Theologians in Residence—Princeton, New Jersey

Kenda Creasy Dean is associate professor of youth, church, and culture and director of the Tennent School of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. An ordained United Methodist pastor, she has written Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church, among other publications.

Douglas John Hall is professor emeritus of Christian theology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. An ordained minister of the United Church of Canada, he lectures throughout the United States and Canada and is the author of numerous books and articles, including Thinking the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context and The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity.

Tina McCormick is associate pastor for youth at the Presbyterian Church in Westfield, New Jersey. She and the youth of Westfield opened the first youth-led soup kitchen in the country, which now serves 250 people every Wednesday night in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Matthew Skinner is associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he is the author of Locating Paul: Places of Custody as Narrative Settings in Acts 21–28 and a contributor to the New Proclamation series of lectionary commentaries.

Fred D. Smith Jr. is associate professor of urban ministry and associate director of the practice of ministry and mission at Wesley Theological Seminary. He also serves as the senior pastor of Fellowship United Methodist Church in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. His publications include Black Religious Experience: Conversations on Double-Consciousness and the Works of Grant Shockley (Charles Foster, coauthor).

Faculty–Princeton, New Jersey

Christian Andrews directs the ministries of Outreach Red Bank (ORB), a growing ministry originally organized for the purpose of bearing witness to the good news of God’s grace to young people in Red Bank who had not connected to area churches. His primary responsibility is weekly preaching to the congregation, which has grown to include people of every age.

Fernando Arzola Jr. is assistant professor and director of interdisciplinary studies at Nyack College. He has more than twenty years of experience working with youth in New York City, and founded the Urban Family Empowerment Center, a faith-based community center initiative. Arzola is the author of Prophetic Youth Ministry: Theory and Praxis in Urban Context.

Charles Atkins is a chaplain with the New Jersey Department of Corrections. With a ministry called New Name Alliance (www.NewNameX.org), he also produces and records inspirational hip-hop music. Atkins currently serves as the host of the nationally distributed Public Television Series Beyond Theology—an investigation of the intersection of spirituality and public life (ktwu.washburn.edu/productions/BT).

Mark DeVries is the founder of Youth Ministry Architects, a hands-on coaching service for churches. For the past twenty years, he has served as the associate pastor for youth and their families at the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where he continues to oversee the youth ministry on a part-time basis. 

Pam Driesell is the pastor of Oconee Presbyterian Church in Athens, Georgia. The Oconnee congregation began as a small group in Driesell’s home in 1999 and received the 2004 Walton Award for Excellence in New Church Development.

Tony Jones is the national coordinator of Emergent Village (www.emergentvillage.org ), and a doctoral fellow and senior research fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and Postmodern Youth Ministry, among other publications.

Jacqueline Lapsley is associate professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her courses cover sin and salvation in the Old Testament, women in the Old Testament narratives, and Old Testament ethics. She is the author of Whispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament, among other publications.

Bo Karen Lee is assistant professor of spirituality and historical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and previously taught at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Don Richter serves as associate director of the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith. An ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, he manages practicingourfaith.org and coordinates resources for youth and youth leaders, including Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens (coedited with Dorothy C. Bass) and Mission Trips That Matter: Embodied Faith for the Sake of the World.

Jason Santos is a Timothy Scholar and Ph.D. candidate in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His area of specialization is Christian education of youth. Santos is the author of The Taizé Community (forthcoming).

Tony Sundermeier is the lead pastor of the Dilworthtown Community Church, a missional church experiment located in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Prior to this call, he spent twelve years in youth ministry settings, serving as the youth pastor for the Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and as a youth director for churches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Germany.