The Rev. Dr. Joanna Adams

Denomination: Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA)

Joanna Adams is a preacher, pastor, and teacher known for building bridges of understanding in both the community and in the church.

A graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary, Rev. Adams holds an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Davidson College and was awarded the Alumni Association Medal of Honor from Emory University and Columbia’s Distinguished Alumni/ae award. She has also served as a trustee of the Presbyterian Church Foundation, Agnes Scott College, and Columbia Theological Seminary.

In 2006, the Rev. Adams was named Georgia Woman of the Year and has been featured in Atlanta Magazine as one of the forty-five most loved Atlantans. In 2014, she was named Woman of the Year by the YWCA of Greater Atlanta.

She has preached at the National Cathedral, the Memorial Church of Harvard University, and the Chautauqua Institution, as well as at many Presbyterian and ecumenical events. She has authored over40 published articles, sermons, and chapters in books.

Rev. Adams has been involved in starting more than a dozen non-profit organizations, including Intown Collaborative Ministries, the Agape Center, and the Georgia Committee for Religious Liberty. She has also coordinated a series of Christian/Jewish dialogues in Atlanta under the sponsorship of the Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, MD. For five years, she and four other clergy leaders in Atlanta made up Higher Ground, an initiative of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, which encouraged civil discourse and brought insight and wisdom from their different religious traditions to bear on contemporary challenges.

From 2013-2014, she served as Interim Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA. Prior to that, she was Senior Pastor of Morningside Presbyterian Church, Trinity Presbyterian Church, and North Decatur Presbyterian Church, all in the Atlanta area. She began her ministry as Associate Pastor and Minister to the Community at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and served for two years as Co-Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

Across the years, Joanna has chaired the boards of five institutions, including that of Columbia Theological Seminary, the YWCA of Metro Atlanta and Our House, the first center in Dekalb County designed to serve families who are homeless and their children. Overall, she has served on the boards of over twenty organizations that strive to help the least, the lost, and the left out.

Currently, she is on the boards of Skyland Trail and One Hundred Miles, an organization that advocates for the protection of Georgia’s Golden Isles. Joanna and her husband, Atlanta attorney Alfred B. Adams III, have a daughter, a son, and two grandchildren.