Dr. Jill Ulrici is the Associate Pastor at Covenant. She joined our staff in March of 2000. Jill is a native of Atlanta and received her undergraduate degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Physical Therapy. She earned her Masters of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 1983 and her Doctorate of Ministry from Columbia Theological Seminary in 2008.
Jill has served in many positions and churches in New York City, Cleveland, Ohio and Atlanta. Before coming to Covenant, she served as a pastor in intentional multi-cultural congregations in each of these three metropolitan cities as well as small rural and large suburban churches. Her background in Physical Therapy has led to her particular interest and study in the relationship between the body, mind and spirit. She has studied several forms of alternative healing as well as traditional Physical Therapy techniques and has worked to integrate Christian theology and spirituality with health and physical well-being. She has established healing ministries in several churches and started the annual Service of Healing and Wholeness at Covenant.
When Jill arrived at Covenant in 2000 she began a Women's Spirituality Group. The focus of this group is to encourage women to develop a personal spiritual discipline and to foster a supportive and loving community for spiritual exploration and growth. Over the years the group has studied prayer, Yoga, various kind of meditation, Tai Chi, the Enneagram, dream interpretation, the Labyrinth, drumming, and a variety of books, writers and speakers focuses on the spiritual path. Jill leads spiritual retreats and three small weekly spiritual growth groups. The Woman's group (now called the Second Thursday Women's group) meets each second Thursday evening of the month to host speakers on various topics pertaining to spiritual growth.
Recently, Jill earned a Doctorate of Ministry in Spirituality with an emphasis on Interfaith Dialogue. She is vice-president of the FAMA (Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta) Board which consists of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Sikhs in the Atlanta area committed to fostering understanding between the different faith groups and working together on common concerns. She has been on two World Pilgrims Journeys along with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders from Atlanta: one to Greece and Istanbul and one to Jordan and Israel. She has twice appeared on Atlanta Interfaith Broadcast's Faith and the City program on an interfaith panel once discussing the living wage and once discussing the World Pilgrims Organization. She has taught an Adult Sunday School Class at Covenant on interfaith relationships, which included worship experiences in masjids, Hindu temples, synagogues, and Zen centers as well as guest speakers representing the different faith groups. According to Jill,
"The hope of the class is to actually get to know and begin building friendships with people of other faiths. Interfaith work is not just about learning what others believe from an intellectual curiosity. It is about providing hospitality to the ‘other'. It is about moving from tolerance to understanding to appreciation to collaboration with those who have chosen a different path to God. We all need to bring the best of our faith traditions to the collaborative table of humanity to address communal, even global, problems that we share. But first we have to get to know each other. I hope that the class will provide the first step in that direction. Another bonus of this work is that people often find that in coming to understand another's faith, one's own faith is clarified and strengthened."
Jill also serves on the Committee for Preparation for Ministry of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, which works with candidates for ministry. She is married to Deryck Durston, a Lutheran pastor in the ELCA church. Deryck is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa and received his Masters of Divinity from Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa and an STM (Masters of Sacred Theology) in Pastoral Care from New York Theological Seminary. He is a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) supervisor and is the Associate Director of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) whose national headquarters is in Atlanta. He is also a very good cook. They met at Yale-New Haven Hospital while doing chaplaincy work. Deryck and Jill have one daughter, Rachel who is 22 years old and a recent graduate from Northwestern University. Rachel is now living and teaching Middle High School in New Orleans. Their family loves to travel.