NEED TO KNOW

Danielle Strickland is the author of six books, including The Other Side of Hope, and hosts the podcast The Right Side Up, which recently surpassed half a million downloads. She leads Boundless Communications Inc., which includes initiatives like Women Speakers Collective, IMBY (a tiny home movement), Brave Global (preventing human trafficking), Infinitum (a way of living deeply), and Hagar’s Voice (support for abuse survivors). Danielle speaks at events worldwide and lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband Steve and their three sons.

Anita Giardina Lee is passionate to amplify and celebrate the voices of women in the church: past, present, and future. When she’s not tending to her young family or working with the team at Boundless Enterprise, she is excitedly researching the legacy of Discipleship women have in the history of Christianity and dreaming up ways we can be the church Jesus intended us to be.

Inés Velásquez-McBryde is a pastor, preacher, reconciler, and speaker. She is co-lead pastor of The Church We Hope For, a multiethnic church planted in Pasadena, California during the 2020 pandemic. She is originally from Nicaragua. Ines earned her MDiv at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ines has been married to Rob for nineteen years and loves being a soccer mom to their son, Nash.

Scot Mcknight (PhD, University of Nottingham) is a world-renowned speaker, writer, professor, and equipper of the church. He is a recognized authority on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, and the New Testament. His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese. He is the author of The Jesus Creed, The Blue Parakeet, The King Jesus Gospel, Revelation for the Rest of Us, numerous commentaries, and is now writing a sixteen-volume series of reflections called The Everyday Bible Study. Scot blogs on Substack and hosts the Kingdom Roots podcast.

Jo Saxton is a speaker, podcaster, leadership coach, and author of numerous books. She is the founder of Ezer Collective - an initiative dedicated to investing in women leaders and equipping them to own their voice and boldly step into their calling. She also serves at Bethel University as the executive director of The 25th, which focuses on emerging women leaders across industries as they launch their careers.

Dr. Mimi Haddad currently serves as president of BCE International. A graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude), Mimi holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. An award-winning author, Palmer Theological Seminary recognized Haddad with an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2013. Haddad teaches for seminaries and institutes worldwide. A founding member of Evangelicals & Women at the Evenagelical Theological Society, Haddad served as a gender and theological consultant for World Relif, World Vision International, and SASA! Faith Beyond Borders.

Aaron White is the author of Recovering: From Brokenness and Addiction to Blessedness and Community. He teaches at Westminster Theological Centre and, with his family, has served in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for the past twenty years.

Mandy Smith is pastor of St. Lucie Uniting Church, Brisbane, Australia and the author of The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower our Ministry and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith beyond the Baggage of Western Culture. Her next book, Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God, will be released by NavPress in October 2024. Mandy and her husband, a New Testament professor, live in a little house where the teapot is always warm

Alan Hirsch is an award-winning author and co-founder of Movement Leaders Collective, Forge Missional Training Network, and 5Q Collective. He works globally, primarily in North America, Europe, and Australia, as a mentor for NewThing International and a consultant for Redeemer City to City. His expertise includes leading church movements, developing missional leadership training, and overseeing mission work.

Janet Munn is a leader, author, speaker and mentor, focused on empowering the next generation of leaders, especially women and girls. She has served as director of the International Social Justice Commission for the Salvation Army, has written and co-written several books, including a doctoral dissertation on “Theory and Practice of Gender Equality in The Salvation Army.” Janet has worked for justice and formation locally and globally for more than thirty years.

Bob Ekblad is co-founder, along with his wife Grace, of Tierra Nueva and The People’s Seminary in Burlington, Washington. He holds a ThD in Old Testament from the Institut Protestant de Théologie in Montpellier, France. He pastors at Tierra Nueva, offering training around the world and online through The People’s Seminary (www.PeoplesSeminary.org). He is the author of Reading the Bible with the Damned, A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God, the Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement, Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit, and the Guerrilla Bible Studies series.

Angela Lam is co-founder of Hagar’s Voice, a nonprofit supporting survivors of clergy sexual abuse and offering training for religious organizations looking to prevent abuse. Angela ha twenty-years’ experience as a pastor and works alongside licensed social workers and counselors who offer advocacy for survivors in religious whistleblowing and disclosure. As a pastor, she understands the dynamics and pressures of church leadership; as a woman she knows the dynamics of abuse and the tensions of gender in religious spaces.

Beth Allison Barr is the James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University. She earned her PhD in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. She is also a pastor’s wife and mom of two great kids.

Dr. Elizabeth Rios, an Afro-Boricua from Manhattan now living in South Florida, is the founder of Passion2Plant, a national church planting network training leaders to start justice-oriented churches. Her writings have appeared in Sojourners, Influence, Called, and Christianity Today, and she has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Outreach Magazine. An author and contributor, her latest work is Rhythms of Rest: 40 Devotions for Women on the Move. Dr. Rios has been married to Hiram for thirty-four years and has two sons, Samuel and DJ, who transitioned to heaven in 2022.

Dr. Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati. Her research examines how processes in religious and secular organizations reproduce inequality. TOgether with her husband, Dele, Oneya planted 21st Century Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she also serves as a teaching pastor. She is co-author of Multiethnic Conversations: An Eight-Week Journey toward Unity in Your Church and Multiethnic Conversations for Kids.

Lori Anne Thompson's life has been marked by significant childhood and adult trauma, including various forms of abuse and deprivation. After seeking help from the evangelical faith community, she was revictimized by clergy. Now, Lori Anne serves the survivor community through speaking, writing, and her professional work. She holds a B.Sc. in kinesiology from Queen’s University and a master’s in child advocacy and policy from Montclair State University. A member of Alpha Epsilon Lambda Society, she works as a registered kinesiologist and an intake specialist for a survivor-centric law firm. Lori Anne is dedicated to her family, continuing education, and empowering fellow survivors.

Dr. Tammy Dunahoo is an ordained minister with more than forty years of ministry, church, and denominational leadership experience. She is the executive dean of Portland Seminary of George Fox University, where she also earned her doctorate. Tammy has spent twenty years leading in various capacities at the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel based in Los Angeles, overseeing numerous teams and ministries, church planting, and serving the network across all fifty states. She is passionate about investing in the spiritual formation of leaders and helping them to navigate an ever-changing culture in the church and the world.

Carolyn Whatley is a marriage and family therapist working in an addiction recovery center and is the Team Lead for Activism of Hagar’s Voice, an organization that strategically supports people impacted by clergy sexual abuse. As part of her work, Carolyn seeks to integrate spiritual transformation, trauma recovery, and healing of grief and loss with those impacted by and recovering from addiction, abuse, and oppression in all its forms. She also engages in community justice initiatives through a decolonizing, anti-racist lens in hopes of cultivating spaces that are trauma-informed and safe for everyone. Her clinical practice, research, and interests are deeply seated in the awareness that each person embodies the image of the Holy Mystery and is worthy of honor and dignity.

Mariah Humphries is a Mvskoke Nation citizen, writer, and speaker. She is the Executive Director for The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace, an interdenominational organization cultivating the character necessary to pursue peace through kingdom justice in the manner of Jesus. With more than twenty-five years of vocational ministry service and a master’s degree in theology, she challenges and encourages the American church to lead at the intersection of faith and justice.

Meghann Jaeger is an entrepreneur, business owner, wife, mothers of two, and voice for the exploited. She is based out of Vancouver, Canada, where she works in fund development for a global charity that works with survivors of human trafficking, and runs her own businesses - The Intersection: Fair Trade and Your Story Coffee. Meghann loves good coffee, good books, weekend adventures, gourmet donuts, beating her sons at Mario Kart, and hipster tacos. She is passionate about seeing women who have been exploited and trafficked brought into freedom and wholeness, and also about ethical businesses as a means to combat poverty.

Lisa Rodriguez-Watson is the national director for Missio Alliance and serves as associate pastor at Christ City Church. Her heart to see people reconciled to God and one another has led her to invest her life, family, and ministry in places and people that have often been overlooked by the world. Lisa has served as an urban church planter, collegiate minister, seminary professor, international missionary, and community development practitioner for the last twenty years. She was the co-founder of a grassroots organization in Memphis, TN, that was committed to mobilizing Christians to love their undocumented neighbors and consider an appropriate Christian response to the nation’s immigration crisis. Lisa lives in Washington, DC, where she is a mom to three fantastic children, and wife to her best friend, Matthew.

Rev. Dr. Julie Faith Parker is a Visiting Scholar at Union Theological Seminary and the Biblical Scholar in Residence at Marble Collegiate Church, both in New York City. She holds a PhD in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible from Yale University. An ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, she served as a congregational pastor then campus minister prior to doctoral studies. She has written or edited many scholarly articles and with books, including, most recently, Eve isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend our Assumptions (Baker Academic, 2023).

Dr. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson is the president and CEO of T3 Leadership Solutions, Inc., and founder of Leadership LINKS, Inc. She is a US Naval Academy graduate with advanced degrees from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and North Park Theological Seminary. With over twenty years of leadership experience in the military, federal government, academia, and nonprofit sectors, she is an esteemed thought leader, international speaker, certified executive coach, and consultant. Dr. Robinson is the author of several books, including Voices of Lament, Journey to Freedom, and A Sojourner’s Truth, and hosts A Sojourner’s Truth podcast. She honorably served as a Marine Corps officer, reaching the rank of captain, and worked for the Department of Homeland Security.