Rev. Dr. Samantha Lynne Wilson
Samantha (Sam) Wilson (she/her) loves people and communities in transition and transformation. She specializes in accompanying individuals, small groups, organizations, and coalitions in moments where change is possible: conflicts, interim ministries/ministries of change, life/group transitions, and cultural/social transformations.
Samantha fell in love with restorative practice when she joined her tenth-grade high school peer mediation class. Her approach to restorative practice was then shaped in circles by leaders in the Ahimsa Collective, a skilled community of practitioners and mentors working inside and outside of prisons to “respond to harm in ways that foster wholeness for everyone.” She was also formed by her work with White People for Black Lives and efforts to design a Restorative Culture Team that worked across coalitions to support movement-building and anti-racist community organizing rooted in restorative culture.
As a minister, Samantha delights in the beauty, humor, and tenderness of modern congregational life. She is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and was ordained as a minister in 2018. She sees ministry as facilitation: ministers are called to bring ease to the transformations people and congregations identify as part of their mission and values. Her sermons, group facilitation, care, and organizational change efforts are based on humor, humility, compassion, and a belief that the hardest moments in congregational life are the places where new life is possible. She is a staff member with the UUA as a Hope for Us Conflict Engagement Coach for the denomination.
Samantha’s approach as a community psychologist honors the psyche of a community: communities have dreams, stories, wounds, and ideas about themselves that show up in our words and our behaviors. This organizational culture shapes us and is shaped by us – organizations require psychological, social, creative work and tending. Her doctoral research specialized in the specific culture-building practices of a white, anti-racist organization as it grew from a dozen to thousands of members in Los Angeles. Her research is at the intersections of community psychology, identity development theory, organizational development, movement work, and restorative practice.
The real loves of Samantha’s life are Andrew (her husband, who goes by the stage name The Real John Gary) and Joy (their daughter). They now live in Oakland, CA after pandemic life among the saguaros of Tucson, AZ.
