Jeanne Audrey Powers (1932–2017) was a leader within The United Methodist Church, an advocate for women and LGBTQ+ people in the church, and one of the first women ordained in the denomination. Early Life and Education Jeanne Audrey Powers grew up in Mankato, Minnesota. After earning her bachelor of science degree from Mankato State University in 1954, she pursued graduate theological studies at Princeton Theological Seminary as a Danforth Graduate Fellow. Her theological studies took her to The University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Boston University School of Theology, and other locations in England and Switzerland. Career Powers was ordained as a deacon in the Methodist Church in 1958. She was ordained as an elder in the Methodist Church in 1961, making her one of the first women in the denomination to be granted full clergy status. Following her ordination, Powers worked with young people as the state director of the Minnesota Methodist Student Movement and as the campus minister for the Wesley Foundation at both the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses of the University of Minnesota. In 1968, Powers began working as theSecretary of Missionary Personnel for the Methodist Board of Missions in New York City. In this role, she led the "US-2" program, which provided two-year service opportunities for young adults. In 1973, Powers took a position with the Board of Global Ministries' Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Concerns. In 1981, this organization became an independent General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. She was instrumental in the planning of the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference, an interfaith Protestant conference that garnered controversy regarding feminist theology, LGBTQ+ affirmation, and the invocation of Sophia. Powers worked at the General Commission on Christian Univty and Interreligious Concerns until her retirement in 1996. Powers's work as a Methodist leader drew her into both local and global concerns, primarily through the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches. As a representative to the World Council of Churches, she participated in three general assemblies and in the creation of "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry," an interdenominational document approved in 1982 in Lima, Peru. As an advocate for women in the church, she guided the development of the Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988–1998. Powers national work involved her role as the vice president of the National Council of Churches. In this capacity, she spent six years chairing the Faith and