Rev. Leslie Takahashi

Rev. Leslie Takahashi serves as Lead Minister at the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek, CA. Prior to entering the ministry, she worked professionally in the area of leadership development, nonprofit management, sustainable economic development and education policy and was the Assistant Vice President for Policy for the North Carolina Community College System. She is the co-author, with Chip Roush and Leon Spencer, of The Arc of The Universe is Long: Anti-racism and the Unitarian Universalist Association (Skinner House 2008) and a contributor to a number of professional publications and mediation manual collections. She served as the Chair of the Commission on Institutional Change for the Unitarian Universalist Association and was honored to be the 2019 Essayist for the Ministerial Conference at Berry Street. Finding Unitarian Universalism in her twenties, she has served extensively at the congregational, District and national levels both within the Unitarian Universalist Association and the UU Ministers Association. Her children, Garner and Liam, their partners and her grandchild, Oscar, offer on-going inspiration as well as her two bully breed pups.​