Rev. Chris Dela Cruz is the Director of Youth Initiatives with Together Lab, which builds community power to transform systems that exploit people and planet. Chris oversees the Youth Solidarity Movement (YSM) initiative, which cultivates community for teens and the adults who support them so that young people can experience belonging in Oregon. YSM accompanies and activates ecumenical youth collectives of play and purpose, as well as support for parents and congregations around youth wellbeing and belonging.
An ordained Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor, Chris has led intergenerational ministries and community organizing with congregations in New Jersey, New York, and Oregon. Chris partnered with Barbie’s Village in northeast Portland, where Presbyterian land was gifted to an Indigenous collaborative as an act of land back, for building a childhood center and tiny home village for unhoused Native families with children.
Chris is a proud son of Filipino immigrants who spends his free time playing Mario Kart with his family, contemplating the theology of Kendrick Lamar, and rooting for the NY Knicks, NY Liberty, and Portland Fire.