The Center for Interfaith Relations is pleased to welcome the Rev. Dr. Lauren Jones Mayfield as its new executive director, effective December 2024. Mayfield brings a wealth of experience in the areas of pastoral leadership and social justice, as well as a deep commitment to fostering interfaith dialogue and strengthening communities through common action.
The CIR Board of Directors launched an extensive search for a new executive director this summer when Sarah Riggs Reed announced plans to depart from the role at the culmination of the 2024 Festival of Faiths, the center’s annual marquee event.
“It has been an honor to steward this organization for the past decade, and I am proud of all we have accomplished,” Reed says. “However, CIR is poised to begin a new chapter to infuse interfaith dialogue with deeper relevance and understanding. Lauren Mayfield is uniquely qualified to lead this organization at this time in CIR’s history. CIR is in good and caring hands.”
Before returning to her home state of Kentucky in 2012, Mayfield served the Riverside Church in New York City as the director of worship and held pastoral leadership positions in Baptist, Mennonite and United Church of Christ churches across the country. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, Lauren completed her Doctor of Ministry degree at the Pacific School of Religion, where she focused her research on social justice and transformation.
“I am delighted to begin as the new executive director at the Center for Interfaith Relations,” Mayfield says. “Interfaith relationships remind us of our interconnectedness to one another and to our planet. They create paths forward through common action. They inspire our curiosities, and they serve us well in the subversive work of gratitude and joy. I join the center’s work with enthusiasm and a commitment to justice as we seek to embody these sacred ideals.”
CIR Board of Directors Chairman Turney Berry says the center has been blessed with strong, visionary leaders over the years, and Mayfield is no exception.
“Transitions are always bittersweet, and that’s certainly true as we welcome Lauren with great expectations of enthusiastic leadership while also celebrating a dozen years of success and growth with Sarah Reed at the helm,” Berry says. “We admire Sarah for her dedication to our mission in all facets of her life, not just from her desk, and we are lucky she came our way. Good luck struck again in leading us to Lauren.”
About the Center for Interfaith Relations
CIR celebrates the diversity of faith traditions, expresses gratitude for our unity, and strengthens the role of faith in society through common action. CIR hosts the nationally renowned Festival of Faiths and offers year-round programming that fosters compassion and cultivates communities that are true to the motto of Many Faiths. One Heart. Common Action.
Over the past year, programming has included a poetry contest that garnered participation from over 400 poets worldwide; interfaith summits on the topics of food justice and community belonging; a partnership to honor free and enslaved Black people buried in unmarked graves; a community conversation on the state of racial justice Louisville; and other meaningful offerings both in person and online.
Learn more about the Louisville-based nonprofit at centerforinterfaithrelations.org.
For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Sarah Kelley, CIR communications director, at sarahkelley@interfaithrelations.org or 502-544-0112.