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Sajan George | Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Sajan P. George, a turnaround specialist, has uniquely applied his turnaround skills to our nation's struggling public education system. Sajan's particular focus and passion has involved restructuring some of the largest urban K-12 and higher education institutions in the country, including, Maricopa Community College District (the largest community college in the nation), New York Public Schools (the largest public school system in the nation), New Orleans Parish Schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the State Departments of Education in Indiana, New Mexico and Arkansas.
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Jo Saxton | Leadership Coach and Consultant
As the college pastor at St. Thomas Church, Sheffield, Jo planted missional congregations amongst college students and young adults. Now as Director of Pioneer Communities with 3dministries, Jo works alongside church leadership teams seeking to build missional churches in today’s culture. She’s married to Chris, a Lutheran pastor and they have two amazing daughters, Tia and Zoe. They lead a church in inner city Phoenix. Jo’s also an author - Real God, Real Life, is scheduled to release April 2010.
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Charles Jenkins | Pastor, Fellowship Missionary Baptist Chicago
Trailblazer, Connector, Community Leader, Advisor, Songwriter, Poet, and Dynamic Communicator are just some of the words that describe Charles Jenkins. He is respected and revered around the world for his innovative thinking, contemporary leadership, and holistic approach to ministry. Jenkins serves on a number of corporate, educational, governmental and religious boards. A man of balance, Jenkins is married to Dr. Tara Rawls-Jenkins and has two young daughters, Princess and Paris, and one son, Charles Jenkins III.
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Alister McGrath | Theologian and Author
Dr. Alister McGrath was a research scientist at Oxford University before he became a theologian. He holds doctorate degrees in the fields of molecular biophysics and theology. He is presently Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education, and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, at King's College, London and is involved in theological research and the professional development of clergy from a range of Christian denominations. As a former atheist, he regularly engages in debate and dialogue with leading atheists, and is presently researching the iconic role played by Charles Darwin in atheist apologetics.
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Roland Warren | President, National Fatherhood Initiative
Roland leads National Fatherhood Initiative in its mission to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Under his direction, NFI works to accomplish its mission through a variety of activities, ranging from its award-winning public education campaign to its cutting-edge resources and programming for fathers. Roland, an alumnus of Princeton University, brings to NFI almost two decades of experience in the business world and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is married to Dr. Yvette Lopez-Warren and has two sons, Jamin and Justin.
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Rosalind Picard | Professor, MIT Media Laboratory
Rosalind Picard, Sc.D., is professor at the MIT Media Laboratory, founder and director of the Affective Computing research group, director of the new and growing Autism Communication Technology Initiative at MIT, and co-founder and chief scientist of Affectiva, Inc. She is known internationally for her book Affective Computing, for giving technology (and robots) emotional abilities, and for inventing technologies that help people better communicate emotion. She describes her favorite challenge as raising three sons.
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Timothy Keller | Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church
Dr. Keller is the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York, “one of Manhattan’s most vital congregations,” according to Christianity Today. Tim has led the PCA denominations church planting initiatives and remains committed to promoting and nurturing the growth of new churches in New York City and around the world. The Influentials issue of New York Magazine recently featured Dr. Keller as “the most successful Christian evangelist in the city by recognizing that young professionals and artists are ‘disproportionately influential’ in creating the country’s culture and that you have to meet this coveted demographic on its own terms.”
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Scot McKnight | New Testament Scholar and Author, The Jesus Creed
Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham. Dr. McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies and the author of more than twenty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others.
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Wayne Gordon | Founding Pastor, Lawndale Community Church
For nearly 35 years of ministry "Coach," as he is affectionately known, has played a key role in numerous community development initiatives in North Lawndale. Along with his wife and local high school students, he founded Lawndale Community Church and went on to become one of the founders of the Lawndale Christian Health Center, a healthcare ministry that sees over 150,000 patients per year. Gordon helped formulate the Christian Community Development Association and holds a major goal to develop a new generation of leaders from North Lawndale. Over 200 young people have graduated from college with more than half returning to live and work in the community. For more than 30 years of his life he has exemplified breaking down all racial barriers to pave the way for God's truth in the lives of all that he encounters.
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Sean Womack | Founder, TBD Agency
Sean Womack's work assignments have included (in chronological order): mowing,
warehouse work, bank teller, editorial cartoonist, pasta chef, house
cleaning, greeting cards, publishing, entertainment marketing,
advertising creative director, marketing VP and brand consultant. He
went to undergrad at John Brown University and graduated from film
school at USC. He's married to an amazing woman named Shelley and they are raising their three children – Zoe, Ian and Camden.
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Charles Lee | Ideation Strategist, Networker and Compassionary
Charles is the founder of Ideation, a consultancy that specializes in branding, marketing, social media, and event development. He is also a founding member of JustOne, a NPO committed to addressing issues of poverty, orphans, and slavery. In addition, Charles leads New Hope, a faith community in the Los Angeles area, and is the creator of grassroots efforts including the Idea Camp and the Freeze Project. Charles regularly speaks around the country on topics such as creativity, innovation, leadership, social media, community development and compassionate justice.
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Matthew Sleeth | Executive Director, Blessed Earth
J. Matthew Sleeth, MD, author of Serve God and Save the Planet, writes, speaks, and teaches about how his family cut their energy use by two-thirds and became radical followers of Jesus. His latest releases include The Gospel According to the Earth: Why the Good Book is a Green Book and the new 12-part Blessed Earth film series, Hope for Creation and Hope for Humanity. Dr. Sleeth is the executive director of Blessed Earth (www.blessedearth.org).
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Dave Blanchard | Business Designer, IDEO
At IDEO, a global design and innovation consultancy, Dave works with some of the world’s largest corporations and organizations to create new products, services and experiences. Prior to his role at IDEO, he was an entrepreneur in the music industry. Dave has a BS in Entrepreneurship from Babson College, as well as an MBA and a Masters in Design Management from Northwestern University, where he now teaches a course on the application of design tools in business contexts.
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Brian McLaren | Author and Activist
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and networker among innovative Christian leaders. In 1986 he founded Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, transdenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region. He recently left the pastorate to devote full time to writing and speaking. Time Magazine listed him as one of the twenty-five most influential Evangelicals in America. He has appeared on Larry King Live, Nightline, CNN, FOX, PBS, and many other national media. Brian’s books include, The Secret Message of Jesus, Everything Must Change, Finding or Way Again, and A New Kind of Christian among many others. A New Kind of Christianity will release in 2010.
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David Aikman | Journalist & Foreign Affiairs Commentator
David Aikman is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist, a best-selling author, and a foreign affairs commentator based in the Washington, D.C.-area. His wide-ranging professional achievements include a 23-year career at TIME Magazine with reporting spanning the globe of nearly all the major historical events of the time. Since leaving TIME, he has authored ten books on a wide variety of subjects, including atheism, the church in China and biographies of Billy Graham and President George W. Bush. He is also the founder of an international fellowship for Christians in journalism.
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Richard Florida | Author, Who's Your City? and Director, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Founder Creative Class Group
Richard Florida is one of the world's leading public intellectuals. Esquire Magazine recently named him one of the ‘Best and Brightest’. He is author of the best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which was cited as a major breakthrough idea by the Harvard Business Review. His ideas have been featured in major ad campaigns, such as BMW, and are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete. He is founder of the Creative Class Group and has also been recently named European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation. He is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
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Mike Foster | Founder, Ethur
Mike Foster serves as the Creative Principal at Plain Joe Studios. The design firm specializes in strategic ideation, interactive media, and environmental design. In addition to his role on Plain Joe’s executive team, Mike leads an innovative non-profit organization called Ethur. Most recently, Mike helped launch People of the Second Chance, which is a scandalous movement of radical grace in life and leadership. He and his wife Jennifer live in Southern California with their two children.
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Jonathan Golden | Founder, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company
Jonathan D. Golden founded Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company, a socially-minded sustainable business allowing him to integrate his faith and work. The inkling for a coffee company came in 2004 after a 15 year career in industrial psychology where Golden empowered business leaders to live their Lifeswork and produce more effective companies. As an ordained Anglican priest, Golden believes God calls us to be relevant in our professional and personal lives.
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Phyllis Tickle | Author and Editor, The Ancient Practices Series
Phyllis Tickle is founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, the international journal of the book industry, and is an authority on religion in America. In addition to lectures and numerous essays, articles, and interviews, Tickle is the author of over two dozen books in religion and spirituality, most recently The Great Emergence, How Christianity is Changing and Why and The Words of Jesus, A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord. She is also the author of the notable and popular The Divine Hours series of manuals for observing fixed-hour prayer and general editor of The Seven Ancient Practices Series. In September 1996 she received the Mays Award, one of the book industry's most prestigious awards for lifetime achievement in writing and publishing, and specifically in recognition of her work in gaining mainstream media coverage of religion publishing. She has received honorary degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters from the Berkeley School of Divinity at Yale University and North Park University.
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Roger Sandberg | National Director, Medair
Roger is currently the Haiti Country Director for Medair, a Swiss based emergency relief and rehabilitation humanitarian aid organization responding to the Haitian earthquake. For the past 10 years, Roger has worked throughout East and Central Africa. While in Africa, Roger was the Country Director for projects in Sudan and DR Congo and traveled extensively within these countries to assess and meet humanitarian relief needs. In Southern Sudan, Roger managed a team of over 200 International and African aid workers serving close to 300,000 beneficiaries with emergency responses in Health and Water/Sanitation in the chronic complex situation that is Southern Sudan. Roger has been serving in Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake as Medair conducts a massive shelter operation getting Haitian communities in the Sud Est region into safe, transitional housing by hurricane season. Roger has a B.A. from Wheaton College in Business/Economics and Bible/Theology and an MBA from Rollins College with a focus in International Business. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Eastern University, studying Organizational Leadership.
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Bryan Coley | Screenwriter and Producer
Bryan Coley is the founder and artistic director of Art Within. Under Coley’s guidance, Art Within launched a resident theater company, a creative team to partner with writers, a script development process, a producer’s symposium and showcase and an annual screenwriter’s lab. During the ten years he has served as Art Within’s artistic director, Art Within has commissioned and developed over 30 projects from ground up. Likewise, he has established a distribution network of theatrical producers, Hollywood producers, and studios as outlets for Art Within’s content. Coley is currently writing and executive producing Art Within’s first feature film- Crackerjack.
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Mark Regnerus | Sociology, University of Texas
Mark Regnerus is an associate professor of sociology at the
University of Texas at Austin and author of Premarital Sex in America, due out this Fall from Oxford University
Press.
Before that, he wrote Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the
Lives
of American Teenagers, which tells the
story of how religion shapes teen sexual decision-making. A scholar who
can
raise hackles both in the academy and the Church, Regnerus took up the
mantle
of marriage in early adulthood in 2009, with articles appearing in both
the Washington
Post and Christianity Today. He lives in Austin with his wife Deeann
and their
three children.
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Buddy Hoffman | Pastor, Grace Fellowship Atlanta
Buddy Hoffman is the Lead Pastor of Grace Fellowship, a Bible-centered church community he and his wife founded more than twenty five years ago with campuses both in the heart of Atlanta and in its suburbs. During the aftermath of 9/11--literally standing in the ashes of the Twin Towers--a harrowing question pierced his heart: "Is the Muslim world the enemy or the prize?" Since that time, Buddy has traveled through the mountains of Pakistan, the war zones of Afghanistan, the deserts of Iraq (where he was put on trial and nearly beheaded), and the universities of Iran, and he saw firsthand the scarce fruit of more than 1400 years of Christian effort in the Muslim world. He also learned that Islamic resistance to the Gospel has far more to do with "Christianity" than Christ. But what if 1.57 billion Muslims are much closer to the Kingdom than we think? And what if the key to unlocking this entire global issue begins in the pages of the Qur'an?
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Antonio Carlos Costa | Social Activist, Rio de Janeiro
Antonio Carlos Costa is a social activist, author, church planter, and theologian living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio is known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, famous for street wars between police, drug traffickers, and organized crime. Antonio, after planting several churches, founding a denomination and a seminary, decided someone must speak out. Leading hundreds to the streets to cry out on behalf of the afflicted, a movement resulted called Rio de Paz (River of Peace), now one of the most prominent human rights organizations (NGO) in Brazil’s history.
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Dayton Castleman | Artist
Dayton Castleman is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist whose work and interests include his own studio practice, education, curatorial projects, writing, art consulting, and organizing artists. His artwork has been shown in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally, and can be found in a number of private collections. A central focus of Dayton's work is found in the recontextualization of symbols through architectural intervention, and the hybridization of idiosyncratic forms and materials. He currently teaches sculpture, drawing and digital media at Trinity Christian College.
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Father Dempsey Rosales-Acosta | Biblical Scholar and Pastor, St. Agnes
Dr. Rosales-Acosta is an associate pastor at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Midtown Manhattan, NYC. He holds a degree of Science of Exegesis in Scripture by the Pontifical Biblicum Institute (Rome) and a doctorate degree in Biblical Theology by the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome). Combining the pastoral and scholarly research in his 15 years period of ministry in Rome, Italy, had been regularly asked to speak and dictate biblical courses in Venezuela, Spain and Italy. At the present moment he also helps as a consultant of the American Bible Society at the Presidential Liaison and Roman Catholic Ministry’s Department, and he is the author of the book The path to see like Jesus.
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Andrew Marin | The Marin Foundation
Andrew Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation (www.themarinfoundation.org) a non-profit that seeks to build bridges between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and religious communities. Andrew has appeared on various national radio and TV programs, and his sermon Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church—given on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration of President Barack Obama—is archived in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He is the author of the award winning book Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community, blogs daily at www.loveisanorientation.com and lives in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago with his wife.
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Becky Henderson | Founder & General Manager, Halogen TV
Becky Henderson is the General Manager for Halogen. Halogen TV is a new network dedicated to creating empowering entertainment about making the world a better place that launched in fall 2009 in 13 million digital cable homes across the U.S. An innovative and progressive thinker and planner, Becky has experience as on-air talent, short- and long-form producer, writer, and as a motivational and educational speaker. She is a member of American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT) and received Regional Emmy Award in an inspirational category in 2006. She lives in Charlotte, N.C., with her husband and two sons, with whom she shares a love of Disney World.
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Jonathan Merritt | Author
Jonathan is a faith and culture writer who has published over 100 articles in respected outlets such as USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post's “On Faith” blog, and Relevant, Outreach and Charisma magazines. As a respected Christian voice, he has been interviewed by ABC World News, NPR, PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, the UK Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post. His first book, Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet (FaithWords), releases nationwide in Spring of 2010.
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Jon Tyson | Pastor, Trinity Grace Church
Jon Tyson is lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in New York City. Trinity Grace is a network of neighborhood parish churches committed to joining God in the renewal of all things, currently with churches on the Upper West and Upper East Sides, in Chelsea and in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Originally from Adelaide, Australia, Jon lives in Manhattan with his wife Christy and their two children.
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Gregg Helvey | Oscar Nominated Filmmaker
Oscar Nominee and Student Academy Award® Winner, Gregg Helvey, has traveled the world to film in countries such as El Salvador, China, Kenya and England on projects ranging from National Geographic and BBC1 documentaries to independent fictional films. As a filmmaker, Helvey seeks to combine his passion for social justice with powerful story telling.
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Soledad O'Brien | Anchor, Special Correspondent, CNN
Soledad O'Brien is an anchor and special correspondent for CNN/U.S. Since joining the network in 2003, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe and has produced award-winning and record-breaking documentaries on the most important stories facing the world today. She also covers political news as part of CNN’s “Best Political Team on Television.” In 2009, she received the 2009 Medallion of Excellence for Leadership and Community Service Award from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. She is a graduate of Harvard University.
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Ryan O'Neal | Sleeping at Last
Sleeping at Last is an emo/alternative rock band that was originally formed in 1998 in Wheaton, Illinois. Members of the band are lead singer, guitarist, and pianist Ryan O'Neal, bassist and keys Dan Perdue, and drummer Chad O'Neal. The group built a significant local following and opened for bands such as The Appleseed Cast and Switchfoot, attracting the attention of Billy Corgan, who got them signed to Interscope Records in 2002. Their major label debut, Ghosts, followed in 2003. National touring ensued, first opening for Zwan, then for Yellowcard, Something Corporate, The Format, and Bleu. They received airplay on Fuse TV and their song "Quicksand" was featured in the third season of Grey's Anatomy. Their third full-length, Keep No Score, was released independently.
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Jonathan Olinger | International Filmmaker, Founder, Discover the Journey
Jonathan Olinger is the founder and Executive Director of Discover The Journey (DTJ), which creates media about children in-crisis and links intervention partners to the crisis until change is realized. In 2007 Jonathan discovered a story about orphaned and abandoned children in Haiti. Currently Jonathan is a consulting producer with CNN for the documentary Rescued, which focuses on this initial story both before and after the earthquake. The Rescued airs on CNN and CNN International May 8th and 9th.
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