clergypersons, he discerned the Holy Spirit’s calling to stay in his adopted United Church of Christ for the time. “God is bigger than the boxes we create,” he says. “Whether I retire from the UCC, the ELCA, or some new box that is yet to be created — I don’t know. But so long as I live and breathe in God’s presence, and as long as I am able to feel the assurance of Jesus Christ’s seal on my life at baptism, the denomination is irrelevant.”
Currently, Daniel lives in the suburban San Francisco Bay Area, and enjoys soaking up the environment of some of his favorite high-tech companies. In his spare time he enjoys reading books — both dead tree and digital — listening to the roar of the Pacific Ocean, talking with people about myriad subjects, and enjoying fine wine.