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discriminate and a hope for Christian Community
worldwide as we struggle with the most important questions of our
time.”
Rev. Dr. Love currently serves as the Executive Director
of Metropolitan Community Churches worldwide. She is a member of
the Faith and Religion Council for The Human Rights Campaign in
Washington, D.C., an active member of Exodus MCC in Abilene, Texas, the
senior advocate for chronically disabled adults for The Shelton
Foundation at the West Texas Rehabilitation Center and a devoted mom and
spouse.
Rev. Cindi Love was born and raised in Abilene, Texas,
one of the top 10 most conservative cities in the United States (LA
Times 2006). The church of her childhood was the Church of Christ
(not to be confused with the United Church of Christ). She married
a minister in that church and they had two children, Joshua and Hannah.
From the time she was fifteen until 1981, Cindi led Bible studies for
children and young women, coordinated a city-wide bus ministry and
children’s puppet ministry.
She graduated from Abilene Christian University in 1975
with a degree in speech pathology. She completed her
Master’s degree at Louisiana Tech in 1977 where she served as a
Graduate Fellow at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital and
Shriner’s Hospital for Children.
She completed her doctoral degree in 1984 at Texas Tech
University. From 1975 until 1983, she was employed as a speech
pathologist, educational diagnostician, children’s therapist and
professor of special education in private and public sector
organizations in Shreveport, Louisiana and Abilene. In 1980,
her husband and she divorced and she left the Church of Christ for what
she considered to be the liberal Southern Baptist denomination.
In 1981, she founded a company that specialized in the
use of emerging technology for education and rehabilitation. She brought
one of the first comprehensive computer-based educational systems
(developed in Israel) for public schools into the United States in
1983. She received commendation for her work by the Texas
legislature and Governor Ann Richards for her work with Texas public
schools in building community-school partnerships.
From the founding of the first company until 1996, Cindi
was an entrepreneur, honored as one of the Top 50 entrepreneurs in North
America by INC Magazine, YEO and MIT in 1990. She founded multiple
companies including C.H. Love & Co. which was named to the INC 500
(# 73) in 1990; School Vision of Texas which became the largest Apple
Education Sales Agency in the United States in 1993 ($161 million in
annual sales); New Mexico Information Systems which became the first
on-line publisher of state regulations in the United States; and, ICSS,
Inc. which became the first global provider of system integration
services and support for 16,000 golf courses. ICSS was acquired in
1996 by The Toro Company, a Fortune 500 Company where she was in charge
of the project creating the world-wide Intranet service network for
5000+ distributors and dealers in 85 countries. Her
responsibilities required extensive work and travel throughout North
America, Europe and the Middle East.
During this period, Dr. Love was also designated a
Visiting Investigator by NASA for her research in the use of remote
sensing technology for environmental scanning and served on the Long
Range Technology Committee for Texas by appointment of the
legislature.
During her tenure as an entrepreneur, she served on many
not-for-profit boards and committees including Goodwill Industries, the
Better Business Bureau, Abilene Chamber of Commerce, the Abilene Tax
Increment Financing District (TIF), Kenley School for Exceptional
Children, Big Country AIDS Resources, Abilene Community AIDS Project,
The Experience, Inc. Her spouse, Sue Jennings, and she have been
members of the Congressional Circle for HRC and OutFront
Minnesota. They were very involved in the campaign for Grethe
Cammermeyer for Congress.
Upon completion of her work at TORO, Cindi began a
“mid-life” transition to the not-for-profit sector.
She accepted a position as Executive Dean at Brookhaven College in
Dallas, Texas and one of the board member positions on the newly formed
Board of Administration for Metropolitan Community Churches. She
completed the requirements for ordination by MCC during this time and
was ordained by Exodus MCC in Abilene, Texas on September 6, 2003.
She served as the interim pastor for MCC of Greater Dallas from the time
of her ordination until 2004. She accepted the role of Executive
Director of MCC on January 18, 2005 and retired from Brookhaven College
at that time.
Since her arrival as Executive Director, she has been in
charge of coordinating implementation of the strategic plan initiatives
established by the General Conference in Calgary 2005. She has
been focused on four primary objectives:
--Increased responsiveness to constituents
--Stabilizing and growing financial resources for the long term for MCC
and dealing with short-term deficits related to the restructuring of the
denomination
--Increasing awareness and access to MCC worldwide
--Building a world-class support team and the technical infrastructure
to empower them
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