Lynne Hinton. Photo credit: Robert Branard
Rev. Lynne Hinton, a member of First Congregational UCC Albuquerque, has been elected as Conference Director of the New Mexico Conference of Churches, effective July 1, 2021.
Lynne Hinton was born and raised in North Carolina. She attended Wake Forest University and is a graduate of UNCGreensboro. She also attended NC School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking and graduated with her Masters of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and has served as a hospice chaplain and as a senior pastor in North Carolina and in New Mexico, as well as an interim pastor in northeastern Washington.
Lynne is the author of twenty-two books, including the NY Times Bestseller, Friendship Cake and Pie Town, a 2011 NM Book of the Year. She has served as a regular guest columnist in the Faith and Values Section for The Charlotte Observer for over a decade and was the 2008 Lucy B. Patterson Author of the Year by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in NC. In 2010 and 2015, she was the recipient of a Louisville Institute Pastoral Study Grant and was named 2012 Favorite Local Writer in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Albuquerque, The Magazine.
Lynne has lived in New Mexico for fifteen years and is a member of First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque. She has served as a chaplain across the central portion of New Mexico, working with families from Grants to Tijeras and Belen to Santa Fe. She has served populations on the Navajo Reservation and on the Acoma, Laguna, and Santa Ana Pueblos and has worked with people from diverse faith and cultural backgrounds. Since 2019, Lynne has also been teaching journaling at the Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Care Campus in the Crisis and Recovery Units. She has led retreats across the country, focusing on writing and spirituality as well as workshops on self-care for clergy, writing as a healing and spiritual practice, and other contemporary spiritual topics. She has served on the Board of Trustees for Pacific School of Religion, where she was selected as a Distinguished Alumni of the year, 2003, and on the Western Association of the Southern Conference of the UCC.
Lynne and her husband Bob Branard live in Albuquerque where she enjoys running, writing, reading, and hiking. And in case you’re wondering, she prefers green.