Heidi Neumark
Heidi Neumark is an American Lutheran pastor and author whose memoir Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (2003) is a beloved account of her nearly two decades of ministry in one of the poorest and most neglected urban communities in America. Neumark served as pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the South Bronx from 1987 to 2003, during a period when the neighborhood was devastated by poverty, crack cocaine, HIV/AIDS, and the long aftermath of decades of disinvestment.
Her memoir moves through the rhythms of the liturgical year, using the seasons of the church calendar — Advent, Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time — to organize her reflections on the lives of her congregation members and the spiritual challenges and gifts of ministry in extremity. The book is praised for its warmth, its narrative skill, and its refusal to romanticize either poverty or faith. It presents community and incarnational ministry as demanding, complicated, and ultimately life-giving.
Neumark later served as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan on the Upper West Side, a congregation she helped grow and sustain. Her second book, Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith (2014), is a memoir about discovering that her German family had Jewish roots and the spiritual and identity implications of that discovery.
She holds a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and has been a sought-after speaker at seminaries, churches, and social justice organizations. Her work represents the best of the Lutheran tradition of engagement with the world’s margins, and she is recognized as one of the most compelling voices in American pastoral literature.
