Rev. Lisa K. Sykes currently serves as the associate pastor of Welborne United Methodist Church, Richmond, Virginia.  She graduated from the University of Virginia, where she was an Echols Scholar, in 1987, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1990. She was ordained in the Virginia Annual Conference in 1990 as a probationary deacon and in 1992 as an elder in full connection.  She has served the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for almost twenty years.

 

Lisa and Seth Sykes were married in 1989, and they have three sons: Adam, Wesley and Joshua.  Wesley was diagnosed with autism in 1998 and with mercury poisoning in 2000. Since then Lisa, in addition to being a wife, mother, and minister, has become an advocate for safe, mercury-free vaccines and for children with disabilities. She is president of CoMeD, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to the elimination of mercury from medicine.