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Dr. Preston Sprinkle
Conference Host
Preston Sprinkle (Ph.D.) is an international speaker and a New York Times bestselling author, who’s written a dozen books including People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is not just an Issue. Preston currently serves as the president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, an organization that equips Christians to engage questions about faith, sexually & gender with theological faithfulness and courageous love. Preston also hosts the popular podcast “Theology in the Raw” and posts regularly on his YouTube channel “Preston Sprinkle.”
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Christopher Butler
Chris Butler is a pastor and “serial organizer” hailing from the Southside of Chicago. He and his amazing wife, Aziza have six wonderful children. Pastor Chris leads Chicago Embassy Church Network, a mission-based network church in America’s third largest city and is an experienced organization builder. Pastor Chris got a very early start in community organizing when he joined a small neighborhood organization in Chicago’s South Austin community at age 12. By age 18, Chris has completed two organizing internships and launched his first organization, Organized Students of Chicago.
Pastor Chris has organized everywhere. He organized youth and young adults in Chicago’s Southland for then State Senator Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate Campaign, led the Field Operations for A+ Illinois (the organization blazed a trail for school funding reform in the state), spearheaded organizing efforts to improve school choice in Chicago through New Schools Chicago. In 2013, Chris founded Citizen Consulting Group Inc. an organizing and communications consulting firm where he helped launch organizations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington State.
In 2016, Pastor Chris was installed as the Senior Leader at Chicago Embassy Church in the Englewood community of Chicago. Under his leadership, the congregation relocated to the Hyde Park community where it had been established in 1985 by Bishop Edward and Apostle Katie Peecher. In just over 5 years under Pastor Chris’ leadership, CEC completed its first missional church plant – The Gathering at McDonalds (in Jackson Park) – and established a campus in South Holland.
Having worked across the spectrum of organizations and types of engagement, Chris’ often lends insight and leadership on organization building and civic engagement to elected officials, organization heads, community organizers, and other faith leaders.
Pastor Chris co-authored “Compassion and Conviction: The AND Campaigns Guide To Faithful Civic Engagement” with Justin Giboney and Micheal Wear.
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Christine Emba
Christine Emba is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was formerly an opinion columnist for The Washington Post and member of their Editorial Board. She is the author of “Rethinking Sex: A Provocation”, about the failures and potential of the sexual revolution in a post-#MeToo world. Earlier in her career, Christine was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at The New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. She grew up in Virginia and holds an A.B. in public and international affairs from Princeton University.
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Justin Giboney
Justin Giboney is an attorney, political strategist and ordained minister in Atlanta, GA. He is also the Co-Founder and President of the AND Campaign, which is a coalition of urban Christians who are determined to address the sociopolitical arena with the compassion and conviction of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mr. Giboney has managed successful campaigns for elected officials in the state and referendums relating to the city’s transportation and water infrastructure.
In 2012 and 2016, Georgia’s 5th congressional district elected him as a delegate for the Democratic National Convention. A former Vanderbilt University football player and law student, Justin served on the Urban League of Greater Atlanta Board of Directors. He’s the co-author of Compassion (&) Conviction – The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement and has written op-eds for publications such as Christianity Today and The Hill
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Dr. Derwin L. Gray
Dr. Derwin L. Gray is the co-founding and Lead Pastor of Transformation Church, just outside of Charlotte, NC. He is also the author of several books, including “How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and What the First Century Christians Knew about Racial Reconciliation.” You can follow him at @derwinlgray on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as www.derwinlgray.com.
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Street Hymns
As a musical & spoken word artist, writer, producer, & battle rapper— Street Hymns is as diverse as he is passionate about people.
He’s found that many of his perspectives have helped bridge gaps in seemingly contrasting places (whether in music or relationships).
Stirring up gifts, challenging stagnation, and pushing for reconciliation are his life goals and purposes because creating a controlled and safe environment where people can express differing views in a respectable way is important to Street.
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Jay Kim
Jay Kim serves as lead pastor at WestGate Church in the Silicon Valley of California. He’s the author of Analog Church, Analog Christian, and Listen Listen Speak. His writing has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Missio Alliance, and Relevant Magazine. He’s host of the Digital Examen podcast and the Making Space podcast.
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Patrick Miller
Patrick Miller is an author, pastor, and cultural commentator, who interviews leading Christian thinkers on the podcast Truth over Tribe. He is the coauthor of Truth over Tribe and the forthcoming book Joyful Outsiders: Six Ways to Live Like Jesus in a Disorienting Culture. His writing can be found in Christianity Today, Newsweek, Mere Orthodoxy and other publications.
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Dr. Russell Moore
Russell Moore is Editor in Chief of Christianity Today.
Moore is the author of several books, including Losing Our Religion: An Alter Call for Evangelical America; The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear Without Losing Your Soul, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel and The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home.
An ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, as the chief academic officer and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also taught theology and ethics.
The Wall Street Journal has called Moore “vigorous, cheerful, and fiercely articulate.” He was named in 2017 to Politico Magazine’s list of top fifty influence-makers in Washington, and has been profiled by such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker.
Moore was a Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and currently serves on the board of the Becket Law and as a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum in Washington, D.C.A native Mississippian, he and his wife Maria are the parents of five sons. They live in Nashville, where he teaches the Bible regularly at their congregation, Immanuel Church.
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Tony Scarcello
Tony Scarcello is the pastor of Open Table Church in Eugene, Oregon as well as a church planter, author, and speaker. He speaks all over the country helping Christian’s think lovingly and biblically about their LGBTQ+ neighbors. Tony is the author of Regenerate: Following Jesus After Deconstruction and the upcoming Beyond Barriers: The Church, The Ministry of Reconciliation, and Our LGBTQ+ Neighbors with InterVarsity Press (release date TBD). He lives in Eugene, Oregon with his wife Kelsey. You can connect with Tony on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram.
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Kaitlyn Schiess
Kaitlyn Schiess is an author, speaker, and Senior Editor at the Holy Post. She is the author of The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (IVP, 2020) and The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023). Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT, and Sojourner. She has a ThM in systematic theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in theology at Duke Divinity School.
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Rachel Joy Welcher
Rachel Joy Welcher is a poet and author living in South Dakota with her husband, Pastor Evan Welcher, and their longed for daughter, Hildegaard. Rachel works as an editor at Fathom Magazine and Lexham Press and received her Master of Letters in theology from The University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of three collections of poetry and “Talking Back to Purity Culture: Rediscovering Faithful Christian Sexuality” (InterVarsity Press, 2020).
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Evan Wickham
Evan Wickham is a worship leader, songwriter, speaker, and lead pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego, CA, which he co-founded in 2017 with Sandy, his wife of 23 years (and their five kids). In addition to helping people encounter Jesus through teaching and meaningful, rooted worship experiences, he has released four albums of worship songs, several of which are sung across the world. He holds an MDiv from Western Seminary and helped launch Searock Sessions, a cohort and growing community for hundreds of leaders seeking renewal in the Western church.
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Tinika Wyatt
Tinika Wyatt is a singer, songwriter and children’s book author. She has traveled the world using her gifts, shared the stage with many renowned artists, and made appearances on television and in film. She has contributed to three volumes of The Ethnos Project, a musical collection of multilingual worship through global partnership, and featured on the “Urbana 18 Live: Faithful Witness” and “InterVarsity Live! Worship, Volume One” albums. Her purpose is to use her voice primarily to connect people to Jesus Christ and secondarily to amplify the voices of others for the sake of understanding and reconciliation.