NATIONAL BOARD

Michael Boucher is a social worker, counselor and community activist from Rochester, NY.  He holds Masters degrees in Pastoral Ministry and Social Work and has more than ten years of experience in these fields. He currently works at St. Joseph's Neighborhood Center - a health care center for people without insurance - and is a member of Spiritus Christi Church.  His passions include the intersections of liberation theology, economic justice, narrative approaches to therapy/community work, anti-racism work and partnerships among/with people living in poverty.  He is married to his wife, Lynne, and has 12 year old twins.  

Deborah Compton-Holt is a native of Greensboro, NC where she began her work as a Labor and Community organizer and social activist.  Deborah has always had a passion for standing for those who have been marginalized and oppressed. Deborah was one of the primary organizers for the Memphis Faith and Labor School in Summer 2006. She is currently living in Greensboro, working on various community initiatives.

Joyce Hollyday is an Associate Conference Minister for the Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ. She is co-director of "Rekindle the Gift," an oral history and renewal program among African-American congregations in the Southeast Conference growing out of the American Missionary Association tradition. Joyce is a co-founder and co-pastor of Circle of Mercy, a new congregation in the mountains of western North Carolina celebrating the transformative power of the gospel.

During her 15 years as Associate Editor of Sojourners magazine, Joyce traveled widely in the United States and around the globe to write about faith-based struggles for justice and peace. She went to the Middle East in 1997, and visited South Africa twice--once to cover the persecution of the church under apartheid, and a decade later to observe that nation's unprecedented Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She was a founding member of Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, and part of the first team to go to that country to establish a nonviolent, prayerful presence in its war zones in the 1980s. She has worked as an adjunct professor of homiletics, a court advocate for survivors of domestic violence, and a chaplain on a children's cancer ward.

Joyce's Books include On the Heels of Freedom (Crossroad Publishing, 2005), Then Shall Your Light Rise: Spiritual Formation and Social Witness (Upper Room Books, 1997); Clothed with the Sun: Biblical Women, Social Justice, and Us (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), and Turning Toward Home: A Sojourn of Hope (Harper & Row, 1989).

Reverend Nelson Johnson is pastor of the Faith Community Church and Director of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC. The Beloved Community is based on a village concept where all of the family, social, political, religious, educational and economic relations affirm the dignity, worth and potential of all people. A longtime activist around issues of labor and racial justice, he is also on the board of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

M. Carmen Lane is a diversity practitioner with over 16 years experience providing lectures, workshops, advocacy and consultation to social justice organizations. She is an activist educator, working on multiple fronts to dismantle oppression. Carmen recently completed a certificate program for social change agents through NTL Institute. Currently, she is in cohort XVII of the OSD program at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.  She is an advisory board member of the Women’s Ordination Conference, a national organization advocating for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church and a renewed priestly ministry. Carmen is principal for The Lane-Leota Group.

Ched Myers has worked for more than 25 years with various peace and justice organizations and movements, including the Pacific Concerns Resource Center and the American Friends Service Committee. He currently codirects Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, an ecumenical organization promoting biblical literacy, church renewal and faith-based witness for justice.

With a degree in New Testament, Ched has served as adjunct faculty at several seminaries, including Fuller Theological Seminary and Claremont School of Theology in southern California, the Seminary Consortium on Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago, Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, and Memphis Theological Seminary. His primary commitment, however, is to popular theological education, and he travels extensively giving seminars and retreats with faith and justice groups across the ecumenical spectrum. He was one of the original conveners of Word and World.

Ched's books include Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (Orbis, 1988), Who Will Roll Away the Stone: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians (Orbis, 1994), and most recently The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics (Church of the Saviour, 2001). He is a regular contributor to Sojourners, The Other Side and The Witness magazines. For more information see www.bcm-net.org and click on "Theological Animation."

Farah Marie Mokhtareizadeh is a Catholic activist of Irish-Iranian background currently co-coordinating Voices for Creative Nonviolence (Voices), a Chicago-based campaign focused on ending the economic and political siege of Iraq through story telling, campaigns, delegations and teach-ins. Voices also works as a bridge to build diverse movements interested in alternative economic and social systems that would not perpetuate warfare. Farah studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and lived in and worked with various radical, faith-based communities, including New Jerusalem, a recovery community in North Philly, The Simple Way, and the Camden House. Farah has made various trips to Iraq, Jordan, Northern Ireland and the West Bank, and has traveled extensively in the U.S. and Europe speaking about her experiences in urban North America and the Middle East. Being artistically inclined, Farah very much enjoys painting, dancing, and the theatre from time to time.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann is a United Methodist pastor and community activist in Detroit. Currently he is pastor of St. Peters Episcopal Church. A regular contributor to Sojourners, The Witness, and The Other Side, he is author of Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis, 1989) and editor of Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow (Eerdmans, 1994). He is director of Graduate Theological Urban Studies for SCUPE in Chicago.