About
Interfaith Multicultural Community Ministries (IMCM) is a diverse community of lay and ordained spiritual leaders, social justice activists, and faith-based practitioners. We advance an inclusive, anti-racist and progressive perspective of diverse multicultural community ministry.
Our Mission is to inspire and affirm people of faith who serve outside the boundaries of traditional sacred spaces by championing professional development and creating space for interfaith collaboration.
We envision an interfaith and interspiritual community rooted in inclusion that honors the legacy of community ministry. We facilitate thought-leadership for practical application. We believe when ministries thrive, communities thrive.
🏵️ This year we invite you to join us during continue education podcasts, and networking happy hours. We also have marketing ministry masterminds where you can learn how to grow your ministry and increase your income. You’re invited!
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🌟Contact: helpdeskimcm@gmail.com
Leadership + Oversight
Co-Advisory Team
The IMCM Co-advisory team is comprised of two seasoned advisors who actively contribute their wisdom and leadership to advance interfaith multicultural community ministry.
Rev. Eric Eldritch (he/him), Senior Advisor IMCM
Rev. Eldritch brings thirty years of experience in community organizing and community ministry to IMCM.
As a community organizer, Eldritch offers skills in nonprofit, federal and professional organization leadership based on principles of social justice, group identity, sociolinguistics and cross-cultural relations.
As a community minister, Eldritch helps organize, energize and inspire intrafaith and interfaith programs by creating music, writing liturgy and creating art that inspires community cohesion. He specializes in designing worship and spiritual retreats to increase interfaith understanding and collaboration.
Eldritch teaches educational sessions that support professional and spiritual growth including: Art in Personal and Public Ritual, The Sacred Fool – Speaking Truth to Power, Intergenerational Event Planning, and Dynamic Group Facilitation.
For the past 20 years, he has co-coordinated Center Faith, a program of the DC Center for the LGBTQ community. Center Faith provides interfaith referrals and coordinates the annual Washington, DC Pride Interfaith Service (now celebrating its 43rd year of interfaith collaboration).
Rev. Eldritch is ordained as Pagan clergy with Circle Sanctuary (a nature spirituality, social justice church based in Madison, Wisconsin). He is an Ex-vangelical, a Radical Faerie, a 3° Priestx of The Stone Circle Tradition of Wicca (USA) and a Unitarian Universalist Pagan.
Eldritch’s goal is to utilize religion, not to split people apart, but to bring people together.
Mary "Tyrtle" Rooker (prefers no pronouns. When necessary: she/it*), Senior Advisor
*It, until all our Kin are no longer assigned the "it" pronoun - including other animals, plants, rivers, mountains, etc.
As a community organizer, Mary strives to model and nurture consensus decision making and cooperative leadership. These practices invite individuals to restore right relationship to their own true selves and each other. Mary’s spiritual beliefs inform her political activism, which began in the 1970s and include a range of freedom, justice, and ecology movements. Mary has been organizing and ministering within spiritual communities since 1993.
As a community minister, Mary specializes in formal and informal events that help herself and others awaken to and answer the call of the Great Turning. This Turning calls us to right relationship with ourselves and with all our Kin – human and more than human. We can then heal cultural and lifestyle dysfunction, including our diet, our personal care and home cleaning products, and other consumption patterns, and dismantle oppressive systems.
Mary has engaged shamanism since the early 1990s with a shamanic healing and teaching practice in the D.C. area since 2000. She expanded her work to teach advanced shamanism and healing modalities in 2007 through Shamanic Spring. Within her Unitarian Universalist congregation, Mary has been active as a sacred dancer, worship leader, food educator, adult spiritual development facilitator, and occasional drummer and singer.
Mary is ordained with the Circle of the Sacred Earth, a shamanic/animistic church based in Massachusetts. Her goal invites all to explore the relationship tenets of their own spiritual path and to live more fully aligned with their spiritual beliefs.
Managing Director
The Managing Director develops and executes strategy while overseeing a portfolio of projects and programs that advance interfaith multicultural community ministry.
Ebony C. Peace, SPHR, GCDF (she/her), Managing Director
With over 20 years in human resources and organizational development experience within nonprofit, federal, and higher education, Ebony joins us as Managing Director to provide vision-setting, strategic leadership, outreach, program management, and learning culture with an entrepreneurial spirit. In this role, she facilitates a national conversation about the present and future of community ministry and the role society plays in shaping it.
A clinical sociologist (change agent and interventionist) by trade, she is a Unitarian Universalist and Lay Community Minister. She has two ministries: Sunstone Chapel and Innovative Spirit.
Based in Silver Spring, Maryland she is an executive advisor, chief learning officer, and consultant focusing on strategy execution for inclusive, values-based organizations.
She enjoys teaching Sociology at her local community college which is ranked #1 as the best community college in Maryland and ranked as the most diverse community college in the continental United States.
Ebony is a certified Senior Human Resources professional (SPHR) and certified career consultant (GCDF-I and CCSP) with degrees from Sweet Briar College, Johns Hopkins University, and Meadville Lombard Theological School.
Chaplain of Operations and Engagement
Shannon C. High, MDiv, MAST, CSSC (she/her)
Minister Shannon C. High’s journey is marked by a profound commitment to the LGBTQ+ community, spirituality, social transformation, and the creation of inclusive and meaningful worship experiences. Her dedication to these pursuits is reflected in her academic achievements, community involvement, and ministerial service.
Shannon’s academic path began at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where she laid a strong foundation in theological education. She then traveled across the country to further her studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. There, she earned a Master of Divinity, a Master of Arts in Social Transformation, and a Certificate in Spirituality and Social Change. These accomplishments underscore her commitment to integrating spiritual practice with social justice advocacy.
Her dedication to community building and advocacy for marginalized groups was recognized with the prestigious Koinonia Community Building Award in 2021. This honor highlights her outstanding work with the deaf community, unhoused populations, and individuals fighting for quality mental health care. Minister High's advocacy efforts demonstrate her unwavering commitment to inclusivity and equity.
Initially a Member in Discernment for the United Church of Christ, Shannon has since chosen to continue her ministry within the Unitarian Universalist denomination. Her move reflects a desire to engage with a broader spectrum of spiritual and social justice work, fostering inclusive communities that celebrate diversity.
Shannon embodies a unique blend of theological insight, artistic expression, and social activism, making her a transformative presence in her community and a beacon of hope and change.
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Contact
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