Meet our pastor

The Reverend Tyrone McGowan serves as the Senior Pastor of the historic Progressive Community Center in Chicago, IL. A proud native of Chicago, IL, Reverend McGowan previously served as the Senior Pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and Associate Pastor for Young Adult and Campus Ministry at Trinity United Church of Christ. 

He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. While at Morehouse, McGowan studied political science and served as the president and King Scholar of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel Assistants Program. He is also an honors graduate of Yale University Divinity School where he was the recipient of the prestigious Wolcott Calkins Prize for Excellence in Public Speaking. In March 2016, he became one of the youngest inductees into the Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College. Also in 2016, Reverend McGowan was selected to serve as a summer fellow at the Chautauqua Institution’s Interfaith New Clergy Program.

A minister with a social conscience, Reverend McGowan has been heavily influenced by the work and witness of prominent figures such as Howard Thurman, Frederick Douglass, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., William H. Gray III, Fannie Lou Hamer, bell hooks, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King Jr. Rev. McGowan’s vocational call has also led him to serve in other civic capacities in the public square as a two-time United States Congressional fellow, a research assistant for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, National Field Director for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and Program Manager for Interfaith America. Currently, Reverend McGowan is in the process of earning his law degree at Chicago-Kent College of Law. 

In October 2009, Reverend McGowan had the privilege of participating on a  special CNN panel entitled “Black Men in the Age of Obama” hosted by Don Lemon. He has also been featured as a guest contributor on such programs as Up Front with Jesse Jackson, the Rainbow PUSH Saturday Morning Forum, the International Sunday School Broadcast, and the Another Perspective radio show with, the late, Dr. Leon Finney. Some of his writings on faith, politics, and culture have also been published in the African American Lectionary and in Reflections, a Yale University magazine. Reverend McGowan is also a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated.