Pastor Michael McBride, or “Pastor Mike” — as he is known — is a native of San Francisco and has been active in ministry for over 20 years. A graduate of Duke University’s Divinity School, with a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Ethics and Public Policy, Pastor McBride founded The Way Christian Center in West Berkeley, where he presently serves as the Lead Pastor.

In March 2012, he became the Director for the LIVE FREE Campaign with Faith in Action, a campaign led by hundreds of faith congregations throughout the United States committed to addressing gun violence and mass incarceration of young people of color. He is a co-founder of Black Church PAC and the National Black Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, which work to center black and brown gun violence prevention practitioners and scale up life-saving interventions related to urban and communal violence.

Regarded as a national faith leader since the uprising in Ferguson, MO, he helps bridge, train and support millennials and religious institutions working on racial justice. Pastor McBride has served on a number of local and national task forces with the White House and Department of Justice on gun violence prevention, boys and men of color and police-community relationships. In 2016 he was appointed as an Advisor on President Obama’s Faith Based Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, the Huffington Post and other media outlets, providing commentary on issues related to faith and racial justice.