Cass Community Social Services leader to address laity at Detroit Annual Conference tomorrow ~ The Michigan Area Reporter

• By Paul Thomas, Detroit Conference Director of Communications •

The Rev. Faith Fowler, director one of United Methodism’s most comprehensive ministries with the poor, will speak to annual conference lay members at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 19.

As chief executive for Cass Community Social Services (CCSS) in Detroit since 1994, Fowler oversees fiscal, administrative, and program development for the human service agency that works with the hungry, homeless, unemployed, "at-risk" youth, the mentally ill, developmentally disabled and more — all while also serving as senior pastor of the Cass Community United Methodist Church.

“During an annual conference built on the concept of engaging in ministry with the poor, we couldn’t have arranged for any more appropriate person to challenge us as laity,” said Mike Clark, Detroit Conference Lay Leader. “Lay men and women are, and rightly should be, the initiators and sustaining force behind powerful ministries. No one is more capable of fanning those flames within us than Faith Fowler."

Beyond her work at CCSS, Fowler has served as a board member for the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation (CCNDC) and as an advisory board member of the Detroit Area Agency on Aging. She currently serves on the General Board of Church and Society and as the Chair of the City of Detroit's Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Community Advisory Committee.

Prior to coming to Cass Community, she served from 1986-1994 as pastor at the William S. Ford Memorial United Methodist Church in Detroit. From 1983 to 1986, she worked with the Catholic Chaplaincy Team at Walpole Maximum Security Prison in Massachusetts.

Her interests include reading, running, the environment and travel. Fowler has finished the Boston Marathon four times. She has visited Zimbabwe, Africa; Australia; Korea; Russia, as well as several countries in Europe and England.

Her recognitions include a Detroit Free Press Green Leader Award, Roeper School’s Golden Apple Humanitarian Award, and, for the Detroit Conference’s East and West Districts, a Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award.