Rev. Dr. LeQuita Porter and the Isaiah Partnership

When Rev. Dr. LeQuita Porter took on the Isaiah Partnership, a Princeton Theological Seminary project aimed at creating a blueprint for fundamental change in congregational leadership, she was drawn by the project’s foundational Scripture.

See, I am doing a new thing! … Do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19.

In fact, she says deep into year two of the three-year project, she has come to understand those words as a foundational thread in her own life.

“I was so interested in this project, but I wasn’t sure about the position because it seemed so different than what I have done before,” she says. “But I felt like God was almost shaking me, saying, ‘I am doing a new thing! Do you really not perceive it?’ It actually brought me to tears.”

“And I said, OK Lord, this is the new thing I’m doing in this season!”

She has accepted the call to do a “new thing” many times over the years.

Along the way, she has never stopped learning, working to acquire the knowledge and skills she needs to do God’s work. Her list of degrees is long. She holds a DMin from Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, Canada, and an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary. She also holds a law degree, an MBA with a concentration in marketing, and a BA with a concentration in Economics.

She started her professional life after graduating from law school at the Ohio Attorney General’s office, before moving with her new husband to Texas. She worked for the District Attorney’s office in Houston and in Indianapolis, and then opted to stay home to focus on their first child, a baby boy. They moved several times after that, following her husband’s career with AT&T. When they moved to New Jersey, Dr. Porter took on another “new thing” – pursuing an MDiv at Princeton Seminary.

Dr. Porter felt the call of God when the family moved to Indianapolis, where she worked in the prosecutor’s office handling criminal cases in the Child Abuse/Sex Crimes unit. That work and her personal experience, greatly informed the Empowerment Lay Ministry Work she engaged in, in her churches in Indiana and New Jersey — focusing on empowering women and men to be their “absolute best” in God, despite the challenges they faced! Through this work, she knew there was so much more work to do.

Her call to ministry and to do God’s “new thing” has taken her all over this country and beyond. She is the founder and former pastor of Kingdom Bible Christian Church in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. From 2010 to 2019, she served as the first female senior pastor of the 168-year-old East Preston United Baptist Church of Nova Scotia, Canada. She has also taken her empowerment ministry to Jamaica and South Africa.

While in Canada, she, along with Elder and Senator Dr. Wanda Thomas Bernard, the current President, led the East Preston Church in creating the East Preston Empowerment Academy, (recently renamed the Africadian Empowerment Academy). The AEA is an adult learning program that empowers and equip members of its community with life/work skills and the confidence to fulfill their dreams. In just a few years, the program had grown into a prep course for GED exams and a Trade Apprenticeship Program that trains tradespeople to qualify for certifications that allow them to work professionally in Canada. Now the program has grown to serve a broader network of learners throughout the Nova Scotia province and beyond.

The ministry began as a way to help members of the congregation learn basic skills in math, english and communications, and in turn, help mentor younger people in the community to become the best they could be.

“We wanted to be sure that everybody fully understood what we were teaching. My mother always taught me, ‘Use your words,’ but then follow it up with something that everybody can understand. The Africentric model of learning that is used in the Academy encourages people to learn at their own pace and chart their steady progress along the way. We also sought to tie what they were learning, to what they were experiencing in their jobs and in everyday life.”

It was that work, and other empowerment work she experienced as a Pastor, that drew her to the Isaiah Partnership at Princeton Seminary.

The “IP” involves two cohorts of pastors and lay church partners from a total of 12 churches, representing eight different denominations with memberships up to 500 members. The partners – one clergy member and one lay person from each church – are trained in models of innovation and change. Through specially selected tasks, the partners in each church “recruit” others who learn about innovation and changemaking by doing.

The IP also provides Princeton Seminary faculty opportunities to study and discuss a theological framework for innovation and changemaking, as well as to observe, test, research, and experiment with different models of innovation in pastoral leadership formation.

The work is exciting, challenging, forward focused, and promises real solutions for congregations to stay strong in a time of significant change in the world. The hope is to change the narrative, away from the concept of the “pastor as sole innovator” led church.

Pastors shouldn’t have to do it all – they should not be the only innovators, she says. They need partners and we believe God has already equipped each church with needed partners, in, with and through their congregations and communities.

“I like being back at Princeton Seminary for such a time as this! I am able to learn about new findings and resources that serve to greatly enhance the work of God’s Church, as well as to interact with faith leaders and scholars from around the world who are seeking after “God’s New Thing.” The Isaiah Partnership has been a rich adventure for me, and we look forward with anticipation to the impact it will make in this world!”

See, I am doing a new thing (says the Lord)… Do you not perceive it? – Isaiah 43:19.