Bio statements

Before the pandemic happened (correlation, not causation – at least, not directly) I spent a lot of time as a c-level speaker at festivals and symposia and conferences. I was often mentioned on the program under the phrase, “…and other exciting speakers!”

As in, “Come hear Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, and other exciting speakers!”

Anyway.

The point is, I always got asked for a brief bio for them to read before I came on stage or, rarely, to be printed in the program.

I haven’t been asked for a bio in probably four years. But this morning I’m being interviewed for a podcast about being a pastor, and was asked for a bio. I looked at my old one and it was horrendously out of date, so I wrote a new one.

In this process, I learned two things:

I) I still hate writing about myself in the third person.

2) My life is weird as shit these days.

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Hugh is a sixth generation Mississippian, a descendant of enslavers, and the pastor of Open Door Mennonite Church in Jackson, MS – a multiracial peace church formed in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement. He is a writer and storyteller and has been the publisher of a newsletter called Life is So Beautiful for more than a decade.

Before becoming pastor at Open Door, Hugh spent 12 years working as a pastor among unhoused people and those struggling with addictions. This taught him much of what he knows about both second chances and grace, but not much that is useful at congregational meetings.

He and his spouse Renee live in the Fondren neighborhood of Jackson, where they run a small scale kitten rescue called Purr and Pounce and live with four permanent cats and five chickens.

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Bio statements like this are always a bit weird, partly because you have to decide what is most important to convey in just a few sentences, which means you are necessarily curating. And since this is designed to be read by an audience for a specific event, they are even more heavily curated. For example, this one was for a podcast about preaching, so I focused heavily on my work in faith spaces, and didn’t mention my nonprofit experience.

If I were in a more secular space, I would reduce all that church work to something like, “Hugh is the pastor of Open Door Mennonite Church in Jackson, MS.”

I know all of social media is curation, but it is never so glaringly obvious as when you are writing your bio.