Instructors -- These instructors have been certified to lead workshops online through the Institute for Discipleship by successful completion of IFD100 How to Provide Workshops Online.
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Daniel Benedict -- Dan lives on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. He is a clergy member of the California Pacific Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church and is officially retired, though he remains active in ministries of teaching, consulting and writing in the areas of worship and liturgical spirituality.
From 1993 to 2005 Dan served as Worship Resources Director in the Center for Worship Resourcing for The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church. A liturgy specialist and teacher, he served for nearly thirty years as a pastor of congregations in New York and California before taking the General Board of Discipleship post.
He has taught online courses on the role and skills of presiding in worship (particularly Holy Communion), how liturgy shapes our lives, and the basics of worship space. He looks forward to teaching additional courses on pastoral understandings and practices in baptism and Christian initiation, the calendar and lectionary as gift and guide for planning worship and preaching, revamping toward being an incarnational church, and a basic introduction to Christian worship (read a testimony from a past participant).
He has written numerous articles for the Sacramental Life, Worship Arts, Liturgy (published by the Liturgical Conference), Covenant Discipleship Quarterly, Catechumenate, and other periodicals. With Craig Kennet Miller, he has authored Contemporary Worship for the 21st Century: Worship or Evangelism? He is author of, Come to the Waters: Baptism and Our Ministry of Welcoming Seekers and Making Disciples, a pastoral and sacramental invitation to recover the ancient church's way of making disciples. His most recent book is Patterned by Grace: How Liturgy Shapes Us (Upper Room Books, 2007)
He served on the United Methodist Baptism Study Committee that developed By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism, and was a member of the United Methodist Holy Communion Study Committee mandated by the 2000 General Conference that resulted in This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion. From 1996 to 2004 he convened a working group responsible for revising Services for the Ordering of Ministry in The United Methodist Church, which was adopted by the 2004 General Conference.
At the request of the Council of Bishops, Dan assisted their General Conference Worship Committee in planning and directing worship for the 1996, 2000, and 2004 General Conferences.
Dan was born and grew up in central New York State. He took a BA degree at Syracuse University (1966), majoring in religion and classical history, and a Master of Divinity Degree from the American Baptist Seminary of the West (1969). He did further study at the Claremont School of Theology. In 2003 he completed a certificate program in Digital Culture Ministry through Perkins School of Theology and Lumicon Digital Productions.
He is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy and participates in the academy's Christian Initiation Seminar. He represented the United Methodist Church as a member of the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT), a North American consortium of denominational worship directors and scholars who developed the Revised Common Lectionary. He served as the CCT's secretary for five years. In 1997 he represented CCT at the English Language Liturgical Consultation in Turku, Finland.
He is an active member of the Order of Saint Luke, a liturgical and sacramental community in diaspora, and is long time member of The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music & Worship Arts. He was awarded the Fellowship's Roger Deschner Award for life time achievement in the areas liturgy, music and worship arts at its St. Louis convocation in 2007.
He is also active in the North American Association for the Catechumenate whose mission is to foster and support contemporary implementation of the catechumenal process in the churches.
Dan has led pastor's schools, regional meetings, workshops and retreats across the US, and in Singapore and Australia. In recent years he has served as faculty for the Upper Room's Spiritual Formation Academy, teaching the course on "Liturgy and Spirituality."
Dan's ongoing interests are ordering the life of the congregation around the means of grace, crafting liturgy, liturgical space design and presiding in worship. He has a strong sense of vocation to encourage and lead clergy and congregations to richer and more frequent celebration of the Eucharist as normative Christian worship.
He is married to Mary O, father of two grown children and grandfather to five boys and a granddaughter. In addition to loving worship as a professional pursuit, he enjoys monastic retreats, gardening, walking the beaches, cooking, and reading poetry and good novels.
Lisa Buffum -- Lisa is the Assistant Director of the Institute for Discipleship overseeing the ministries of BeADisciple.com. Lisa completed a Masters degree in Christian Ministry from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, in May of 2006. She is the mother of three children and her family is very active as lay members at First UMC, Winfield. Lisa teaches IFD100 How to Provide Your Workshop Online and other workshops as needed, as well as provides technical assistance for instructors and participants in every IFD workshop.
Joseph Conte -- Joe currently serves as the Director of Church Relations and Instructional Technology at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He is an Elder in the Baltimore Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church and has served under pastoral appointment for fifteen years. Joe received a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University and holds a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry in Ecumenism from Wesley Theological Seminary. He also teaches courses in technology for ministry and ecumenism at Wesley.
Before entering the ordained ministry, Joe practiced as a licensed Electrical Engineer and eventually owned and operated his own engineering firm. He has always enjoyed the study and development of new technologies and has a keen interest in the application of technology to the ministry of the church. Joe and his family currently live in Baltimore where they are active in a local United Methodist Church serving the diverse communities of the city.
Lisa Elliott Diehl -- Lisa is the director of communication for the Kansas East and Kansas West annual conferences of the United Methodist Church. Lisa has a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from Kansas State University. She was director of communications for the Kansas West Conference from March 2001 until July 2006, when she became area director of communications for both the Kansas East and Kansas West conferences. She and her husband live near Wichita, Kansas. She attends the Valley Center United Methodist Church.
Terry Gladstone --Terry is a deacon in the United Methodist Church and an Associate Council Director for the Detroit Annual Conference. Her interest and passion for Christian camping goes back over 35 years. Terry is a graduate of Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary with a master's degree in Christian Education. Terry and her husband Dave Gladstone have been involved with The Detroit Conference Choir Camp since 1975, first as choir directors and now as deans.
In her home state of Michigan there is a requirement of 27 hours of training EVERY YEAR for volunteer counselors. Terry's interest is in providing a quality training experience for volunteer counselors something that is creative, fresh and has the potential for growth in every counselor. Her Choir Camp has counselors that come from Arizona, California, Maryland, North Carolina and Michigan and so the 27 hour requirement is a bit of a challenge. Terry views volunteer camp staff as a primary asset to any camp program.
Andrea Harvey -- Andrea lives in Gray, Maine with her teenage son and their two Maine Coon cats. She graduated from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in 2000 with a Masters degree in Christian Education and a concentration in Youth Ministry. Andrea is an Ordained Deacon in full connection in the United Methodist Church and is currently appointed to the Good Shepherd UMC in Gray, Maine. She has been involved in Youth Ministry at local churches since 1980 and on the Conference level since 1993. Andrea is currently working on her doctorate in Ministering to the Post Modern Generations at Gordon Conwell. She is researching youth and worship in this post-modern era and will be offering courses for those interested in exploring methods of teaching young people God's Word and how to live by it in our pluralistic world. Andrea's workshops will be offered in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement.
Andrea's website, www.elyireh.org is a co-op for discussion and the exchange of ideas for hands on youth ministry.
Steve Heyduck -- Steve is the Chaplain at the Methodist Children's Home in Waco, Texas. He is an Elder in the Central Texas Conference. He has a B.A. in Christian Education (Southwestern University, 1984) and an MDiv with a focus on Historical Theology (Asbury Seminary, 1989). He is married to Rachel and has one daughter who is 19. Steve enjoys photography, sports, movies, cooking, and reading. You can keep up with his reading and musings at his blog, everyday theology. His main interests in teaching are in the area of the history and theology behind, surrounding, and empowering youth ministry.
Steve will be leading workshops in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement
Mark C. Hicks -- Mark was appointed founding director of Disciple Bible Outreach Ministries by Bishop Charlene Kammerer in June of 1999. A pioneer and architect of the Disciple Prison Ministry Initiative, Hicks first served as chairperson of the DISCIPLE Prison Ministry Task Force in 1998. While serving in this capacity he drafted a proposal for a new comprehensive ministry of DISCIPLE Bible Study in North Carolina. Once accepted by the North Carolina and Western North Carolina Conferences of the United Methodist Church, this proposal provided the pattern for Disciple Bible Outreach Ministries of North Carolina.
Mark holds an AB Degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a Master of Divinity Degree from Duke University and a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Faith-Based and Government Ministry from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Mark is an ordained Elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the UMC and prior to his appointment as Disciple Bible Outreach Ministries founding Director, held pastorates in the High Point, Charlotte and Greensboro NC Districts.
In 2002, Mark was invited by the NC Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to create a new Bible study curriculum for youth in the department's system of care. The result of this collaboration is the RINGS OF FELLOWSHIP Youth bible study where Hicks guided the creative process and authored of the RINGS Student Manual. RINGS is now being taught in juvenile justice facilities and churches throughout the country.
In 2004, Hicks was named to the Criminal Justice Task Force of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the UMC. This Task Force works to promote criminal justice ministry thoughout the denomination. Hicks is a general editor and contibruting author of a new book on UMC Criminal Justice Ministries due out later this year entitled: "I was in Prison: United Methodist Perspectives on Criminal Justice Ministries."
Hicks is married to Laura, his wife of 20 years. Together they have two daughters. The Hicks family resides in North Carolina where they are active in both church and community.
Becky Jackson -- Becky Jackson, lives in Lampasas, Texas serving at First United Methodist Church. She is a certified youth pastor through the UM certification program for youth ministry of Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She is currently working on a masters degree in Youth Ministry. She has directed various MidWinter Camps, as well as summer camps and retreats for the SouthWest Texas United Methodist Conference for the past three years, as well as various speaking and teaching engagements, both at youth camps, as well as adult classes. She has 13 years of experience in 3 churches: Oklahoma, Georgia and currently Texas.
She has led at a mega church, small church and rural church and loves the rural church atmosphere as it offers her a chance for relationships with students throughout the community. Becky's ministry focuses not only on church students but on those that society has deemed "unreachable". Becky has led a campus Bible Study at the high school for 2 years now, beginning with 3 students and growing to over 40 in weekly attendance. She has managed to combine a unique combination of skaters and unchurched youth, with church youth.
Becky has managed to grow a group of youth volunteers from 0 to 15, complete with training, enabling relational ministry to take place for all that are involved. Becky has developed a Family Ministry at her church which allows her to help parents develop Christian children at the age of 0, preparing them for a rich youth experience. This ministry grew out of a concern for the upcoming generations, and their parents. She has been able to provide a well rounded family ministry, complete with interactive adult Sunday school, which also helps parents not only with their own faith journey but also provide them with the tools for help their children with their faith journey. This ministry is complete with fellowship - both with and without children in attendance - family retreats, service and mission projects. This is a new and unique ministry for the church and is growing with a new adult Sunday school class being added this spring.
Becky has experience leading and directing VBS, youth camps and retreats, as well as developing and implementing a Children's After School Program, Children's Church and Sunday program, and community wide mission projects - both for adults and youth. Becky has recently developed and put together a local youth pastors group - in which, youth pastors from the community forget about denominational lines and come together monthly for prayers, fellowship and community events development. Loving the outdoors, she can often be found with youth on extreme camping trips, white water rafting, mountain climbing and rappelling and a number of other fun and challenging activities that push students to rely on God.
Becky is a published author for the Journal of Student Ministry: Family, Friends, Rest, and Other Balancing Acts, January 2008. She continues to write curriculum for friends in ministry as well as for use in her own church. She also led a workshop at Youth Specialties, 2006 in Altanta : Raising your own RugRats in the Rat Race of Youth Ministry. As a mother of 3 generational children (21, 13 & 6), mother-in-law, grandmother of 1 and spouse and biggest supporter of her husband of 19 years, she has had to work through all the issues involved in balancing the family, the ministry and self. Not always getting it right, has given her the opportunity to seek new ways of bringing a christian family up while ministering to other students. In January of 2007, she co-taught a workshop with Rev. Rusty Freeman at Perkins School of Youth Ministry: Teaching the Spiritual Disciplines to Youth.
Becky will be teaching workshops in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement.
David Kueker -- David lives in Caseyville, Illinois, a small town 9 miles east of the Arch in St. Louis. Nestled in between the materialistic suburbs and the inner city problems of East St. Louis, it is more like a rural village than a part of a city of three million. David is the pastor of the Caseyville United Methodist Church, a small congregation that does a lot of creative things. After graduating from Eastern Illinois University (BA/French) and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, KY (M.Div), Dave has served as a United Methodist local church pastor in the Illinois Great Rivers Conference for 28 years.
Dave's hobby the past seven years has been working on a Doctor of Ministry degree in evangelism and church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California; that work was concluded in December of 2007. He has just received his doctorate and is now officially Dr. David Kueker! CONGRATULATIONS!.
The DMin project on disciple making and overcoming resistance to change is online at www.disciplewalk.com and Dave is facilitating two courses on this subject at BeADisciple.com. Dave also works with district lay speakers, serves as Assistant Community Spiritual Director for the Illinois Prairieland Walk to Emmaus, and advises some friends planting a church in South Carolina. He is interested in bringing an Organic Church Planting Greenhouse event to the St. Louis area in the spring of 2009 (www.GreenhouseSTL.org).
David is single with three grown sons in college or graduate school in northern Illinois. His oldest son recently became a father, making Dave a grandfather.
Martha Myre -- Dr. Martha Myre is an ordained elder in the North Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church. She pastors the First United Methodist Church of Bowie, Texas. Her undergraduate education includes a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Theological Studies from Perkins School of Theology from SMU and a PhD in Religious Studies (with a concentration in Hebrew Bible) from SMU. Martha is constantly reading and learning and loves to teach Bible Studies, Wesleyan studies, Evangelism, and other things to children, youth, and adults. She basically loves facilitating a life of learning and discipleship in others. A life-long interest has been to open the door between academics and the church, so that the two sides of her brain can work together. The most common comment that she hears after her sermons is: "I've never thought about it that way before!!"
Besides reading, Martha loves music, playing with her cats, chilling with her family and watching really stupid tv.
Gary Olsen -- Gary currently serves as Lead Pastor of Rolling Hills Community Church, Lago Vista, TX, a union church fully chartered in four denominations: the United Methodist Church; the Presbyterian Church USA; the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); and the United Church of Christ. He is an Equipper for the ChristCare small-group ministry system, having trained in St. Louis with Stephen Ministry. Utilizing ChristCare for the first time ever in the design of an academic research project, Pastor Gary earned his Doctor of Ministry degree May 2007 at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY. In 2002, Gary and his wife Joyce each earned the Certificate of Advanced Church Leadership from the Beeson Institute of Asbury Theological Seminary. A native of southern California, he has earned: a B.A. from the UCLA; an M. Div. from Nashotah House Episcopal Theological Seminary in WI; and C.P E. units through Interfaith Healthcare Ministries, Providence, R. I.
In his 25th year of pastoral ministry, Rev. Olsen possesses ordination standing in the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). BeADisicple.com workshop leadership has covered a "Theater and Theology" installment that takes a closer look at concerts, plays, film previews, and classic movie screenings, and then plans ministry events for the participant's ministry settings; the latest edition is the 2008 Disney film "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Future topics planned include: equipping Christians for ministry and church leadership; in-depth Bible study skills using online resources; exploring the option of a Doctor of Ministry degree; and research from his dissertation on spiritual formation small-group leadership training for ministry team leaders.
When asked about interests and hobbies, Gary lists his wife, their two children and their spouses, and their two grand-children!
Beth Perry -- Beth is the pastor of Lexington UMC, in Manhattan, NY. She graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1994 and has a Bachelor's degree in Business from Elizabethtown College. In addition to 18 years of pastoral and chaplaincy experience, she has taught religion and philosophy courses for Harrisburg Area Community College and Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. She has written for newspapers, magazines, and journals on a variety of topics, including storytelling, which is the topic for her first class with BeADisciple. Recently, Beth has begun to explore ceramic arts and hopes to someday be a reasonably skillful potter. (You can see a sample on her Facebook page.) She lives in Queens with her husband, Tony Perry, an actor and musician. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Helen Stucky Risdon -- Helen is a Parish Nurse and graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University and the former Asbury Hospital School of Nursing in Salina, Kansas. She believes that taking care of our health is a stewardship issue and that the church must mentor and model and provide servant leadership to nurture, equip, and send forth empowered disciples. Her background as a cardiac rehabilitation nurse, wellcoach, and humorous health promotion skills presenter qualifies her to provide creative health promotion online classes tailored to your individual or church's needs. She is a married member of the triple-decker sandwich generation and lives in rural Marshall County Kansas.
Scharmel Roussel -- Scharmel graduated from Parkview High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, earned a B.A. in English from Hendrix College in Conway, and later earned a M.A. in Interpersonal and Organizational Communication from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She has worked in the communications field for more than 30 years and previously taught part-time at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in the 1990s.
Scharmel likes to read and enjoys Bible studies and book studies; she has completed Disciple 2. She enjoyed Rev. Harriet Akins-Banman's "Spiritual Pilgrimage to France" in May 2007, when a group visited cathedrals and labyrinths. In September 2008, she is joining another spiritual group traveling to Italy.
Among her favorite scriptures is "Nothing can separate us from the love of God . . . " from Paul's letter to the Romans. Scharmel's goal in ministry is to spread that message of God's loving presence - through print, radio, television and the world wide web. As communications director at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church in Little Rock since 1996, her purpose has been to increase awareness among church members and the public of worship services, events, activities, and opportunities for mission.
Andy Stoker -- Dr. Andy Stoker is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He serves as Associate Pastor for Christian Education at First United Methodist Church in Denton, Texas. He holds a doctorate in family studies and seeks to synthesize family development with the church's development. Dr. Stoker graduated from Perkins School of Theology in 2001 and has been in ministry for over 12 years.
Topics of interest are family systems, youth ministry, thinking theologically with young people, Wesley studies and race, gender, class issues. Dr. Stoker has led seminars around the country on these topics and many more. He will be leading workshops in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement. Please visit www.andystoker.com for more information.
Jan Sullivan -- Jan Sullivan lives and serves in Lexington, Kentucky at First United Methodist Church as Interim Youth Pastor. She has a Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from the University of Evansville and a Masters of Arts in Youth Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary. Jan has a background in Child and Adolescent Psychology and twelve years of experience in doing youth ministry full time. Over the years Jan has developed a passion for creative worship experiences which engage students to be active participants in worship. She also loves discipling and teaching by storytelling. Topics offered will be Storytelling, Creative Worship Experiences, Relational Ministry, and Discipleship. Jan will be instructing in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement.
Mike Thurman -- Mike lives in Acworth, GA, and is the Youth Minister at Northbrook Church in Roswell, GA. He has a Masters of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary, and he started 'helping out' (great volunteer recruitment words) in youth ministry in 1994 and immediately feel in love with it. He has 14 years of experience (6 years as a volunteer and 8 years as paid staff). His passion is discipleship and teaching others youth ministry. Mike will be instructing in conjunction with the YouthWorker Movement.