Bishop Vanessa Motoka Brown is an openly lesbian leader who is an ordained pastor, radical inclusionist, social justice activist, and digital creator. She is the founder and senior pastor of the Rivers of Living Water UCC of New York and New Jersey (@riversnynjucc; http://www.riversnynjucc.org/). She is an ordained minister of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries and an authorized minister in the United Church of Christ. As a bishop, reverend, and pastor, Dr. Brown is committed to her research and service that explores religion, sexuality, gender and race rooted in community education.
Bishop Brown was born in October 1970, in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She grew up in Harlem with parents that had moved up from the South and three older siblings at least ten years older than her, who had been raised in Brooklyn. She attended a Catholic elementary school and was raised in a Baptist church that she attended till the age of 12. While the Baptist church she attended did not speak ill of queer people in her experience, when it came to queerness, she knew from conversations outside of the church that it was frowned upon due to uses of words meant as insults and slurs.
In 1982, Evangelist Barry Fredericks came to preach a revival at Dr. Brown’s home church, the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem. She remembers him to be a young man who was still in high school at the time. In response to his call, she received Christ into her life–at the age of 12. The evangelist instructed her to go to an Apostolic Church, Greater Refuge Temple. Soon thereafter, she joined another Baptist church–with the permission of her father–and found that church to be more spirit-filled and aligned with her faith development. She was involved in music in the church from her early years and found that her gifts of directing choirs as well as singing transferred over to this church. However, a new homophobic pastor arrived at this church and began declaring harmful messages that contradicted Dr. Brown’s understanding as a teenager who was surrounded by queer community members and learning from their lived experiences as well as hers.
Bishop Brown knew that she was called to preach since her youth, but she would not get the space and ability to actualize that call until she was an adult. In 1988, she attended a revival at another church where she found affirmation from a young preacher who affirmed her calling. At this church she also found herself surrounded by queer folks, which was a shift from her previous church. She preached her first sermon at the age of 19, which launched her journey as a spiritual leader. The clergy who licensed her as a preacher encouraged women in ministry and knew that Bishop Brown was same gender-loving. The congregation was inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community through a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy where someone could attend with their partner regardless of gender and where preachers never took any anti-LGBTQ+ stances but also a church where queerness was never a formal discussion.
After high school in 1988, she studied at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. After graduation, she worked part-time at the New Life Christian Store, a bookstore, in Jamaica, Queens. In 1992, she was recruited to work part-time at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. There she met Ray Chew, a prominent music director and his wife, Vivian Scott Chew, the founder of TimeZone International. Brown worked as their assistant, promoting concerts and all-around music. In 1996, she became the producer of Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater. Her work at the Apollo continued to expand as she also produced Showtime at the Apollo, hired talent for shows, and managed events at the theater and on tour.
While she was working at the Apollo, Dr. Brown was licensed as an Evangelist at Higher Fellowship of the Savior in Jersey City. After a falling out with that pastor, she followed a love interest to an Apostolic church. However, after she heard homophobic rhetoric and harmful theology from the pulpit, she returned to Higher Fellowship of the Savior which became Oasis of Love Fellowship. There she served as associate pastor, then assistant pastor and finally as a co-pastor. Among colleagues in church circles, Dr. Brown heard disapproval of her work as a producer at the Apollo. They believed that it diminished her call to preaching. This led her to eventually leave the music industry after 15 years at the Apollo. She knew herself to be a preacher and always knew she was going to be a pastor.
Through this time she struggled with needing to be closeted as a lesbian and at the age of 36, she decided to be out, no matter what the church thought. Bishop Brown founded the Rivers of Living Water Church New York and became its pastor on April 1, 2007. Soon thereafter she was introduced to Bishop Yvette Flunder’s church in San Francisco where queerness was addressed. This strengthened her resolve to be an out lesbian preaching in a congregation that welcomed everyone. On June 1, 2014, she launched Rivers of Living Water Church New Jersey. The Rivers of Living Water is a Christ-centered, radically inclusive, Open & Affirming spiritual family. Its mission is to enrich all persons’ lives by approaching social justice through a Jesus lens, coupling the practice of radical inclusivity with sound theology and providing a worship environment that fosters a loving, welcoming, safe and resource-rich community. Music plays an important role at Rivers of Living Water and the church began to attract persons who were in the arts as well as youth.
In May 2013, she completed the Pacific School of Religion TEL certificate program. In 2014, she started a Masters of Divinity degree at the New York Theological Seminary, graduating in 2017. She continued her studies through a Doctor of Ministry in Multicultural Religion program, defending in April 2020 and graduating May 2020.

With the Covid pandemic breaking out, Bishop Brown began preaching via livestream. She continued Bible study programs and worked hard to make the church accessible to everyone even more during the pandemic. She hosted livestreamed evening conversations with guest speakers, following Bishop Yvette Flunder who hosted online programs the prior hour. They began to collaborate in co-hosting programs and invited Bishop Carlton Pearson to join them. Bishop Brown drew upon her experience as a producer to solidify what became known as Beyond the Gatekeepers ™, a weekly broadcast discussing current events through a theological and justice-informed lens, bridging the gap between church and community. All three of them hosted the program until Pearson’s death in 2023, following which Bishop Brown and Bishop Flunder have continued the weekly broadcast.
Bishop Brown with Bishop Yvette Flunder
In her role as pastor and teacher, Bishop Brown also began to host a weekly teaching series in January 2024. During summer that year she hosted the Bridging the Gap online series which curated conversations amongst faith leaders, activist and social justice warriors that focus on addressing HIV, sexual health, and human sexuality. Speaking from a faith-based perspective, Bridging the Gap also provided information on combatting religious oppression that impacts the sexual health of Black people, how the Black church can become more invested in HIV prevention and awareness, human sexuality, bodily autonomy as well as unpack some of the medical mistrusts and traumas that continue to plague the Black community.
Bishop Brown serves as the chair of New Church Development for the Central Atlantic Conference of the United of Christ and on the board of the William R. Johnson Scholarship Fund. She was inducted into the Morehouse College 38th Martin Luther King Jr. College of Ministers and Laity. With music as an anchor in her life and drawing on the solace of a loving community, Bishop Brown expands love, inclusion and visibility through her preaching, teaching, hosting and producing as a pastor. At a time in history when Black and Brown queer bodies are under siege, Dr. Brown has committed her research and platform to a nuanced exploration of the most marginalized among us.
Luke 1:45 “And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord."
(This biographical statement was written by Tarchithaa Sekharan from an interview with Bishop Vanessa Brown and was edited by Brown.)
Biography Date: January 2025