The founding vicar of a successful new church start.  While in seminary, Jeunée helped launch a contemporary seeker-targeted church in the Washington, DC suburbs, and soon after her ordination she was commissioned to begin St. Gabriel’s, now a thriving congregation. 

Jeunée’s first career was teaching high school and middle school French and English, and adult English as a Second Language.  Her entrepreneurial gifts first developed when she launched a small business selling Inkadinkado® Rubber Stamps at Washington D.C. area malls.  While her three children were young she operated a home-based day care.  She served on the Steering Committee for the national “Plant My Church” Conference, the Presiding Bishop’s Consultation on New Church Development.  She is currently serving on the Diocese of Virginia’s Commission on Church Planting, has served on the Diocese of Virginia’s Commission on Congregational Development, and offered workshops and web articles on newcomer invitation and integration.  Jeunée presents on issues related to welcoming guests and new member incorporation at the national Start Up! Start Over! Congregational Development seminars sponsored by the Episcopal Church Center.

Eric Elnes is a biblical scholar and the Senior Pastor of 300-member Scottsdale Congregational United Church of Christ in Scottsdale, Arizona, which offers both a traditional worship experience and “The Studio” – an innovative a multi-sensory, high technology worship experience, supported by professional jazz musicians, that draws on the arts and technology in ways that transcend classification as either “traditional” or “contemporary” worship.  The Studio has been featured in a number of books on congregational and worship vitality, including Tex Sample’s Powerful Persuasion, and Diana Butler-Bass’ From Nomads to Pilgrims and Christianity for the Rest of Us. 

Elnes also serves as co-president of CrossWalk America (http://www.crosswalkamerica.org/), an organization dedicated to articulating progressive Christian faith and values.  He joined their 2,500 mile “Walk Across America 2006” from Phoenix, Arizona to Washington, DC to raise awareness of progressive Christianity and co-authored the Phoenix Affirmations written specifically to be accessible to laypeople who are feeling “spiritually homeless” both in and outside the church.

Elnes has authored:
Igniting Worship: the Seven Deadly Sins, which provides worship outlines, a DVD, and multimedia resources for creating multi-sensory worship services The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity provides biblical, theological, and philosophical grounding ordered around love of God, neighbor, and self.  World’s Most Dangerous Bible Study places the scriptures in conversation with popular music

Eric recently traveled to Ethiopia and India to study worship and spiritual practices – places with ancient Christian lineage which have largely been overlooked by Western Christian tradition.  Elnes has been a regular feature in Princeton Seminary’s audio journal, Cloud of Witnesses, is a frequent speaker on issues relating to the Bible, worship, and modern life, and is a regular presenter on multi-sensory worship at the Start Up! Start Over! Congregational Development seminars sponsored by the Episcopal Church Center.

Kirk is a sociologist who conducts research for the Episcopal Church and oversees the Parochial Report and Diocesan Report processes.  His recent major research reports include: Is the Episcopal Church Growing or Declining?; A Report on Episcopal Churches in the United States; and New Church Development: A Research Report. They are available online and in printed form.  He was Minister for Research and Evaluation for the United Church of Christ and has authored eight applied books, all dealing with congregational renewal and growth.  They include: Behold I Do a New Thing: Transforming Communities of Faith, Rerouting the Protestant Mainstream, Church and Denominational Growth, Church Growth Principles and What Can We Do About Church Dropouts?  He has published over 60 articles on congregational renewal, church trends and the sociology of religion. 

At Start Up!Start Over! Kirk Hadaway will report on current social and demographic trends related to the growth of the Episcopal Church and material from recent research reports related to congregational growth and vitality.

An experienced redeveloper, Al has successfully redeveloped and doubled an established congregation that had suffered trauma and had hit a plateau.  Al has been a part of Start Up!Start Over! from its conception to present day.  He has trained with Rabbi Ed Friedman, Peter Steinke and Arlin Rothauge and has a Doctorate in Congregational Studies.  A former Field Associate for Congregational Development at the Episcopal Church Center, he now serves as adjunct faculty of the Seabury Institute, teaching in the area of leadership and family emotional systems process.  He is also a visiting lecturer at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary teaching in the area of leadership and parish growth.  His focus for further studies these days is the emerging church of the 21st century including the works of Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet, Marcus Borg and others. 

At the Vancouver seminar Al Johnson will serve as the seminar chaplain.

George Martin is a successful new church planter whose church grew from one family to an average attendance of over 300 in the fourteen years he served as pastor.  The keys to starting that church included door-to-door ministry (over 15,000 visits were made), direct marketing, and innovative contemporary worship.  He also led the redevelopment of a city parish.  George has a Doctorate in Congregational Studies and has served as Associate Faculty to the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Illinois.  George has served as the interim-pastor of four congregations around the US and is now the President of the National Association of Episcopal Interim Ministry Specialists. 

George founded and served as Executive Director of the Church Ad Project, and will bring his interest in evangelism and marketing to this seminar with humor and energy.  George has authored three books:
From Disciple to Apostle: a User Friendly Manual for Church Membership
Door to Door Ministry
Advertising the Local Church – A Handbook for Promotion

Dr. Martin offers seminars and consultations throughout the Episcopal Church.  He demonstrates the tremendous possibilities that every church has for inviting more people in to the community of faith using advertising and media resources, as a regular presenter at the national Start Up! Start Over! Congregational Development seminars sponsored by the Episcopal Church Center.

Tom’s passion is “church without walls” – concerned with reaching those who have never experienced joyful worship and healthy community. In his twenty-five years of  ministry he has planted two churches and revived a campus ministry. He is excited about fresh expressions of Christian community and consults with the Diocese of Western North Carolina in congregational redevelopment. He is currently reinventing a  parish that was “flatlined” for 23 years, gathering an intentionally multi-cultural worship community in a racially polarized neighborhood. He is also the Vicar of a Diocesan ministry to the homeless. He is a teaching delegate for the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and many of his stories about intentional inclusivity come from his experiences in Palestinian villages coaching Arab youth concerned about “Creating a Culture of Peace” in tours organized by Jewish “Women in black.” One of Tom’s passions is writing service music for the “uninitiated” and creating inspiring liturgical spaces in unlikely venues.

At the October Start Up!Start Over! in Orlando Tom will serve a the seminar chaplain.

Lydia is the coordinator and artistic director of the Art &Soul Café, exploring the sacred through an interactive experience of music, dance, visual art, and multi-media.  The ministry is an outreach to both Christian and unchurched seekers of faith in a non-traditional format.  She is the former Children’s Choir Director at Christ Church Cathedral, and leads a community based singing group called Womansing.  Lydia is a professional singer, songwriter, music director, and performer.  She has produced a solo CD, Mimosa, and traveled across the U.S. for many years singing jazz with the vocal swing group Spatz. 

Lydia directs the musical component of the national Start Up! Start Over! Congregational Development seminars sponsored by the Episcopal Church Center.  Currently she is performing on stage in a regional tour of a play based on the underground railroad’s provision of safe passage for slaves during the 1800’s.

International consultant, free lance lecturer, and researcher with churches, community groups, governments and businesses.  Tex has worked as a cab driver, laborer, roust-about in the oil fields, parish pastor, Social Relations Director for the Massachusetts Council of Churches, civil rights and peace lobbyist.  For many years he was the Academic Dean and the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor of Church and Society at the St. Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Missouri where he researched and taught in the areas of U.S. culture, social theory, social change, power, social class and theological ethics.  He is a specialist in the study of blue collar and poor people.  He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.  He is a frequent lecturer ecumenically and has consulted with a wide range of business and governmental organization such as Hallmark Cards, the Chamber of Commerce, the Job Corps, the Department of Labor, the U.S. army, the U.S. Navy, the U. S. Department of Education, and the Federal Reserve Bank.  Tex is a regular presenter at the Start Up!Start Over! Congregational Development seminar sponsored by the Episcopal Church Center, offering different approaches to understand our experiences in the world through God’s story.

Tex Sample has authored eight books on church in the current culture:
Powerful Persuasion: Multimedia Witness in Christian Worship
The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World: Electronic Culture and the Gathered People of God
Ministry in an Oral Culture- Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, & Minnie Pearl
The Loyal Opposition: Struggling with the Church on Homosexuality
Hard Living People & Mainstream Christians
U.S Lifestyles and Mainline Churches: A key to Reaching People in the 90’s
Blue-Collar Ministry: Facing Economic and Social Realities of Working People
White Soul: Country Music, the Church, and Working Americans.

Suzanne’s focus on the staff of the congregational development team is working with congregations with an average Sunday attendance of fewer than 70 people. The circumstances and issues facing these churches vary greatly and include recent church plants that are growing, churches that are stable and small, and churches that hold memories of being much larger but have declined. The settings of these congregations also vary greatly, from rural to suburban and urban, each presenting different opportunities and challenges for the small church.

Prior to moving to New York, Suzanne served as a priest at St. Francis Co-operating Parish in Hamilton, New Zealand, a multi-denominational parish formed when three congregations (Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist) merged while simultaneously clustering with two other rural parishes.  She has also served as priest and chaplain at St Dunstan’s Episcopal Church and School in Central California, and currently serves as a supply priest to parishes in the Northeastern United States.