John is a renowned civil rights activist. He is a sharecropper's son who grew up in Mississippi amidst dire poverty. Perkins fled to California when he was 17 and vowed never to return after his older brother's murder at the hands of a town marshal. However, in 1960, after his conversion to Christianity, he returned to his boyhood home to share the gospel of Christ. His outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, imprisonment and beatings. Despite dropping out of school in the third grade, Perkins received recognition for his work with seven honorary doctorates from Wheaton, Gordon, Huntington, Geneva, Spring Arbor, North Park and Belhaven colleges. He is an international speaker and teacher on racial reconciliation, leadership and community development. He is the author of nine books including A Quiet Revolution, Let Justice Roll Down, With Justice For All, Beyond Charity, He’s My Brother, Resurrecting Hope, and A Time to Heal, and has written numerous chapters in others. John formally served on the Board of Directors of World Vision, Prison Fellowship, National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Spring Arbor College, and fifteen other boards. written numerous chapters in others. John Perkins formally served on the Board of Directors of World Vision, Prison Fellowship, National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Spring Arbor College, and fifteen other boards. He is an international speaker and a teacher on the issues of racial reconciliation, indigenous leadership development, and community development.

Shane is a 29 year old “extremist for love” and founding partner of "The Simple Way", a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in Kensington, North Philadelphia. They seek to follow Jesus, to rediscover the spirit of the early Church, and to incarnate the 'Kingdom of God' “ a way of life standing in stark contrast to the world of militarism and materialism. Shane has helped birth and connects many grassroots Christian communities throughout the country, as well as prophetically awakens many others to consider the Gospel as a Way of life. Shane serves on the Board of Directors for the Christian Community Development Association, the largest national association of faith-based organizations. He recently wrote The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. His ministry experience is varied, from a 10-week stint working alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to a year spent serving a wealthy mega-congregation at Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago. Recently, Shane spent 3 weeks in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team (a project of Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams). Shane was witness to the military bombardment of Baghdad as well as the militarized areas between Baghdad and Amman. As a member of IPT, Shane took daily trips to sites where there had been bombings, visited hospitals and families, and attended worship services during the war.

Lauren Winner is the former book editor for Beliefnet, the author of three books, Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, and, most recently, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. She has appeared on PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and Christianity Today. Her essays have been included in The Best Christian Writing 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

Dr. Larson is president and founder of Straight Ahead Ministries, an international faith-based organization working with juvenile offenders in more than 400 juvenile detention centers in 14 states and three countries with a myriad of aftercare programs when youth return home. The recidivism rate for youth going through that home was less than 10 percent.

Scott has authored 10 books on working effectively with troubled youth and has been a speaker to youth, parents, teachers, social workers and youth workers since 1983, and is an adjunct professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Center for Urban Ministerial Education.

Dr. White became Gordon-Conwell’s fourth president and professor of Theology and Culture on July 1, 2006. Dr. White was formerly the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, which began with a single family and grew to over 3,000 families with over 5,000 active attendees. During his tenure, Mecklenburg experienced more than 70 percent of its growth from the unchurched, was cited in a study by the Lilly Endowment as one of the top 300 Protestant churches in the United States, and during its formative years was often cited as one of the fastest growing church starts in the United States. He is also founder of Serious Times (www.serioustimes.com) an organization devoted to understanding the intersection of church and culture, and sponsors the annual Serious Times Church and Culture Conference Apologetics; author of 14 books, including the recently released A Mind for God; Serious Times, a Gold Medallion finalist; Embracing the Mysterious God, a Christianity Today book-of-the-year award winner; The Prayer God Longs For; Rethinking the Church; and A Search for the Spiritual, also a Gold Medallion nominee.

Bill is Founder and President of FOTOS (FishOnTheOtherSide) an equipping ministry to homosexuals and their families. Bill, a former homosexual, works with churches on how to implement more effective evangelism and pastoral care programs to homosexuals and their loved ones. In addition, he discusses how to deal with personal sexual identity issues. Bill speaks at churches, universities and conferences throughout the United States.

David Batstone is a professor of Ethics at the University of San Francisco. He is the founder and president of Right Reality, an international social venture firm, and its abolitionist project, the Not for Sale Campaign. Batstone has authored five books, the two most recent being Not For Sale (HarperSF) and Saving the Corporate Soul <http://www.rightreality.com/store/saving_the_corporate_soul_david_batstone.html> (Jossey-Bass). He was a founding editor of Business 2.0 magazine and served six years as executive editor of Sojourners magazine and founder of the SojoMail e-zine. He currently serves as a senior editor of Motto magazine. He has contributed articles to the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, and SPIN. He is the recipient of two national journalist awards and was named National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco for his work in technology and ethics. During the 1980s, Batstone founded a non-governmental agency dedicated to economic development and human rights in Latin America.

  

With nearly 20 years in the field, Shawn is the founder and president of YouthStorm, a multigenerational partnership to empower the next generation. Through the dynamics of prayer, biblical discipleship, and community action, he is committed to Church reformation and social transformation in New England and beyond. Shawn holds a masters degree in Urban Ministry from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and lives in Windham, NH with his wife Stephanie and their five children. Currently, Shawn and his team have planted three churches (in Windham, NH, Bangor, ME, and Boston, MA) and launched several YouthStorm mission bases in New England and Europe.
 

Chad speaks about at-risk youth behaviors as the assistant director of Healthy Visions, an education-based organization. He knows what he’s talking about, having experienced a lot of at-risk behaviors — drinking, drug abuse, fighting with police, and so on — himself. Chad has served as a leader for Campus Crusade for Christ, a chemical dependency counselor, and an advocate for youth issues statewide and nationally. He’s the co-author of a national award-winning curriculum on sexual education for youth plus the author of the new hit teen book The Truth About Guys.

Brandon is aspiring twenty-something from the Midwest and one of the orginal members of XXXchurch.com. He speaks at churches, colleges, and high schools about pornography. xxxchurch.com exists to bring light in the midst of the dark, shallow and superficiality within a culture that has been saturated with pornographic media. The thrust is to bring awareness, openness, accountability and recovery to the church, society and individuals who have been affected by pornography. X3church delivers this message of hope and healing through innovation and a non-judgmental approach. As he meets people directly involved in the industry and those addicted to porn, Brandon exposes the very real, human face of pornography and the destructive physical, emotional, and spiritual toll it takes.

Dr. Michael Guillen earned his B.S. from UCLA and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in physics, mathematics and astronomy. For eight years he was an award-winning physics instructor at Harvard University. In 2000, he was elected to the renowned Explorers Club. Over the years, Dr. Guillen has written hundreds of articles for numerous distinguished publications, including Science News and Psychology Today magazines and The New York Times and Washington Post. For fourteen years, he was the Emmy-award-winning Science Correspondent for ABC News. He appeared regularly on Good Morning America, 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. Dr. Guillen is the best-selling author of two critically acclaimed books for the general public about mathematics: Bridges to Infinity: the Human Side of Mathematics and Five Equations that Changed the World: the Power and Poetry of Mathematics. In his latest book Can a Smart Person Believe in God?, Dr. Guillen tells of his lifelong attempt to reconcile his scientific career with his deeply religious upbringing. In it he uses the term SQ, which stands for Spiritual Quotient - the spiritual counterpart to IQ. Dr. Guillen believes that only when we use both our IQ and SQ do we perceive ourselves, others, and the universe in their full, multi-dimensional splendor. Dr. Guillen is. also the host of Where Did It Come From? ... an exciting new weekly, one-hour, prime-time series for The History Channel. Dr. Guillen is the Chief Consultant for Science and Religion for the Crystal Cathedral Ministries, which includes the Hour of Power television show.

Eric started No One Underground Ministries because of his heart felt desire to communicate Christ through the very powerful medium of art. His art is now sought after and collected across the nation with his epic, haunting, surrealistic and prophetic qualities that gives his approach a style and originality all its own.  “I want to create art with purpose. Create works containing truth but never reeking of religion; art that is truly attractive to people outside the walls of the ‘church’ and pushing the limits of its influence."

Mr. Keyes is the Director /Founder of L'Abri Fellowship (in Southborough, Massachusetts) since 1979. Dick has worked for L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland and in England, where he served also as a pastor in the International Presbyterian Church in London for eight years. He has been an adjunct professor at Gordon Conwell Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the author of Beyond Identity, True Heroism, Chameleon Christianity and several chapters in anthologies such as No God But God, ed. Os Guinnes, Finding God at Harvard, ed. Kelly Monroe, and New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics from Intervarsity Press. He has lectured widely in the U.S. and also in Europe and Korea. If there is any integrating idea it is the attempt to connect important aspects of modern life to Biblical truth ­ with a theological, apologetic and pastoral concern. His writing on identity, heroism and cynicism, for example, are efforts to help Christians toward a more integrated and engaged faith, but also to help those who are not Christians to be able to see the claims of Jesus from a fresh perspective. He holds a B.A. in History from Harvard University, and a M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. The L'Abri communities are study centers in Europe, Asia and America where individuals have the opportunity to seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life. L'Abri believes that Christianity speaks to all aspects of life.

Mardi graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Biblical History. Shortly after, she married Dick Keyes, and in 1970, they moved to Europe to work with L'Abri. They spent six months in Switzerland, and eight and a half years in England (London and Greatham). In 1979, the Keyes moved to Southborough, Massachusetts, where they opened the first residential branch of L'Abri in the United States. Mardi lectures on a variety of topics, including hospitality, the problem of evil, the family, children, adolescence, youth culture, the Christian mind, feminism and other gender issues. She frequently speaks about Christianity and Feminism at secular colleges and universities. Mardi has published a number of articles, and a booklet entitled Feminism & the bible. She also contributed a chapter in response to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, in the book, Women and the Future of the Family. In her lectures and writing, Mardi tries to relate Biblical teaching to social history and contemporary culture.

Bruce is Director of Ministries for The Fold Family Ministries, a residential program for at-risk teens located in northern Vermont. His wife Cat serves as Counselor for The Fold's Girls Home. They have each been on staff at The Fold for over 7 years and have been involved in youth ministry for over 15 years. The Fold has been serving teens and families in crisis for almost 40 years, providing a residential environment where biblically based Christ-centered principles are used for counseling, teaching, mentoring, and training teens and families in crisis.

Dale is President of the American Chesterton Society. Dale’s talks on Chesterton have delighted audiences around the country and around the world. He has spoken at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Penn, Villanova, University of Georgia, University of Tulsa, University of Iowa, and many others. He has given talks in England, Australia, Switzerland, and Canada. Dale is the author G.K. Chesterton - The Apostle of Common Sense and Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton. He is also creator and host of the popular "Apostle of Common Sense" television series.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)( G.K. Chesterton) was considered the best writer of the 20th century. The reason he was so highly esteemed as a  writer of the was because he was also the greatest thinker of the 20th century. This was the man who wrote a book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. This was the man who wrote a novel called The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish Independence.

This was the man who wrote an essay in the Illustrated London News that inspired Mohandas Gandhi to lead a movement to end British colonial rule in India. Chesterton debated many of the celebrated intellectuals of his time: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow. Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Orson Welles and others have praised his writing. T.S. Eliot said that Chesterton "deserves a permanent claim on our loyalty."

Curt is an actor and writer. He uses his comic and dramatic skills to present theatrical entertainment which moves people to see and feel the good news of God in fresh and creative ways. For more than twenty years Curt has performed thousands of times on college campuses, for churches, in theatres,
and for conferences all over North America.

He presents a substantive message (without being preachy). His performances have an intimate, startling quality that stir emotions and cause people to ask questions. His performances are more than brilliant theatre -- they're theatre with a lasting impression.

Bruce has completed both undergraduate and graduate fine arts degrees at Boston University School for the Arts. He studied under Philip Guston, James Weeks, David Aronson, and Reed Kay.

He is currently Professor of Art at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. Herman lectures widely and has had work published in many books, journals, and popular magazines.

His artwork has been exhibited in over 55 exhibitions in eleven major cities including Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. His work has been shown in five different countries, including England, Italy, Russia, Canada, and Israel.

His work is housed in many public and private collections including the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art in Rome; the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts; and the Armand Hammer Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Lt. Colonel, Secretary for Enterprise Development

Salvation Army

He graduated from the Salvation Army’s College for Officers’ Training and was commissioned as a Salvation Army Officer and minister in June 1973.

In 1990, he became the Administrator of The Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center —for men recovering from drug and alcohol abuse— in California. In 1992, he was assigned as the Administrator of the Seattle Adult Rehabilitation Center. In 1994, Lt. Colonel Starrett was appointed as the Adult Rehabilitation Centers Commander for the Western Territory. In this appointment, he had the responsibility for the program, finance and spiritual leadership of 25 Adult Rehabilitation Centers. This includes the programming for over 3,000 men and women and 300 thrift stores. From 2002 until 2005, he was appointed to International Headquarters as International Secretary for Enterprise Development. He is still a Consultant for this Department. As of January 2006, he is the Executive Director of the Salvation Army World Service Office (SAWSO). This is the USA private and governmental International Development Office for The Salvation Army one of the largest microfinance organizations in the world.

Before joining the Gordon College faculty in 2002, Jeff was the founder and Artistic Director of The Refreshment Committee Theatre Company of St. Paul, MN, chaired the Theatre Arts Department at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN, where he received the 1995 Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and served as Director of Education, director and performer at Lamb’s Players Theatre in San Diego, CA. He is currently chair of the Gordon College Department of Theatre Arts and moderator for the Fine Arts Division. His many directing credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Busman’s Honeymoon, Macbeth, Guys and Dolls, Shadowlands, Edith Stein and Forgiving Typhoid Mary. At Gordon, Jeff has directed a new adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, Tartuffe, The Secret Garden, An Evening of Pinter, Tarantara! Tarantara!, Sueño and Quilters. The student ensemble-created devising called Growing Up Christian, directed by Miller, was recently selected to be performed at the Region 1 gathering of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Justin began Hard as Nails Ministries an evangelistic ministry in 2004 which has resulted in touching more than 200,000 lives. In addition, he has built outreach ministries in New Jersey, New York, Missouri, CT, VT, the island of Barbados and at universities, such as Cornell and Colgate. The movie Hard as Nails had its world premiere as a feature length documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in May and will air on HBO in January. Justin has written the book HARD AS NAILS, Magnificent Love for Young People and a Parent. In 2005, he founded Mega Youth Ministries with musician Bob Halligan Jr., lead singer and guitarist from CeiliRain. Mega Youth is a five church youth ministry with 100-500 youth attending weekly

Brian Greenfield has been working with Hard as Nails since 2004. His primary focus is building inner city ministry programs throughout the nation. He is working in a new branch of Hard as Nails Ministries called Motivation Ministries. Brian strives to build relationships with local church leaders in order to help the programs grow. He has spoken to thousands of youth across the country and will do 15 events this year. He holds a Bachelors degree in communications and a Masters in Theology from Seton Hall University. He is a writer for the National Black Catholics and he currently resides in Washington D.C. where he is a religion teacher at Gonzaga Catholic High School.

Reed is one of New England’s premier artists and illustrators. His oil paintings are part of private collections world wide. He is the first Vermonter to win the prestigious Vermont Duck Stamp Competition and the only Artist to win the competition twice. His painting Twin Maple Farms was selected by the Vermont Department of Agriculture to represent Vermont Agriculture. His painting The Road Less Traveled currently appears on the cover of Just Walking the Hills of Vermont. He is the illustrator of ten books, including "Owls by Floyd Scholz" and Floyd Schol’z Birds of Prey, perhaps the definitive study of raptors. He also illustrated books for naturalist writer Ron Rood whose capstone examination of the Vermont wilderness and the New England coast (Ron Rood’s Vermont and Beachcombers All) each have over 100 of his pen and ink illustrations. Reed has illustrated the Vermont Wildlife Viewing guide.

Matthew is writer and a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. His books include the novel The Finnsburg Encounter, and several works of non-fiction: Hammers and Nails: The Life and Music of Mark Heard, and Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in the Lord of the Rings ( “This is the best entirely new critical book on Tolkien in several years”--David Bratman, Mythprint: The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythpoeic Society). He has also written From Homer to Harry Potter: A Handbook on Myth and Fantasy , and most recently, Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R.Tolkien . In addition to teaching and writing, Matthew Dickerson is the director of the New England Young Writers Conference at Bread Loaf, and a founding member of the steering board for the Vermont Conference on Christianity and the Arts.

Robert is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. His books of poetry include A Pentecost of Finches: New and Selected Poems, The Waters Under the Earth, The Beasts & The Elders and In A Pig's Eye. He has received prizes and awards from Poetry, Prairie Schooner, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Society of Midland Authors and the National Endowment for the Arts. His fiction includes, Alpha Centauri and the Whalesong trilogy, which received the Golden Archer and Matson awards and has been translated into seven languages.

Joseph Parisi, the former editor of Poetry, has written, "Of Robert Siegel's talents there can be no doubt. 'Brilliant' is a term too casually applied today, and it does not begin to define the remarkable range of subjects delineated and the technical mastery demonstrated in The Beasts & the Elders. . . .His poems are a power."

Robert has taught at Dartmouth, Princeton, and Goethe University in Frankfurt, and for over twenty years at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he twice directed the graduate creative writing program and is currently Professor Emeritus of English. He has degrees from Wheaton College , Johns Hopkins, and Harvard University.

Paul Rogers owns a freelance photography business specializing in commercial, documentary, and fine art photography. Paul has traveled on commercial and volunteer (Christian aid) assignments to destinations in India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, Romania, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. He documented the work of a Christian relief team in Asia one month after the Tsunami. Clients have included Mission without Borders and entertainer Rusty DeWees.

Dale is an Associate Professor of Politics at Saint Anselm College. In 2000, he became the founding Director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, and is currently the Special Assistant to the President of Saint Anselm College for Government Relations. He is currently completing a book tentatively titled: Standing on the Threshold of an Inconceivable Age: Christianity, Politics, and Sexuality in the 21stCentury." Dale was ordained as a minister by the Evangelical Covenant Church of America in 2001, and serves as the Pastor of the Emmanuel Covenant Church in Nashua, NH