Grace Aquilina

Grace fell in love with pastoring on the streets of downtown Fresno, CA, where she intentionally lived and worked for a neighborhood-focused church plant in an area of high-concentrated poverty. After that, she was navigating the Great White North as the lead pastor of a church just outside of Toronto.

Before she was a pastor, she was a peacemaker, mediating conflict between juvenile offenders and their victims at the Center for Peacemaking. Her Master's thesis explores the role of shame in the prison re-entry crisis, equipping the Church with theology that mobilizes it to respond to the crises.

In November 2021, Grace joined the River as the Pastor of Small Groups and Evangelism. Nothing brings her more joy than sharing Jesus' good news and creating community where people can grow in greater union with Jesus. Many people in the West are leaving church, but Grace has seen breathtaking glimmers of what church community can be, and she won't give up on that vision.