Rev. Dereca Blackmon is the new Senior Minister at the East Bay Church of Religious Science a Center for Spiritual Living (ebcrs.org) in Oakland, CA where she has dedicated over 25 years of service to the spiritual transformation of the entire planet.
Her sermons, lectures and workshops have provided over 100,000 participants in 20 countries with opportunities to expand their consciousness around issues of inclusion, forgiveness, self-love and radical healing. She has taught the Science of Mind philosophy in a wide variety of settings ranging from teen church to Holmes Institute. She has delivered over 75 talks at spiritual centers in Oakland, Sacramento, Dallas, Detroit and many others, including serving as the Fall Opening Lecture at Stanford University’s Memorial Church.
Her work is rooted in a tradition of sacred activism that seamlessly blends spiritual and cultural principles that foster personal and social liberation. Whether her ministry is in juvenile hall or corporate conference rooms, she is committed to providing loving comfort to those facing oppression and “constructive discomfort” to those resting in their societal privilege.
Rev. Dereca served as a lead architect in the effort to organize the Bay Area community response to the murder of Oscar Grant III. After working with the community to mobilize thousands of protestors and holding countless meetings and rallies she began to question the strategy of organizing “against” rather than “for.” She entered ministerial school at Holmes Institute, Santa Rosa campus and has never looked back, becoming one of the nation’s leading speakers on Sacred activism.
She served as a nonprofit executive for 20 years, developing nationally-adopted experiential curriculum and raising over $5 million dollars for Bay Area youth. She also served for six years as the Assistant Vice Provost and Executive Director of the Diversity and First-Generation Office at her alma mater, Stanford University, where she introduced groundbreaking work allowing participants to engage in deep, authentic and meaningful dialogues.
She currently serves as President and Co-Founder of Inclusion Design Group (https://inclusiondesign.com/) where she has consulted with a wide variety of corporate, educational, nonprofit and community-based groups to facilitate “uncommon conversations” on issues of race, gender, class and social justice. She and her team have supported industry leaders, including LinkedIn, Harvard University, YouTube and many others in activating their vision for diversity and inclusion in their organizations and in the world.
She is the mother of four bold and beautiful daughters who she raised in the spiritual principles of New Thought and who continue to be her life’s best teachers.
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