“At core I am a contemplative. The work I do–in creativity, in thinking, in community–is rooted in listening.”
Scott Neely directs the Project for Community Transformation, an initiative to strengthen congregations to transform our communities. Neely is a founding board member and serves as strategist for Speaking Down Barriers, an organization that uses facilitated dialogue to build our life together across the differences that divide us. He is a graduate of Wofford College and Harvard Divinity School. Neely served at First Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, SC from 2006-2015, first as Director of Missions and then as Pastoral Executive. In April 2015 he presented a TEDx talk on race and racism entitled “What Will I Teach My Son?”
Neely has been a lecturer in religion and the humanities at the University of South Carolina-Upstate and Wofford College. In the congregations he serves, he integrates contemplation and in-depth study to develop soulful, dynamic communities of interpretation.
A practicing artist, his work fuses writing, painting, and digital media. In addition to individual work, he has led literary and visual community art projects on issues of diversity, race, and religious pluralism.