About Me

Lily Tinker Fortel (she/her) is ordained in the United Church of Christ. Raised Methodist and Quaker, Lily delights in honoring the sacred in everyone through building paths to holistic and sustainable healing in our world.

Lily is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (Master of Divinity, 2015) and Earlham College (Peace and Global Studies, 2006). At Union, Lily studied the intersections of religion and social transformation. Prior to seminary, Lily was a Community Organizer with community-rooted nonprofit organizations. She has planned direct actions, facilitated workshops, and spoken locally and nationally. In 2018, Lily completed a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training with teacher Nicole Teufel at Blue Moon Wild Yoga studio in Ann Arbor.

Lily has traveled nationally and internationally to advance and study secular and interfaith work for peace and justice. During seminary, Lily was awarded a Luce Foundation Fellowship to study interreligious and cross-cultural studies at Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta, Indonesia. Lily co-coordinated the 2013 International Buddhist Christian Conference: A Dialogue Between Engaged Buddhists and Liberation Theologians, and co-organized Every Valley: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium on Community Economic Empowerment in Harlem. In April/May 2008, Lily was part of a 19-member civilian diplomacy delegation to Iran, organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Lily served as a board member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA from 2013-2017.