Lauren's Story

Rev. Lauren Cannon served at Keystone Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) Seattle as Associate Pastor (2012 - 2022). As founding program Director for the Young Adult Service Community with the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC, she led the Justice Leadership Program that became JLP Jubilee. Rev. Cannon previously served as Minister for Faith Formation and Service at Plymouth UCC downtown Seattle. In Chicago, Lauren was at the Japanese American Christ Church UCC, and First Congregational UCC of Glen Ellyn, and Primera Iglesia Congregacional de Chicago UCC.

Lauren received her Master of Divinity from the Chicago Theological Seminary (2006), and then her Master of Sacred Theology, also from CTS (2009.)

With Keystone, Lauren served as teacher and preacher in partnership with worker justice, environmental justice and advocacy organizations in Seattle and WA, on efforts such as pressuring banks to stop funding fossil fuel pipelines, halting a youth jail, building faith-based anti-poverty movement with the Poor People’s Campaign, or securing living wages and safety for workers at SeaTac Airport.*

Pastor Lauren was an international Co-coordinator at Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Chicago during campaign delegations to break sanctions on Iraq and end the war on Iraq, including prison time and a 500-mile witness against war. Her work in social justice movements in New England was with the Catholic Worker, the Jonah House Community the Dover Quakers, Portsmouth Unitarian Universalist, and NH Peace Action, and as a trainer for nonviolent direct action.

Lauren’s activism began in anti-violence work after graduating from the University of New Hampshire with B.S. in Child and Family Studies and Women’s Studies. She directed volunteers at the Sexual Assault Support Services of Portsmouth and served in Women’s Health as medical assistant at Feminist Women’s Health Center and Portsmouth OBGYN & Midwifery.

Lauren’s inspiration to fight for climate justice came from growing up playing in the woods behind her Amherst, MA home near the Berkshire Mountains, and exploring NH White Mountains, and lakes and coast of Downeast Maine.

Lauren is partner to Rev. Mike Denton, Conference Minister of the Pacific Northwest UCC, and mother to 9-year-old Leo, who loves tree and mountain climbing around Seattle. Lauren’s Seattle joys include raising her family, growing food in the yard, volunteering on a horse farm and playing lots of lady soccer.

(*See Ch. 5 in Beyond $15 :  Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement”-Rosenblum, 2017, Beacon Press.)

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