Reverend Neely Williams is the Program Director of Interdenominational Ministers’ Fellowship (IMF) Peniel Initiative; a community based resource center serving victims of crime, parents and students of the Metropolitan Nashville Public School system, and ofters youth crime prevention strategies. She is the community liaison for the NU PACE project at Meharry Medical College and Chair of the Nashville Community Coalition for Youth Safety. Rev. Williams also serves on the pastoral staff of Metropolitan Interdenominational Church and Old Ship of Zion Baptist Church as the pastor’s assistant.

Reverend Neely Williams is a native of West Tennessee, (Medon), where she graduated from West High School in Denmark, TN. After moving to Nashville (1974), she continued her education at Nashville Technical Institute and American International Banking (AIB). Rev. Williams worked for Bank of America for twenty-five (25) years, retiring in 2001.

Reverend Williams graduated Magna Cum Laude from American Baptist Theological College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts with a focus in pastoral studies and sociology. Continuing her quest for higher education, she proceeded to study theology with emphasis in pastoral counseling and hermeneutic and graduated from Vanderbilt University Divinity School in 1998 with a Masters of Divinity. Her work at Vanderbilt culminated in a thesis in titled, “Her Hands are on the Threshold: A Pastoral Response to Women in Crisis.”

During her studies at Vanderbilt, she accepted the opportunity to participate in a seminarian seminar course on site in Israel. This experience allowed Rev. Williams to not only be physically present at many of the traditional Holy Land venues she also became acquainted with the foundational structures of four of the primary religions of the world today.

Rev. Williams has completed post graduate work with South Carolina University School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through a one year intensive Leadership Institute for community basis program design, implementation and management. She is presently engaged in the conflict management institute at Lipscomb University, a masters program in conflict resolution.

After acknowledging the call of God on her life in September 1990 and while working under the leadership of Reverend James “Tex” Thomas at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church she was licensed and ordained to preach the Gospel in 1996.