Neil Cazares-Thomas
Neil G. Cazares-Thomas is the senior pastor of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, the world's largest liberal Christian church with a primary outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Cazares-Thomas is a former senior pastor of the Founders Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, California.
Life and ministry
A native of Bournemouth, England, Cazares-Thomas was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but his family left the church in his early years. On his fifteenth birthday, he joined the Metropolitan Community Churches, an international movement of churches primarily reaching out to the LGBTQ community. He attended St John's Theological College, La Sainte Union, and King Alfred's College and graduated with a BA. Following ordination, Cazares-Thomas served as the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in Bournemouth for twelve years.In 2002, he moved to Los Angeles to serve as senior pastor of Founders Metropolitan Community Church. He graduated with a Doctor of Ministry degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2009 and was later appointed an adjunct professor at the Claremont School of Theology. On April 12, 2015, Cazares-Thomas was elected senior pastor by the 4,500-member congregation of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas.