Brandon Wrencher (MDiv, North Park Theological Seminary) is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, the founding minister of Good Neighbor Movement - an alternative faith community based in Greensboro, North Carolina - and Senior Community Organizer with Carolina Federation, a statewide, multiracial, multiclass, power-building political organization. He is the author of Liberating Church: A 21st Century Hush Harbor Manifesto (Cascade Books) and Buried Seeds: Learning from the Vibrant Resilience of Marginalized Christian Communities (Baker Academic).
Mark Fields
Mark has been a part of Christian Community Development Association organizations, Latino church-plants, Black megachurches, White megachurches, Parachurch ministries as well as foreign and domestic missions organizations. He realized that there are many harmful understandings of God being communicated in many places. Many of the places people are going to encounter the peace and presence of God have become hallmarks of rejection, discrimination and exile. Mark started The Kinship Collective to be a part of reminding the world that God is good, we are good and anything that doesn’t feel or point to that image-of-God-goodness is simply missing the point. Mark believes when we are oriented by these truths, we can experience the world as family in ways we’ve always wanted and needed.
Mark has journeyed with his partner Caryn for 15 years, and they have 3 incredible daughters to prove it. The Fields live in Los Angeles California.
Location: Pasadena, CA
@thekinshipcollective | www.thekinshipcollective.org
Joanna Raabsmith, MFTI, MDiv
Joanna serves as the Co-Executive Director of Restoration Marriage (RM). She holds a Masters of Divinity Degree and a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary. Joanna is a MFT Intern seeing clients at two local therapy practices. She is certified in Restoration Therapy and trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She is also a certified Prepare/Enrich Training Director. Joanna brings both lay and pastoral leadership experience to the church communities served by RM. She is passionate about connecting communities to transformational resources found in the mental health field.
Location: San Diego, CA
Areas of Expertise:
Recovery and relationship issues
Spiritual issues
Self-esteem and life direction
Bio source: http://restorationmarriage.net/who-we-are
Photo source: http://www.joannaraabsmith.com/
Michaela O’Donnell Long
Michaela O’Donnell Long is the senior director of Fuller Seminary’s De Pree Center for Leadership. She is also the co-founder of Long Winter Media, a creative agency that helps brands make an impact. Michaela holds a Ph.D. in practical theology from Fuller Seminary where she teaches courses on practical theology, vocation, and leadership as an adjunct professor.
Location: Los Angeles
Areas of Expertise:
Entrepreneurship
Women in leadership
Vocation, leadership, and creativity
Nina Lau-Branson
LOCATION: Pasadena, CA
Areas of Expertise:
I work with individuals and groups toward:
Discernment of God’s presence and initiatives
Spiritual formation and practices Awareness of matters around race and ethnicity
Organizational and leadership development
Nina currently works as a coach, consultant and spiritual director (with both individuals and groups). In addition to Cyclical LA, she works with the De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary, CenterQuest, an ecumenical spiritual direction program, Center for Council, an organization that focuses on community building and communication in a wide variety of settings, and has her own private practice.
Her credentials include an MBA in finance and a CPA earned while working with Price Waterhouse Coopers in their entrepreneurial services group. Nina’s coaching and consulting work is rooted in years of experience in organizational leadership, in for-profit and non-profit organizations, including work on boards and in senior management.
Organizations include Fuller Seminary, Ten Thousand Villages, various denominational groups, a youth entrepreneurship non-profit, software companies and other for profit businesses. She has completed training in spiritual direction and is certified by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in mediation and conflict transformation. During the past 20 years she has pursued a particular passion for communion with God, especially listening for the voice of God, and engaging spiritual practices that enable availability to the Holy. These varied sets of experiences and skills are brought to bear in her work with leaders and communities.
Paul Rock
Location: Kansas City, MO
Areas of Expertise:
Church planting in urban settings
Discerning calling and vocation
Leading large, diverse church communities
Rev. Dr. Paul Rock Paul Rock (MDiv, DMin) is the senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Mo., and worked with Nick Pickrell to launch The Open Table, a 1001 NWC. Paul is the chair of Heartland Presbytery’s New Worshipping Communities Commission and a member of McCormick Seminary’s executive board of directors. Paul has been engaged in mission and pastoral work for 25 years, beginning with a three-year stint in Budapest Hungary with a Christian teaching organization. After receiving his MDiv at Fuller Seminary, Paul served as an associate pastor at Newhall Presbyterian Church (LA area) and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City. Paul’s doctoral studies focused on the Church in the 21st Century and he has co- authored two books with WJK press. He is married to Stacey and they have three children whom they adore.
Rob Douglas
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA
Areas of Expertise:
Coaching new church planters
Disciple-making
Youth ministry
Rob is a church starter (Lightshine Church) in the suburban Los Angeles community of Thousand Oaks, California. Rob holds an MA in Theology from Fuller seminary and serves as a church planting coach for Cyclical LA, Cyclical Inc. and 1001 New Worshipping Communities of the PC(usa). Rob also works as a Developer for Cyclical Inc. serving two regions: Seattle and Spokane Washington.
Vera Karn White
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Areas of Expertise:
Developing church infrastructure
Supporting new worshipping communities
PCUSA
Vera White is a ruling elder at Hiland Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh Presbytery. She is retired from the position of National Coordinator for 1001 New Worshiping Communities with the Presbyterian Church, USA. Vera enjoys coaching new worshiping community leaders. Her area of specialty is helping presbyteries develop the infrastructure for providing oversight for new worshiping communities. She believes that starting new worshiping communities is the most exciting thing going on in God’s church today. In her spare time Vera enjoys making pottery, working in her garden, cooking, and reading.
B.J. Woodworth
Location: Pittsburg, PA
Areas of Expertise:
Missional leadership in worship
Vision casting
Strategy
Organization and teaching
B.J. Woodworth was the founding pastor of the Open Door, an urban Presbyterian Church (USA) missional community in Pittsburgh, PA. Now he's attempting to slow down to invest in the interior lives of Christian leaders. He is a spiritual director, coach and retreat leader and serves part time at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, as Director of Spiritual Life Ministries and Taize Minister. He loves to create space for people to attend to their interior lives, helping them awaken to their true self and inner wisdom in order to bear fruit in their lives and work. He has a particular interest in accompanying people in professional ministry, entrepreneurs, and those in service and justice work helping them establish sacred patterns of rest, renewal and reflection. He enjoys companioning those in vocational discernment and the journey of de/reconstructing faith.
His spiritual direction training is from the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction, which focuses on “the ancient art of Christian spiritual direction in a multi-faith context.” B.J. has coached church planters across a variety of denominations and contexts, he has taught at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in the Spiritual Formation Certificate Program and is the Missional Leadership DMin cohort facilitator. He has a certificate in Spiritual Transformation from the Transforming Center, where he currently serves on the board and as community pastor in Transforming Community #15. Currently he lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Katrina, who is a hatha yoga instructor, yoga therapist and retreat leader. They have 4 children in their late teens and early twenties, Kyra, Elena, Alex and Zach.
Nick Warnes
Location: Los Angeles
Areas of Expertise:
First-time church starters
Vision casting
Leadership development
Nicholas Warnes (Masters of Divinity, Fuller Theological Seminary, Emphasis in Worship Theology and Art) is the Founder and Executive Director of Cyclical. He enjoys the regular pattern and rhythm of being both the Executive Director of Cyclical Inc. and Director of Cyclical LA in Los Angeles. Nick is also a recognized speaker on church planting, coach for New Worshiping Communities with the Presbyterian Church USA, on the advisory board for the Brehm Center and the Church Planting Program at Fuller Theological Seminary, and an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary (church planting certificate). Nick finished his first book in 2014 with Dr. Mark Lau Branson called Starting Missional Churches: Life With God in the Neighborhood. Nick is lives with his wife, Whitney, and son, Lee, in Los Angeles, CA.
Len Tiso
Location: Los Angeles area
Areas of Expertise:
Certified Strengths Finder coach
Personal development
Career development and advising
Entrepreneurship
Len Tiso has spent the majority of his career advising executives of major corporations on strategic and financial initiatives. In 2014, as a continuation of this work, he founded an independent consultancy. He also coaches entrepreneurs and start-ups. Len holds an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, an MBA from UCLA, and is a CFA charterholder (Chartered Financial Analyst). As an elder in the PC (USA), Len served as Treasurer of Bel Air Presbyterian Church and was involved in the leadership team of a church plant in Downtown LA. In 2016, he completed an internship with Northland Village Church in Northeast Los Angeles and also participated in the PC (USA) 1001 New Worshiping Communities summer cohort. He is currently exploring ways in which the church can engage in the practice of ethics and reconciliation at the intersection of faith, economics, and vocation.
Dan Steigerwald
Location: Portland, OR
Areas of Expertise:
ACC credentialing under the International Coach Federation (ICF)
Missional discipleship and church starting
20 years of work as an overseas missionary and church starter
Runs a leadership development and coaching organization, Artesia Resourcing, with his wife, Ann.
I help pioneering leaders and pastors engage fresh ways to lead and multiply mission-shaped communities while tending to their holistic formation along the way. Having worked for 30+ years in cross-cultural missions, church planting and pastoring, I know personally how hard and soul-depleting ministry can become. I can identify with the challenges that grate on the souls of shepherd-teacher leaders, and I’m equally familiar with the stresses that plague apostolic-prophetic-evangelistic leaders. My heart goes out to both those in nurturing roles and those in advancement roles. I want to help these leaders - women and men alike - lead well and in ways that promote their growth in faith, hope and love.
Some wells from which I draw: I hold a DMIN in Leadership in the Emerging Culture from Portland Seminary. My coach training is through Creative Results Management, and I have ACC credentialing under the International Coach Federation (ICF). As an outflow of my love for writing, I have authored several practical books (Amazon) around which I coach, train and teach: Dynamic Adventure: A Guide to Starting and Shaping Missional Churches (2017); Growing Local Missionaries: Equipping Churches to Sow Shalom in Their Own Cultural Backyard (2014); and Grow Where You’re Planted: Collected Stories on the Hallmarks of Maturing Church (2013).
Justin Beck
Location: Los Angeles area
Areas of Expertise
Professional coaching
Calling and vocation development
Cyclical Director of Operations
Developer for multiple Cyclical networks
Justin has a Masters of Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. During his time at Fuller, Justin assisted in starting Northland Village Church (NVC) in Northeast Los Angeles. The NVC church plant helped Justin discover a passion for coaching people as they begin their ministries. Over the last 10 years, Justin has offered coaching to adults and college students in a variety of settings as they discovered God's calling in their lives. Justin also works with under-resourced community college students around the greater Los Angeles area, and is a Developer with Cyclical Los Ranchos and Cyclical Canada. Justin lives in Pasadena with his wife, Dawn, and two kids, Declan and Avery. The Beck family enjoys exploring all the beautiful things Southern California has to offer.