Shelley Best ‘00 M.Div.

2020Distinction in Congregational Ministry

At the heart of YDS is the commitment to train women and men for the lay and ordained ministries of the church. The award for Distinction in Congregational Ministry annually goes to an individual who has shown exceptional pastoral competence in the work of the mission of local congregations.

Rev. Dr. Shelley Best’s personal and theological life story reads like a portrait in human possibility and creative entrepreneurship. It is also a glimpse into the future of ministry. 

As a child growing up in Connecticut, Shelley forged a resilient faith in God. Later, during graduate school at YDS and Hartford Seminary, she clarified her ideals of human rights advocacy and liberation theology. 

At YDS, the late Letty Russell prompted Shelley to broaden her perspectives and value her own insights as a Black female scholar in a predominately white-male institution.

This influence was felt years later when Dr. Best became an ordained elder in the A.M.E. Zion Church and pastor of the Redeemer’s A.M.E. Zion Church in Plainville, Connecticut.

Dr. Best has been prodigious in bringing to life her personal blend of faith and activism.

As president of the Hartford-based Conference of Churches, she has helped transform the organization into an enterprise focused on community-building and soulful self-care.

At the heart of it is 224 EcoSpace, a 30,000-square-foot venue that features an art gallery, yoga and dance studios, a conference center, and workspaces for business start-ups. 

It’s been called one of the most distinctive office spaces in the city and was built on Dr. Best’s unique vision for faith and human possibility and clear understanding of how the two are interdependent.

Her activism has reached around the globe.

She served as the Connecticut leader in faith-based initiatives during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 

In India, she led a leadership workshop for fifty Christian ministers, and has  journeyed to South Africa and Israel with a mission to bridge faith and cultural understanding. 

Closer to home, Dr. Best hosts a Sunday morning radio broadcast on faith and community called “Rich Answers,” reaching more than 75,000 people in Southern New England. 

She became a certified yoga instructor after the age of fifty and shares the benefits of this practice with under-served communities.

Dr. Best is also an artist. Sixteen of her abstract paintings collectively titled “What is Black?” were part of an exhibit at YDS in 2019.

In a YDS interview that year she said, “It’s an honor to find myself in the role of practitioner and witness and exciting to have a chance to share how to do this theological work … the possibilities are endless.”