A discussion with the filmmakers of “Camp Manna”, a new genre of faith-based film that they dub as satire with soul. The discussion will be around creating Christian films and art in a time when resistance is needed from spiritual communities to respond to the era of Trump. what it means to be prophetic artists in film, why it has not worked in the past, and where do we go from here.

Eric Machiela grew up in picturesque Holland, Michigan, a town which proudly boasts as many churches as people. He went through the Holland Christian school system from pre-school through graduation. Via peer pressure, he participated in Christian summer camps, the Cadets (Boy Scouts with a lot more Jesus), and Young Life. He became a counselor at a Christian camp in the summer of 2002. He was fired after 6 weeks. In one way or another, his Christian upbringing (which he still loves) has informed his filmmaking and the stories he pursues. He has co-written three feature films and produced five, all of which have won zero Dove Awards. Camp Manna is his co-directorial debut and a passion project that took 14 years from its Genesis to its Revelations.

Evan Koons is producer, writer, and actor. He was a co-producer on Camp Manna and also played the role of Bradley Sommers. Perhaps best known for the viral sensation “Church Appropriate Dance Moves,” Evan was also the host and co-writer of the 7-part series “For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles.” He penned the acclaimed hospice documentary “Except for Six,” a film Ken Burns called “heartfelt and important.” He also wrote for “Exploring Kaman,” a reality television series about NBA All-Star Chris Kaman. CBS Sports said it “looks insane.” It was. Other credits include “Pirate’s Code: The Adventures of Mickey Matson” with Christopher Lloyd.

Otis Moss III is the Senior Pastor of the 8,000-member Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, “preaching a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problems of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality.” As a recipient of the 2016 NAACP Chairman’s Award, Dr. Moss was named one of 5 trailblazing leaders under the age of 50 who have “given voice and vision to the mantra that black lives matter.” With a unique gift to communicate across generations, Dr. Moss’ creative Bible-based messages have inspired young and old alike. He is highly influenced by the works of Zora Neale Hurston, August Wilson, Howard Thurman, Jazz, and Hip-Hop music. The work and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the pastoral ministry of his father, Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. of Cleveland, Ohio, have been primary mentors for his spiritual formation.
www.trinitychicago.org

Tripp is a husband to Alecia, Father to Elgin & Khora, a minister, avid Laker fan, competitive home brewer, & a theology nerd pursuing a PhD at Claremont Graduate University. He is also the self-proclaimed president of the John Cobb fan club where he holds the title of #FANiac in Chief. Tripp is also a part of Homebrewed Christianity Podcast. Since March 13, 2008, Homebrewed Christianity Podcast has been bringing you the best nerdy audiological ingredients so you can brew your own faith. You will find conversations between friends, theologians, philosophers, and scholars of all stripes. What started as a reason for Tripp to interview the authors of his favorite books has turned into a community of podcasts, bloggers, & Deacons (what we call our regular listeners) invested in expanding and deepening the conversation around faith and theology. We hope you listen, question, think, and then share the Brew!
homebrewedchristianity.com/who-we-are/

STAN MITCHELL Stan Mitchell, an Arkansas native and fifth generation classical Pentecostal, has traveled extensively for over 30 years of preaching and teaching, including a lead position at the highly respected Christ Church in Nashville, TN. Mitchell currently serves as senior pastor of GracePointe Church in Franklin, TN. The core members of GracePointe commissioned Mitchell over a decade ago to be the rallying teaching force of a new church that began in his living room. This progressive, evangelical and interdenominational community has been on an expansive and deeply sacred journey in the last few years, bringing their initiatives to the forefront of many modern day issues surrounding the Christian church, namely their recent movement into full inclusion of the LGBTQ community.
gracepointe.net/who-we-are/

As originators of the #churchtoo campaign, Hannah Paasch and Emily Allison-Hearn have been initiating conversations around purity culture for the past five years online and most recently facilitating space for church abuse survivors to tell their stories and out their abusers. Join us as we discuss the theological implications of #churchtoo, policy recommendations for congregations seeking to eradicate abuse, and spotlight progressive Christianity’s complicity in maintaining cycles of abuse.

www.hannahpaasch.com

Emily Joy is a spoken word poet and yoga teacher RYT 200 whose work focuses on the intersections of faith and sexuality, spiritual deconstruction, and creative writing. Emily has released two studio albums of spoken word poetry, and travels the country performing at churches, schools, conferences, and festivals like Wild Goose. She also teaches yoga every week in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Her work as the co-creator of the #ChurchToo campaign exposing sexual abuse in faith communities has been featured on websites such as Time, Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, and more. Emily is passionate about helping others, especially other women, make spiritual and creative progress in the wake of religious trauma, painful past experiences, and self-doubt.

Showing Up, Listening Deeply – What possibilities might open for the human collective if we learn to enter into conversations with a posture of Generative Listening? How to nurture internal quiet and be fully present to one another? Using music as a metaphor to listen and sing our way into Beloved Community, finding places of comfort and repose, and places where we’re not comfortable at all. Join me; let’s practice navigating into the possibilities together. Warning: You may have epiphanies in the context of group learning, and transformation and fun are highly likely to occur.

Ana Hernandez is a song leader, recording artist, author and workshop facilitator. She teaches chanting as a spiritual practice and songs for street actions, while delighting in the ability of sound to revitalize prayer, open our hearts, and build engaged and playful communities. Ana loves collaboration and the endless possibilities that arise when we listen deeply, invite, and encourage the contributions of absolutely everyone. She knows there’s a leader in every chair. Every. One.
anahernandez.org

Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and a former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. For 40 years, he led the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization which he founded to create and support programs serving needy communities. More recently, Dr. Campolo has provided leadership for the progressive Christian movement, Red Letter Christians as well as, for the Campolo Center for Ministry, a program which provides support to those the church has called to full-time ministry. He has written more than 35 books and can be found blogging regularly on tonycampolo.org and redletterchristians.org. Tony and his wife Peggy live near Philadelphia and have two children and four grandchildren.

Originally from Canada but spent some time in Southern Mississippi and North Carolina, Sarah currently serves First United Methodist Church in Costa Mesa, California, where she is the lead pastor for a church re-start and revitalization. Sarah has a passion for music, traveling, acting, creating art, playing and watching sports. She is the author of What’s your story? Seeing your life through God’s eyes and host of the podcast Sonderlust the podcast. The biggest blessings in her life are her random assortment of talented friends and her amazing mutt of a dog, Tenor.
www.revsarahheath.com

She Is Called Co-Creators Tina Schermer Sellers, Carla Ewert, Paula Williams, and Lanecia Rouse Tinsley will discuss female ambition, desire, and leadership. We’ll discuss what the divine feminine has to do with the state of women’s ambition and leadership.

Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, has had a distinguished career as an educator, sex therapist, medical family therapist, speaker, author, consultant, and thought leader. She serves as an Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy and Director of Medical Family Therapy in the School of Psychology, Family & Community at Seattle Pacific University. Dr. Sellers also founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy, whose mission is to provide training in sex therapy and spiritual intimacy for psychotherapists and to provide a solid referral source for physicians, clergy, and community leaders. Her relentless passion for couples and families to know sexual and spiritual abundance, health and healing have won her several awards and requests for radio, TV and podcast interviews.

tinaschermersellers.com 

Carla Ewert is the director and founder of She Is Called, a national conversation for women who lead. She hosts the Holy Writ Podcast and is a regular panelist on the Christian Feminist Podcast. Carla lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where you might find her on a summer day in cycling on the city trails or playing at Lake Harriet with her daughters. The long northern winters give her plenty of time for her other diversions: coffee, bourbon, and books.

Rev. Dr. Paula Williams is a nationally known speaker on gender equity and transgender advocacy. She is also the Pastor of Preaching and Worship at Left Hand Church in Longmont, Colorado, and the president of RLT Pathways, Inc., a non-profit providing counseling and coaching services. Paula serves on the board of the Q Christian Fellowship, the Union of Affirming Christians, and the WITH Network of progressive churches. As a transgender pastor, Paula has been featured in the New York Times, the Denver Post, NPR and The Huffington Post. Paula’s TEDxMileHigh talk on gender equality has been viewed over a half million times on YouTube. For more information visit paulastonewilliams.com.

Lanecia is an abstract painter, photographer, workshop leader + speaker based in Houston, Texas. She mostly works with acrylic, encaustic wax, oils, cold wax, pastels + paper collage on canvas + wood. She creates work that draws upon her travels — the life, palettes, textures + stories she discovers there. Her work also explores the “negative spaces” in life — those times of ambiguity + uncertainty, silence + mystery through subtle textures, color, markings + layers to create a history within the work.

As an artist, she believes her call is to create opportunities for people to encounter beauty through the work of her hands + the spaces she cultivates for others to tap into their creativity. She is currently in partnership with Holy Family HTX as their Artist-In-Residence.

www.larartphotography.com

Rev. Dr. Paula Williams is a nationally known speaker on gender equity and transgender advocacy. She is also the Pastor of Preaching and Worship at Left Hand Church in Longmont, Colorado, and the president of RLT Pathways, Inc., a non-profit providing counseling and coaching services. Paula serves on the board of the Q Christian Fellowship, the Union of Affirming Christians, and the WITH Network of progressive churches. As a transgender pastor, Paula has been featured in the New York Times, the Denver Post, NPR and The Huffington Post. Paula’s TEDxMileHigh talk on gender equality has been viewed over a half million times on YouTube. For more information visit paulastonewilliams.com.

Based on Reverend Trier’s groundbreaking book, “What’s GOD Got To Do With It?”, moderator Brian McLaren and Rev. Trier will discuss navigating spirituality in religiously polarizing times, exploring the ever-changing face of Christianity. Focusing on religious hypocrisy (and using the Bible as a litmus test of morality), Reverend Trier will engage the audience in an honest, unfettered critique of “the steeple and the damage done”, with an emphasis on the Jesus parable as a spiritually-enlightening alternative to religious dogma. Myths will be shattered, beliefs debunked (“It’s time to accept the fact that the Bible was written by man, and not God. It is not an immaculate tome…”) as Reverend Trier suggests that a return to the tenet of “The Golden Rule” is the fulcrum for redemption and healing, for individuals and by extension, the world.

Reverend Trier grew up in a traditional, Roman Catholic household. A ULC-ordained minister, he has studied issues of spirituality, religion and social justice for most of his adult life. He has consulted with and taken part in symposiums presented by clergymen, psychologists, and psychiatrists, worked with homeless charities and the mentally-challenged, and has been a committed advocate for issues ranging from marriage equality and separation of church and state, to those adversely affected by racism, homophobia and serophobia. Outspoken and iconoclastic, Reverend Trier often finds himself at odds with the ‘conventional wisdom’ espoused by liberals and progressives alike. His mission is to initiate an honest, self-critiquing dialogue within church hierarchy and its parishioners, so that we may hold the mirror of truth up to ourselves, as much as we hold it up to others – replacing a literalist interpretation of scripture with a more Jesus-centered ideology of faith, hope and love.
whatsgodgottodowithreligion.tumblr.com/

Board Vice-Chair
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. Notable among the many books he has authored are: “A New Kind of Christian”, which won Christianity Today’s “Award of Merit” in 2002; “Everything Must Change” tracing critical ways in which Jesus’ message confronts contemporary global crises; and We Make the Road by Walking, marking a turn toward constructive and practical theology. His 2016 release, The Great Spiritual Migration, has been hailed as his most important work to date. Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and songwriting, art, history, and literature. www.brianmclaren.net