Meet Our Solidarity Circle Participants
Wendland-Cook recently welcomed its first cohort of participants for the Solidarity Circles, a virtual peer-networks for faith leaders, organizers, and clergy committed to the cooperative and solidarity economy. Throughout the spring and summer of 2022, participants will engage in education, dialogue, and coaching on a specific project at their organization, church, or institution. Learn more about our participants below!
Pastor Cliff Bahlinger was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1996. He has served with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, St Stephen Lutheran Church in Decatur, Ga, and at St. Luke in Cordova, TN. He has been married for 35 years, and has two grown daughters. He received his undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University, and Masters of Divinity from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
St Luke is a congregation that has a heart to serve the community. St Luke has continued to be a leader in serving the community by working with Habitat for Humanity, The Church Health Center, Memphis Interfaith Hospitality Network (MIHN), More than a Meal, Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA) and a growing partnership with the Cordova YMCA.
Audrey Gale Hall is a ministry student and mutual aid organizer on Karankawa land in Houston, Somi S'ek. She is exploring relational culture and apocalypse survival as a member of a queer multifaith collective called the Woe Project.
Judy Hughes, M.S., M.Ed., L.P.C., A.D.N., married for 46 years to the Rev. Robert T. Hughes, M.Div., MSW and both currently live in Matthews, NC. Together they have 2 children and 4 grandchildren. Judy obtained graduate degrees in Psychology from James Madison and Radford Universities. Judy worked in private practice as well as for non-profits and private psychiatric hospitals as a Licensed Professional Therapist in the fields of addiction counseling, individual psychotherapy, and marriage and family therapy. She taught Psychology classes at a Community College. In 2001, Judy and her husband launched an In-home Senior Care Business which expanded rapidly. Following the sale of their business, Judy earned the Registered Nurse credential and trained as a Wholistic Nurse. As a registered nurse, Judy worked in Community Mental Health settings until retirement. Currently Judy works as a volunteer Faith Community Nurse for an ELCA congregation.
Larissa Romero is the Interim Pastor at Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
She comes from serving Pascack Reformed Church in Park Ridge, New Jersey as solo pastor. Prior to that call, she worked at Scarsdale Congregational Church in Scarsdale, New York and Greenpoint Reformed Church in Brooklyn.
Andrew Thompson is the assistant professor of theological ethics and director of the Alternative Clergy Training at Sewanee (ACTS) Program. Thompson earned his Ph.D. in Religion from Yale University, and his M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School. He also holds a B.A. in Music Performance from Duquesne University. Prior to coming to Sewanee, he served as an Episcopal missionary in El Salvador, where, with his wife, the Rev. Leigh Preston, he helped establish a school and rural mission. His work at Sewanee also builds on his experience with international development and community supported agriculture.
Rev. Mike Wilson is the associate pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville. He’s also served as pastor at Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church and interim pastor at Harpeth Presbyterian in Brentwood, TN. Mike’s wife is Rev. Mary Louise McCullough, the pastor of Second Presbyterian. They arrived in Nashville in the summer of 2012 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was the pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Edgewood. Before that he pastored a yoke of three churches in Leechburg and Freeport, PA.
Mike is originally from Lake Placid, New York, but Tennessee is his sixth state of residence. Mike and Mary Louise are both second career pastors; they met and married while students at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He’s also a musician (drummer) and is active with a band in Nashville. He also loves to cook, build things, watch movies and television, and acquire new skills.
Rev. Allen Cross is an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He received his M. Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA in 2004. Prior to seminary, he was a financial services professional working with international liability risk management for two decades. He has served churches in metro Atlanta, North Georgia, Middle Tennessee, and currently in West Texas. At a time when congregations are dying daily, he hopes to make the church a place of transformation and impact in small town and rural lives that have been disempowered and lost the dignity inherent in the creation of each individual.
Stephen Handy is the lead pastor visionary, strategist and partnership collaborator of the gospel message of Jesus Christ at McKendree UMC. He is a passionate communicator that desires to speak God’s truth so people of different cultures, experiences, neighborhoods, and all of God’s unique diversity can be reconciled through the unity in Jesus Christ. Stephen is a strong advocate of restorative justice, serving the poor and needy, and participating in life groups for spiritual formation and accountability.
Stephen and Shelley are married with three children and live in the Greater Nashville area. His go-to scripture is Philippians 4:13 “I can do all through Christ who strengthens me.”
Randolph Knighten is a provisional deacon in the United Methodist Church and is originally from Baker, Louisiana– just outside of Baton Rouge. He has a graduate degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary where he received the Ethel Lance Human and Civil Rights Award. Since 2000, Randolph has served in congregations and community-based organizations in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. He has a deep concern for those impacted by issues of economic injustice and is also concerned about the impact of climate change and natural disasters on marginalized BIPOC communities.
Hadje Cresencio Sadje is a visiting Ph.D. research fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria, a visiting fellow at the Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre Canada, an associate member of the SOAS Center for Palestine Studies, University of London-UK, and a research associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Hamburg Germany. He teaches at the Barcelona Applied Social Sciences Spain, the Foundation Academy in Amsterdam - Netherlands, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and the Divinity School Silliman University Philippines. His research and publication projects focus on decoloniality, global politics, Asian religions, global Pentecostalism, Muslim-Christian studies, refugees and religion, theologies of migration, and Christian Zionism.
Bianca Vazquez is a community organizer who has lived and worked in Washington, DC for ten years. After the 2016 election, neighborhood listening sessions led her to engage small micro-business projects with local residents, which led to the founding of Beloved Community Incubator. She believes in the power of worker-ownership to substantially transform communities and the economy. Bianca has been trained by the Industrial Areas Foundation and Cooperation Works, a national network made up of organizational and individual members working in cooperative development. Her favorite question is, "To whom have you been given to love?"
Reverend Dr. D. Anthony Everett (he, him, ours) is the executive director of Mission Behind Bars and Beyond, Inc., an ecumenical, faith-based 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate every community across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to welcome, support, mentor, and equip returning citizens with the tools to successfully re-enter society. He is passionate about faith, justice, leadership, social entrepreneurship, and well-being/wellness.
Dr. Everett’s personal mission is to lead Mission Behind Bars and Beyond Inc. as a social enterprise that transforms Kentucky communities impacted by mass incarceration. Dr. Everett has a vision of building and leading a movement of prophetic activists who empower and mobilize marginalized and oppressed people for holistic social transformation.
Evelyn Harris is a 5th generation Methodist pastor, serving at St. Luke UMC in Chattanooga, TN where her mother served over 25 years ago. Affectionately named Rev. Ev by the Rivermont Elementary community, Rev. Harris is a graduate of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, BS in Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design, and the University of the South-Sewanee, MDiv. Her passions include horticulture, music, innovative ministry, and serving in the community. Her core values are diversity, respect, and partnership.
Fiercely loyal to the working people in her Nashville, Tennessee, community, Vonda McDaniel continues to be a powerful leader through her faith and commitment to all people. By bridging the struggles of race, class and gender with her visionary strategy for a better future for all of us, she has always placed the needs of the labor movement before her own. She is a graduate of Tennessee State University. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., A. Philip Randolph Institute's Nashville chapter and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. She was recently appointed to the Tennessee State Workforce Investment Board and serves as vice chair of the board for the Music City Center. McDaniel is a vice president for AFL-CIO's Executive Council and co-chairs the State Federation/Central Labor Council Advisory Committee.
Dan Schmitz is currently a co-pastor at New Hope Covenant Church in Oakland, CA, an urban church with a number of people who have located to the area for community and ministry. The church works in public schools, with the homeless in the area, with refugees and just with neighbors in general. Currently, Dan is in the process of starting a non-profit to work alongside the church to increase the level of community engagement. Part of this will have a micro-enterprise component which makes the work of Solidarity Circles especially relevant right now.
Shannon White serves as the Christian Education Director of Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Shannon is a student at Vanderbilt University Divinity School where she is earning her Master of Divinity, with a concentration in Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture. Shannon specializes in youth ministry and strives to build the bridge of theology and arts for children's education.
On the forefront of digital strategy, Jayme Wooten’s work has spanned the globe – advising nonprofits, faith-based organizations, corporations, and individuals in their efforts to engage their constituencies. Wooten, a co-founder of Baltimore United for Change, launched CLLCTIVLY in 2019, a social impact organization that is creating an ecosystem to foster collaboration, increase social impact and amplify the voices of Black-led organizations in greater Baltimore. CLLCTIVLY has mobilized over $500,000 to Black-led and Black-owned businesses in Greater Baltimore.
Wooten is the creator of the #BlackChurchSyllabus and the Black Theology Project 2.0. Launched in 2017, the Black Theology Project serves as a knowledge-base system curating theological resources for Black Lives. (btpBASE.org).