Ross Murray is an ordained Deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with a calling to advocate for LGBTQ people and to bridge the LGBTQ and faith communities. He is a founder of the Naming Project and currently works at GLAAD.
Ross was born in 1976 to a Lutheran family in Littlefork, Minnesota. Due to growing up in such a small town, Littlefork was home to around 850 people at the time, he only came out to a select few. He learned at a young age that the safest places for him were his home and his church. Ross continued to live in northern Minnesota until he was a young adult, except for one year abroad as an exchange student in Belgium during high school. Upon his return to the U.S., he attended his local community college where his parents worked, so his tuition was free.
In 1996, Ross moved to Minneapolis to attend Augsburg University to pursue a degree in Youth and Family Ministry and used the opportunity to come out. He had been surrounded by affirming people until that point and he was surprised that other students struggled to understand how he was so active in both the LGBTQ student organization and the campus ministry. Ross was convinced that he had “won” people over with his “natural charm and charisma.” After graduating college in 2000, he carried that vibrant energy to a traveling musical ministry team called Youth Encounter. However, that self-professed charm and charisma did not work the same as before. After only four months with Youth Encounter, they kicked him out of the organization for being gay. Since he was comfortable reconciling his faith and sexuality and the organization was not, they established policies that prohibited openly LGBTQ people from participating. The organization has since closed.
After his Youth Encounter experience, Ross returned to Minneapolis considering if he was angry at God, the church, or other people. He was not ashamed to be out and partnered with someone who would become his husband, but he felt dejected. The local chapter leaders of Lutherans Concerned/North America (now known as ReconcilingWorks) reached out to him regarding what transpired with Youth Encounter and Ross became involved with the Twin Cities chapter around 2001. After being unfairly removed from his previous job, he worked with the Youth & Family Institute that ran his undergrad degree while attending seminary at Luther Seminary for a Master of Arts in Outreach and Discipleship.
One day, an executive came to him and inquired about faith-based programs for LGBTQ youth. She knew of a local young person who came out to his parents and together they were seeking a faith-based organization that would support his sexuality and spirituality. After much research on the topic, it appeared that none existed. Inspired by this apparent need in the community, Ross and Jay Wiesner decided this would be something that they should start themselves. Therefore, in 2003, they created The Naming Project in the basement of Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The work of this organization was to provide a safe space for LGBTQ and allied youth to discuss spirituality and sexuality and to remind each and every person of our being named as a child of God.
Soon after The Naming Project’s inception, Rev. Brad Froslee came to them with a dream of doing church camp with LGBTQ kids. The three of them had attended and worked at camps prior, so they decided to take on the idea as one of their offerings. Within weeks Jay, Ross, and Brad were developing the program with Brad directing and overseeing camp planning and development, Ross developing programmatic planning and fundraising, and Jay overseeing pastoral care and youth outreach. After a year of preparation, the first week of camp kicked off in August of 2004. In their first year, a filmmaker came to document the camp and share the lives and stories of the courageous youth who came to this first-ever LGBTQ and allied church camp. Some of the camp story is illustrated in their award-winning documentary Camp Out. Then again in 2010 they were filmed to feature in an episode of Our America with Lisa Ling on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The episode is mostly about conversion therapy, but the documentarians framed The Naming Project camp as a foil to those operations.
Around the same time, Ross was getting more involved with Lutherans Concerned and the ELCA was starting their study process to make a statement about human sexuality and make policy decisions about LGBTQ clergy. He was hired to execute the Lutherans Concerned 2004 biannual gathering to organize for change and get people trained up in faith-based community organizing. He planned the 2008 and 2010 assemblies as well and eventually joined the board. When the Executive Director had to step away due to severe health issues, Ross stepped into many leadership roles to keep the organization on track for the ELCA vote in 2009 and ready for the subsequent fallout and follow-up. He stayed with Lutherans Concerned for two more years.
In 2011, Ross was hired to work at GLAAD as the Director of Religion, Faith, & Values in New York City.. His job titles and responsibilities have shifted over time and he currently serves as the Vice President of Education and Advocacy with the GLAAD Media Institute. At first, he was working with LGBTQ advocacy groups but the focus has shifted to those who have platforms and significant influence. Through this strategy, they made connections to Pope Francis and GLAAD was able to educate him on LGBTQ criminalization laws around the world. This education led him to speak out to a reporter in January of 2023 calling the criminalization unjust. GLAAD was able to meet with him afterwards to express gratitude for what he said and remind him that he has to do and say more. Francis’ encouraging response was, “Tell me what to say and I will figure out when and how to say it.” In a follow-up visit the next year, Ross was unable to attend this time, but organized visits from people from countries where LGBTQ people were being criminalized so they could share their firsthand experience. The delegation also included transgender people, one of the Pope’s biggest learning curves. Ross finds that Pope Francis was very good with people, so getting to meet transgender people who are thriving and living because of the love and support they have, was ultimately moving for him before his death in 2024.
Although he already completed seminary, Ross did not start the candidacy process until after the ELCA church policy change. After the vote in 2009, he began talking to the synod who found he had already met many of the requirements. While running the Naming Project and working at GLAAD, Ross was ordained as a deacon in 2016.
Ross has also authored two books, Made, Known, Loved: Developing LGBTQ-Inclusive Youth Ministry and Everyday Advocate:Living Out Your Calling to Social Justice. He uses his books to focus on youth ministry for LGBTQ youth and encouraging people to use their faith as motivation for social justice. Both books demonstrate that internal welcome is vital, but it is also necessary to make the world better and get people to experience the abundant life that is promised in scripture.
As for other projects, Ross was the producer for the irreverent yet faithful and affirming podcast Yass Jesus! from 2020-2024. Yass Jesus! was hosted by Daniel Franzese, known for playing Damien in Mean Girls, and former televangelist Azariah Southworth. They asked him to be the producer and gave him the title of “freakin’ deacon” Ross Murray. He ended up writing scripts for them, using his religious and scriptural education to create casual, yet informed conversations for the hosts. The unique, irreverent, tone of the podcast allowed him to flex different creative muscles and to channel things that he should not say aloud as a professional into a script for comedians (and still get credit for great puns). Ross imagines that a future book from him, inspired by the podcast, will be about Bible stories where queer themes show up in scripture.
After 21 years of summer camps, The Naming Project is still active. Brad and Jay have stepped away from leadership but Ross is still involved as an original founder. In recent events, after living in New York City for 14 years, Ross and his husband, who have been together for 27 years, moved back to his native Minnesota this past spring.
(This biographical statement was written by Elizabeth Herrick from an interview with Ross Murray on August 19, 2025, supplemented with the digital resources below, and was reviewed by Ross Murray.)
Biography Date: October 2025