Renee McCoy describes herself as a an anthropologist, a preacher, and an artist. These designations are not presented in an order of importance. Neither is more significant that the other. Each represents a different way of being in the world, different representations of how life unfolds and is expressed from day to day.
Anthropologist:
Renee McCoy holds a doctorate in anthropology with a focus on medical anthropology. She has taught business and organizational anthropology, and qualitative research methods at Wayne State University, classes in gender, race and sexuality at Eastern Michigan University and variety of courses at the University of Washington, including linguistic anthropology, comparative study of death and dying, anthropology of identities, and medical anthropology and global health. She has conducted ethnographic research in the Detroit metropolitan area targeting hard to reach, high risk groups including African American Men who have Sex with Men, injecting drug users, and women engaged in high-risk behaviors. Prior to moving to Seattle in 2009, she was the Director of HIV/AIDS Programs for the Detroit metropolitan area, managing HIV/AIDS prevention and care services for the Detroit metropolitan area through the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion. Her duties included the administration of the Ryan White CARE Act and Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV/AIDS (HOPWA) programs and expanding outreach and HIV/AIDS education throughout the counties surrounding Detroit. She has also worked as Behavioral Surveillance Coordinator for the Michigan Department of Community Health, overseeing the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) project and managed community-based HIV prevention programs targeting high-risk youth and women. She is the former Director of Public and Private Grants and the former Assistant Director of Prevention Education at Lifelong AIDS Alliance on Seattle, where she moved in 2009.
Dr. McCoy has a long and extensive history of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and research dating back to the onset of the pandemic in 1981, working in New York, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, MI, and Seattle, WA. Much of her work has focused on identifying and addressing the concerns of minorities and stigmatized groups including people of color and LGBTQ persons. She has received numerous national and local awards for her efforts in HIV/AIDS, pastoral care, and community organizing. Although her primary HIV/AIDS focus has been prevention and risk reduction among African Americans, LGBTQ persons, and women, she has also worked in HIV/AIDS care, research, outreach, program evaluation and design, and administration.
Preacher:
Dr. McCoy is also an ordained minister who has served the spiritual needs of LGBTQ persons for over four decades. Her ministry has focused primarily on African American LGBTQ communities, especially providing spiritual support for persons infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS in her role as the pastor of congregations in New York City and Detroit. While living in New York City, she was making a living working with homeless women in the Times Square section of the city. She was also the founding pastor of a church in Harlem, Harlem Metropolitan Community Church (Harlem MCC) that primarily served African American LGBTQ persons. Harlem MCC was, in fact, the first Christian congregation intentionally established and governed by African American LGBTQ persons. Although no longer in existence, the church began in 1981, the same year HIV/AIDS surfaced on the landscape of the world.She is the founding pastor of Full Truth Fellowship of Christ Church in Detroit, MI, where she is currently helping reorganize and advance a ministry that has addressed the spiritual needs of LGBT persons for over 29 years. Until recently (May, 2019), she served as a co-pastor of Eastgate Congregational United Church of Christ in Bellevue, WA. Check out her new podcast "Squawking the Gospel", as well as of some of her sermons. These are posted on the page "Renee as Preacher" on this site.
Artist:
While living in New York City, Renee experiences the challenges of oppression and inequality firsthand through her work with homeless women and substance users and in her efforts to provide pastoral care to LGBTQ persons. The devastation of HIV/AIDS during that time along with her day-to-day employment created a painful dimension of stress into her life that at times caused serious mental and physical anguish . She needed something to neutralize the pain and lessen the stress. Pottery became that "something". While recovering from a serious illness in 1986, Renee decided to take a pottery class offered at Riverside Church. It was in the process of developing a relationship with clay that she experienced healing from the emotional toll extracted through years of ministry and social justice activities. Although at first she did not like the mess of working with clay, she quickly grew to love the process and the medium and continues to be especially drawn to the process of wheel thrown pottery. She often tells people, "In many ways, clay has saved my life over and over again throughout the years. The process of taking a lump of mud, centering it on a wheel and working with it to create a vessel represents how life unfolds as well as how God shows up in the world. At first the clay is resistant and unwilling to establish a relationship. With mutual respect for one another's strength, however, both the potter and the clay become willing to trust and the relationship between potter and clay begins and a vessel takes shape. The Spirit of God seems to hover above the wheel, urging both potter and clay to surrender to the needs of the universe for creation to continue. A vessel is born. Sometimes it makes it and what emerges becomes something that lives on; sometimes the process has to start all over again. It's a process that has nurtured and sustained me for decades, even during years that I was unable to work with clay for any number of reasons. Knowing that creation comes through trust and centering and doing the work of building a relationship has empowered me to survive several chronic illnesses and, most recently, nurtured me through pancreatic cancer. For me, clay heals." Examples of Renee's pottery can be found in her gallery on this site.
There's More...
Renee McCoy lives in Seattle, WA and is married to Rev. Dr. Patricia Hunter. They have a wonderfully gentle dog, Baxter. She also finds strength and hope as a writer and a gardener and enjoys camping and fishing.
Anthropologist:
Renee McCoy holds a doctorate in anthropology with a focus on medical anthropology. She has taught business and organizational anthropology, and qualitative research methods at Wayne State University, classes in gender, race and sexuality at Eastern Michigan University and variety of courses at the University of Washington, including linguistic anthropology, comparative study of death and dying, anthropology of identities, and medical anthropology and global health. She has conducted ethnographic research in the Detroit metropolitan area targeting hard to reach, high risk groups including African American Men who have Sex with Men, injecting drug users, and women engaged in high-risk behaviors. Prior to moving to Seattle in 2009, she was the Director of HIV/AIDS Programs for the Detroit metropolitan area, managing HIV/AIDS prevention and care services for the Detroit metropolitan area through the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion. Her duties included the administration of the Ryan White CARE Act and Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV/AIDS (HOPWA) programs and expanding outreach and HIV/AIDS education throughout the counties surrounding Detroit. She has also worked as Behavioral Surveillance Coordinator for the Michigan Department of Community Health, overseeing the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) project and managed community-based HIV prevention programs targeting high-risk youth and women. She is the former Director of Public and Private Grants and the former Assistant Director of Prevention Education at Lifelong AIDS Alliance on Seattle, where she moved in 2009.
Dr. McCoy has a long and extensive history of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and research dating back to the onset of the pandemic in 1981, working in New York, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, MI, and Seattle, WA. Much of her work has focused on identifying and addressing the concerns of minorities and stigmatized groups including people of color and LGBTQ persons. She has received numerous national and local awards for her efforts in HIV/AIDS, pastoral care, and community organizing. Although her primary HIV/AIDS focus has been prevention and risk reduction among African Americans, LGBTQ persons, and women, she has also worked in HIV/AIDS care, research, outreach, program evaluation and design, and administration.
Preacher:
Dr. McCoy is also an ordained minister who has served the spiritual needs of LGBTQ persons for over four decades. Her ministry has focused primarily on African American LGBTQ communities, especially providing spiritual support for persons infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS in her role as the pastor of congregations in New York City and Detroit. While living in New York City, she was making a living working with homeless women in the Times Square section of the city. She was also the founding pastor of a church in Harlem, Harlem Metropolitan Community Church (Harlem MCC) that primarily served African American LGBTQ persons. Harlem MCC was, in fact, the first Christian congregation intentionally established and governed by African American LGBTQ persons. Although no longer in existence, the church began in 1981, the same year HIV/AIDS surfaced on the landscape of the world.She is the founding pastor of Full Truth Fellowship of Christ Church in Detroit, MI, where she is currently helping reorganize and advance a ministry that has addressed the spiritual needs of LGBT persons for over 29 years. Until recently (May, 2019), she served as a co-pastor of Eastgate Congregational United Church of Christ in Bellevue, WA. Check out her new podcast "Squawking the Gospel", as well as of some of her sermons. These are posted on the page "Renee as Preacher" on this site.
Artist:
While living in New York City, Renee experiences the challenges of oppression and inequality firsthand through her work with homeless women and substance users and in her efforts to provide pastoral care to LGBTQ persons. The devastation of HIV/AIDS during that time along with her day-to-day employment created a painful dimension of stress into her life that at times caused serious mental and physical anguish . She needed something to neutralize the pain and lessen the stress. Pottery became that "something". While recovering from a serious illness in 1986, Renee decided to take a pottery class offered at Riverside Church. It was in the process of developing a relationship with clay that she experienced healing from the emotional toll extracted through years of ministry and social justice activities. Although at first she did not like the mess of working with clay, she quickly grew to love the process and the medium and continues to be especially drawn to the process of wheel thrown pottery. She often tells people, "In many ways, clay has saved my life over and over again throughout the years. The process of taking a lump of mud, centering it on a wheel and working with it to create a vessel represents how life unfolds as well as how God shows up in the world. At first the clay is resistant and unwilling to establish a relationship. With mutual respect for one another's strength, however, both the potter and the clay become willing to trust and the relationship between potter and clay begins and a vessel takes shape. The Spirit of God seems to hover above the wheel, urging both potter and clay to surrender to the needs of the universe for creation to continue. A vessel is born. Sometimes it makes it and what emerges becomes something that lives on; sometimes the process has to start all over again. It's a process that has nurtured and sustained me for decades, even during years that I was unable to work with clay for any number of reasons. Knowing that creation comes through trust and centering and doing the work of building a relationship has empowered me to survive several chronic illnesses and, most recently, nurtured me through pancreatic cancer. For me, clay heals." Examples of Renee's pottery can be found in her gallery on this site.
There's More...
Renee McCoy lives in Seattle, WA and is married to Rev. Dr. Patricia Hunter. They have a wonderfully gentle dog, Baxter. She also finds strength and hope as a writer and a gardener and enjoys camping and fishing.
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