Laurie Lynn Newman serves St. Andrew as Interim Pastor. She was drawn to ministry because of her roots as a PK (preacher’s kid) and the sense of extended family she experienced through church. Growing up in Tennessee and Colorado, she had the wonderful good fortune of the freedom to play in the forests and to ride horses with her best friend. She enjoyed singing in choirs, sometimes visiting parishioners with her father, and helping teach Sunday school.
She attended Philips University, a small liberal arts college in Enid, Oklahoma, for undergraduate work, attended the University of Chicago for her graduate degree, and migrated to the West Coast to attend San Francisco Theological Seminary. When she ran down the beach to stick her toes in the Pacific Ocean for the first time, her mother said, “I just know she’s never coming back to Oklahoma!” And that turned out to be correct.
Laurie moved to Portland in 1990 and has served in ministry in Presbyterian Churches (USA) until now. Much of her ministry has been focused on congregational care and fellowship. Laurie thinks about how we can bring mind, heart, and body–these three–to worship. She’s a singer of Bach cantatas, a writer of poetry, and a social dancer (waltz, lindy hop, swing, salsa, cha-cha, and rumba). You can find her lap-swimming most mornings, followed by meditation and morning coffee.
Her young adult sons are both in college. Aaron is a freshman at the University of Oregon, where his interests lie in the areas of psychology and philosophy. Alex is a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.