Rev. Lisa M. Allen-McLaurin

Rev. Lisa M. Allen-McLaurin, Ph.D., is Associate Dean and Professor of Worship, Music, and Spirituality at Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO). She is an ordained elder and the Coordinator of Practical Ministries for the Sixth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church. She graduated from Millsaps College and the University of Southern Mississippi with Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in piano and music education. She also holds the Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

Dr. Allen-McLaurin’s teaching interests include spirituality and theology in worship and music, and gender issues in the Church. She has authored five books, including her most recent book, Over My Head: The Power of Ancestral Music to Future the Black Church  (Cascade Books, 2025), The OneWord Worship Model: A New Paradigm for Church Worship Planning (Cascade Books, 2023), and her 2021 monograph, A Womanist Theology of Worship: Liturgy, Justice, and Communal Righteousness (Orbis Books). Dr. Allen-McLaurin has been featured as an ethnomusicologist and practical theologian in video and online journal documentaries including the 2020 People’s Voice Webby Award-winning documentary, A King’s Place: Reclaiming the Black Church’s Civil Rights Past and the 2015 Emmy-award winning documentary, Reflect, Reclaim, Rejoice: Preserving the Gift of Black Sacred Music. She is a noted composer and arranger and, in 2019 debuted her Advent cantata, Christmas is Waiting to Be Born: An Advent Cantata Inspired by the Works of Howard Thurman at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. While on sabbatical in 2023, Dr. Allen-McLaurin served a six-month term as music director and scholar-in-residence at the American Church in Paris, France.

In addition to her work at MTSO and the CME Church, Dr. Allen-McLaurin serves on the editorial board of The Methodist Review Journal and holds memberships in the American Academy of Religion and the Society for the Study of Black Religion. She has served as a mentor with the RISE Together National Mentorship Network and is a 2018 inductee into the Morehouse College Board of Preachers.