Showing Up in Community, Showing Up for Justice: The Faith Formation of One Influential Leader
There wasn’t a time in Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould’s life in which she wasn’t rooted in the church and her faith. Born into a Black Christian Family in the South, Cassandra heard the call from God when she was 10 years old. At the time, she wasn’t sure what that meant. She had only observed male preachers but knew GOD had an assignment for her. Her family relocated to St. Louis and by the time she was 14 she had convinced her pastor to let her teach Sunday School, and thus, her earliest foray into spiritual leadership was teaching the gospel to toddlers.
But Cassandra’s path to ministry seemingly was delayed. Her first career was in finance. She later launched a training and development business helping organizations and companies improve their practices and facilitating large corporate and professional development trainings. As she prepared for the trainings, alone in conference rooms and hotel ballrooms, Cassandra would walk among the empty chairs and pray to God that one day, these rooms would not be full of corporate leaders, but instead, faith leaders, and her role would be to build the capacity of and support people of faith, doing God’s work of justice.
Cassandra’s Call to Seminary
After being licensed to preach and deciding to go to Seminary, Cassandra thought she would leave St. Louis for good, but God had other plans. She enrolled at Eden with trepidation, not wanting to resign herself to “the local school.” During her first 72 hours at Eden, the word Cassandra kept hearing – from staff, faculty, the president – was “community.” And to be honest, Cassandra rolled her eyes at this. Lip service to “community” was everywhere, but living that value was another thing entirely.
Yet, during her first week, she found herself experiencing severe back pain, and sure enough, community showed up. Classmates offered to carry her books and one who was a licensed massage therapist gave her a massage.
“Those first few days gave me a glimpse – maybe there was something to this community thing. From those days to today, the manifestation of community at Eden has been real. The Eden community has been present for every personal and professional valley and mountain top I have experienced, since the day I walked through the doors.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould
Cassandra’s call to ministry was affirmed in the A.M.E. Church; she is a proud preacher in the Prophetic Black Church Tradition but it was Eden that helped her build connections and access experiences like the Samuel Dewitt Conference within her first year. It was there she found her people, and saw firsthand the praxis of the Prophetic Black Ministry. Encountering, connecting with, and becoming a mentee of Dr. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who she had only listened to on cassette tapes and after years of reading his scholarship and meeting the late Dr. James Cone while he was lecturing at Eden were life changing encounters. Eden provided opportunities to not only affirm and equip Cassandra but to help her and others wrestle with issues of theology and culture. One such class was Professor Emeritus Rev. Dr. Oglesby, Eden’s first Black tenured faculty member’s class on Religion, Race & Theology.
It’s been 15 years since she was a student at Eden and now as an adjunct faculty member teaching Doctor of Ministry students alongside President Krause, Cassandra has witnessed Eden evolve.
“The UCC has always been a place of liberation for some, but Eden was steeped in whiteness which meant it was often a struggle for Black students . This 175-year-old institution has not just taught us about justice, it has transformed internally and externally. And not without struggle but with intentionality.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould.
For Cassandra, it was gratifying to see Eden become more diverse, and to lean more deeply into the theological education rooted in social justice. But her proudest moment as an Eden alumn came at a time of tragedy, in the wake of Ferguson.
Cassandra’s Career of Service and Justice
After graduating, Cassandra became a pastor first in Paris, MO and then in Jefferson City. She pursued her Doctor of Ministry at another institution and started spending time advocating against predatory lending practices and for Medicaid expansion at the state and national level. Her work caught the attention of a local organization, Missouri Faith Voices, an affiliate of Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO, which helps communities build power through faith-led community organizing.
In August of 2014, in response to the murder of Mike Brown, Cassandra knew in her spirit the people of Ferguson would need an all hands on deck moment and called PICO to see if they could help. PICO team members responded from across the country and had a presence in Ferguson for close to a year. Eden graciously provided housing. Moreover, Eden alumni, students and faculty walked alongside the Ferguson community in protest of racialized police violence.
“When Eden says, “community,” it’s not just about classmates. It’s about building a culture of belonging and forming deep, lifelong connections.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould
As a result of her work in Ferguson, Cassandra accepted a position on the board of the local organization, Missouri Faith Voices, and later, after much convincing, agreed to become the executive director. In that role, she found herself in front of rooms full of faith leaders, often engaging in the work for formation that distinguished justice from charity. Cassandra helped them learn how to show up in their communities before a tragedy happens, so that when a tragedy happens they’ve already built credibility and trust. Cassandra’s hotel ballroom prayer was answered.
“I live in the answered prayer of God. I get to teach people of faith.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould.
Today, Cassandra lives in Washington D.C. and works for the same national network she called to Ferguson, Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO. She is the National Political Director at Faith in Action. Her role allows her to keep her pulpit in the public square, address issues of injustice, and continue to show up with compassion and faith often in times of tragedy.
Cassandra continues to fulfill her call, from traveling to Charlotte after the murder of Keith Lamont Scott in 2016 to responding to an urgent call to go to Buffalo in 2022, after the targeted murder of 10 innocent Black people in a grocery store.
In Buffalo, she found herself providing spiritual care for surviving family members, literally spending hours in funeral homes, and attending most of the funerals. While it was the most difficult call she had ever responded to, it is the very praxis of justice ministry that her time at Eden prepared her for.
“My mother was a voter rights worker and showed up in Selma, so some of it is my spiritual DNA and the rest Eden gave me the tools of praxis.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould.
This year, Cassandra has shown up at Delany Hall, the infamous ICE detention center in NJ, in the face of troops in LA, at an ICE detention Center in Basille, LA, and now in her own city, to help folks of faith resist military and ICE presence in their communities.
“The clarity I have is that one of my calls is to help people further clarify their calls, be rooted in justice, not just in the words of ministry, but ministry beyond the walls. As President Deb Krause would say, “I wrote my own template.” – Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould aka “Pastor in the Public Square”
