Executive Director
Queens Federation of Churches

The Reverend N. J. L'Heureux, Jr.

The Reverend N. J. L’Heureux, Jr., is Executive Director of the Queens Federation of Churches, the ecumenical agency in the Borough of Queens, City of New York, which relates to over 900 Christian congregations in that Borough. As the chief executive officer, he provides oversight for the Federation’s varied programs which include information services, consultations, training seminars and workshops for church leaders, and direct service ministries including the Queens Interfaith Hunger Network and the Christ for the World Chapel at JFK International Airport.

Since January 2015, he is also serving as Executive Director of the Council of Churches of the City of New York, which brings together the bishops and executives of major Christian denominations of the City to the purpose of public policy advocacy and institutional pastoral care ministries.

In 2019, he retired from both positions after 41 years with the Queens Federation of Churches. He continues to work remotely with the Federation during this period of transistion.

He holds degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University and from Boston University School of Theology where his studies focused on sociology of religion and social ethics. Ordained by The United Methodist Church in 1969, Pastor L’Heureux served churches in Northport, Long Island, and in Maspeth, Queens, before being called by the Queens Federation of Churches in 1978 to become its third executive director.

A special focus of his ministry with the Queens Federation of Churches has been the prophetic role of the church in the social order. His work emphasizes the inclusiveness of God’s Covenant across the boundaries of race, nationality, or class. He is an advocate of the right of religious people to proclaim their message and to seek their adherents without the impediment of government-enforced sanction. He has exposed for remediation widespread government practices which interfere with the Church’s ability to plan and manage its own ministry.

Pastor L’Heureux is an active religious leader in New York City. He is a past chairman of the Committee of Religious Leaders in the City of New York and continues to chair the New York State Interfaith Commission on Landmarking of Religious Property. He is president of the Queens Interfaith Hunger Network, publisher/editor of The Nexus of Queens (the online newspaper of the Queens Federation of Churches), past chairman of Tri-State Media Ministries, and past chairman of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. He has been an officer of the Council of Churches of the City of New York since 1987. He is treasurer of the Kiwanis Club of Richmond Hill Woodhaven and has chaired the Club’s Scholarship Committee since 1984.

His national leadership includes 13 years of service as Registrar of the National Association of Ecumenical and Interreligious Staff. Since 2000, he has been moderator of the Committee on Religious Liberty under the auspices of the National Council of Churches and, since 2013, a project of the Religion Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, Washington, DC. He has participated in many international conferences for religious freedom in several European countries and an ecumenical delegation inquiring into accusations of the persecution of Christians in Arab Republic of Egypt which was received officially by President Hosni Mubarak in March 1997. He was invited by the World Council of Churches in November 2011 as one of 25 experts to participate in an Interfaith Study Consultation on Religious Freedom and the Rights of Religious Minorities, held in Istanbul, Turkey.

He has served and continues to work with a number of other committees, organizations and task forces which seek to make justice the way of life for all of God’s children.