COMMUNITY ORGANIZER & PEACEBUILDER | DES MOINES, IOWA

Joe Alexander-Meinholz is a poet, Christian worship leader, and community organizer who has spent the last decade engaged in frontline struggles for environmental justice in the Upper Midwest of the United States. He grew up the descendant of German settlers in a farming community in the land of the Ho Chunk people (Southern Wisconsin).

Joe now resides in Des Moines, Iowa, where he is equipping Christians to build peace with the Earth by addressing harmful farming practices, the clean water crisis, and the church-supported colonial history of land theft. He guides churches to be more connected to the land, water, and fellow species where they worship, and to reckon with the racial injustice that shapes how we relate to Creation. Joe serves on the spiritual care team of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, a movement of churches working on Indigenous justice issues in North America.

Previously, Joe served as a community organizer for Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, where he mobilized faith communities to engage in solidarity with Anishinaabe water protectors as they worked to stop Enbridge’s Line 3 oil pipeline from crossing the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Joe also worked in his own neighborhood in Minneapolis to halt toxic pollutants and reclaim neighborhood control of abandoned industrial areas threatening the health of neighbors. Based on these experiences, he is passionate about Christians learning to see Christ in Creation, where salvation means daily bread for all, rest for the land, home for the sojourner, justice for the displaced, and reconciliation of all things in Christ.

Joe holds a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Missional Innovation and Conflict Transformation from Duke Divinity School. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife Emily who is a pastor in Mennonite Church U.S.A.

Email Joe: joseph.meinholz@peacecatalyst.org