ALIVE! WORSHIP PREACHER Rev. Chenda Lee is the Western PA Conference Coordinator of Clergy and Lay Excellence. Rev. Lee’s ministry experience includes serving as a Pastor of Discipleship & First Impressions at the Annandale UMC where she provided oversight, coordination and training for the adult education and welcoming ministries. She has been an active participant in peer learning groups and has developed continuing education events for clergy and laity on both the District and local church levels.

Born in a rural village in Liberia in West Africa, Rev. Lee comes from a long line of preachers, both men and women. She was baptized as an infant by her uncle, a United Methodist pastor. Her father, retired Bishop John G. Innis, was director of a rural mission school that also served as a rescue center for displaced people fleeing the cities in the early 1990s during a civil war in Liberia. In 1996, four years before being elected bishop and assigned to the Liberia Area, her father was offered a job with the United Methodist Committee on Relief and moved the family to the United States.  Rev. Lee was 16 at the time. 

Rev. Lee attended Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., where she met her husband, the Rev. Dr. Asa Lee. Known as a gifted preacher and teacher, she served as an associate and senior pastor of churches in the Northern Virginia region for more than 10 years before coming to Pittsburgh.  She was a Lewis Fellow in 2015 and is a graduate of the Virginia Clergy Leadership Program (2018). She moved to Pittsburgh when her husband began serving as President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in June, 2021.