Esther Rodriguez

She/Her/Hers

Racial Audit Team Member

Rev. Esther Rodriguez (she/her/hers) is the lead pastor of Spring of Life UMC in Orlando, FL. She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and has lived in the state of Florida since she was in third grade. She graduated high school in Lake Placid and received a B.A. in Religion from Florida Southern College. She received her Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary’s Orlando campus in 2011. After seminary she was on staff at Killearn UMC in Tallahassee, where she was the Director of the Shadetree Group, a missional ministry serving underserved persons in Gadsden County, as well as serving as a preaching pastor at Killearn UMC. She also served as an Associate Pastor at Trinity UMC in Gainesville, FL and lead pastor at Tice UMC in Fort Myers. She was ordained an Elder in Full Connection in 2016. Esther began working on a Doctor of Ministry at Duke Divinity School in 2017, which she hopes to finish in 2020.

She has served on a number of social justice and mission boards which have taken her to serve in different parts of the world including: Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and South Africa.

She is a singer, an amateur guitarist, a former trombone player, and a movie-lover. She also enjoys traveling, theology, musicals, coffee and reading. She’s passionate about Christian contemplative practices, church, missions, worship, advocacy, serving and empowering the marginalized of society and reaching those who’ve left the church or have been hurt by the church, among other things. She has two pets, Kora (dog) and Zooey (cat), is a Gryffindor and bilingual. Her call to ministry is founded and propelled by her experience of God’s grace.