Sharon Daloz Parks is principal of Leadership for the New Commons and a senior fellow at the Whidbey Institute. She formerly served in faculty and research positions at Harvard University in the schools of Divinity, Business, and the Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of Leadership Can Be Taught:  A Bold Approach for a Complex World (Harvard Business Press, 2005) and Big Questions, Worthy Dreams:  Mentoring Emerging Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (Jossey-Bass, 2011); and she is co-author, Common Fire:  Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World. She speaks and consults nationally and also teaches at Seattle University. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Courses Sharon Daloz Parks teaches:

Faithful Leadership for the Common Good

Therese DeLisio is a theologian and liturgical scholar who has taught Theology and Liturgics at Seabury-Western since 2006. She holds M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Union Theological Seminary, and a law degree from St. John’s University in New York. Her areas of special interest are in sacramental and ecological theology; liturgy and ecology; feminist and women-inclusive theologies; and theology in dialogue with contemporary cosmology. She is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy and of its Anglican Colloquium. She is also active in the Diocese of Chicago as a member, blog-editor, and communications co-ordinator of the Bishop’s Task Force on Sustainability. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Frank Griswold was elected to a nine-year term as Presiding Bishop at the 1997 General Convention and invested in January 1998. He serves as Primate and chief pastor of the Episcopal Church, president of the House of Bishops, president and chair of Executive Council and president and chief executive officer of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.

Before becoming Presiding Bishop, Bishop Griswold was Bishop of Chicago (1987-1997) and Bishop Coadjutor (1985-1987). He was ordained in 1963 and served three parishes in the Diocese of Pennsylvania before being elected bishop.

Bishop Griswold has served as co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and on diocesan, national and international committees for liturgy, worship and ecumenism. He was on the standing committee for the Lambeth Conference and was elected to the Primates Standing Committee in May, 2003.

Frank Griswold has presented at and led conferences and retreats nationally and internationally throughout his ministry, spanning a variety of topics including ecumenism, evangelism, spirituality and theology. His articles, essays and sermons have been published in periodicals and theological journals including Anglican Theological Review, Episcopal Life (monthly column), Cross Currents, Anglican Advance and many others. His daily meditations from the General Convention of 2000 produced a Cowley Publications Cloister Book entitled Going Home.

The Presiding Bishop was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H. and earned an A.B. in English literature at Harvard College (1959). He attended the General Theological Seminary and earned his B.A. and M.A. in theology at Oriel College, Oxford University (1962, 1966). He has received honorary degrees from the General Theological Seminary, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Nashotah House, Sewanee, Berkeley Divinity School, Virginia Theological Seminary and Episcopal Divinity School.

Bishop Griswold and his wife, Phoebe Wetzel Griswold, have two adult daughters.

Dr. Renee L. Hill has taught at a number of seminaries in addition to Seabury, including Union Theological Seminary and Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, and The Episcopal Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.

Liz Livingston Howard is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds an MBA degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Ms. Howard is the Associate Director of Kellogg’s Center for Nonprofit Management and teaches in the Social Enterprise at Kellogg Program. She developed and teaches curriculum for MBA students and nonprofit executives. Ms. Howard serves as the Academic Director for a variety of nonprofit executive education courses and has designed several custom executive education programs.

Previously, she served as Assistant Dean for Development for Kellogg from 1994 to 2003. In that role, she was responsible for the fundraising activities of the Kellogg School including alumni and individual solicitation, corporate and foundation grants. She was involved with the $1.4 billion Campaign Northwestern. During her tenure, total giving to the school increased 100% and the Kellogg School raised over $100 million for significant objectives in Campaign Northwestern.

Prior to joining the Kellogg School, Ms. Howard served as a fundraising consultant with Charles R. Feldstein & Company, based in Chicago. Her additional development work was as Director of Development for the Chicago Tourism Council/Mayor's Office of Tourism for the City of Chicago and as the first Director of Development for Regina Dominican High School, Wilmette, Illinois.

Outside of her professional responsibilities, Ms. Howard has been involved with a number of philanthropic organizations in Chicago. She was selected as a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow to participate in a unique, year-long venture to deepen the understanding of greater Chicago, thereby enhancing the future quality of civic and community leadership. In addition, she served as the founding chairman of the Chicago Community Trust Young Leaders Fund, an endowment fund established in 1994 by young professionals in Chicago to educate them about grant-making and the value of philanthropy.

Currently, she serves on the Membership Committee for the Economic Club of Chicago and is involved with Catholic Charities of Chicago, the Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago and the Northbrook Civic Foundation. She has provided consulting services for a host of local nonprofits in the areas of fundraising, marketing, strategic planning, board governance, event planning and capacity building.  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The Rev. Dr. Donna Ialongo has been a college professor of English, a corporate marketing executive, and a consultant. Currently she is a tentmaker* priest of the Episcopal Church and serves Northwestern College in Chicago as its Dean of Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning. There she directs assessment, accreditation, and strategic planning activities and ministers to her work “congregation” whenever the opportunity arises. She also serves as Priest Associate at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL. Her passion is helping people discover the ministry God is calling them to, assisting them in understanding how they will engage that ministry, and supporting them as they move into the world, leading others to experience the life they have found in Christ. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

*The majority of her income comes from outside parish ministry.

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John Kretzmann (Jody) is Co-Director of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, a research project of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. ABCD Institute works with community building leaders across North America as well as five other continents to conduct research, produce materials and otherwise support community-based efforts to rediscover local capacities and to mobilize citizens’ resources to solve problems. The Institute continues to build on the stories and methods about successful community building reported in the popular book, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (1993, with John L. McKnight.)

A much-traveled speaker and trainer, Kretzmann brings more than thirty years of community experience and study to his current position. He was a founding faculty member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Urban Studies Program in 1969, and served as director of that institution for six years. He has been a community organizer in Chicago’s West Side, and served as a consultant to a wide range of neighborhood organizing and development groups. In addition to the ACM Program, he has taught at Northwestern University, Valparaiso University and the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

Kretzmann has worked to develop community-oriented public policy at the national, state and local levels. In Chicago, he served as chair of the Neighborhood Planning Committee for Mayor Harold Washington, and was an active policy consultant through Washington’s four and a half years in office. He serves on a wide range of civic, community, and foundation boards.

Kretzmann’s educational background includes a B.A. from Princeton University (Magna Cum Laude); a M.A. in English Literature from the University of Virginia; and a Ph.D in Sociology and Urban Affairs from Northwestern University. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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On November 10, 2007 the 170th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Chicago elected the Rev. Jeffrey D. Lee, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Medina, Washington as the 12th Bishop of Chicago.  Bishop Lee was ordained and consecrated as the 12th Bishop of Chicago on Saturday, February 2, 2008 and seated as diocesan bishop in St. James Cathedral on Sunday February 3, 2008.

Lee is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Nashotah House Seminary, and was ordained priest in the Diocese of Northern Indiana in 1985. After serving there as curate and then canon to the ordinary he served as a church planter in the Diocese of Indianapolis. Lee was called as rector of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in River Hills, Wisconsin in 1994. Six years later he accepted the call to Medina, Washington.

Lee is the author of Opening the Prayer Book in the New Church's Teaching Series; a former member of the faculty of CREDO Institute and a contributing author to the volume, All Shall Be Well; and has served on the boards of the North American Association for the Diaconate, the Council of Associated Parishes, and Affirming Catholicism. He served as deputy to the 2000 and 2006 General Conventions of The Episcopal Church. He is an associate of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. 

He and his wife Lisa Rogers Lee have two children: Katherine and Jonathan.  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thomas Lenz is the Lead Organizer United Power for Action and Justice, a broad based citizen organizing project affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). United Power brings together churches, synagogues, mosques, health centers, and non-profit associations in Chicago and suburban Cook County to work for the common good on issues of shared concern. The IAF is a 70-year-old non-profit organization that trains citizens in the skills of democratic public life. Mr. Lenz also assists with the supervision of IAF-affiliated projects in metropolitan Chicago and in Germany.

Prior to his work with the IAF, Mr. Lenz was a Senior Fellow in community development at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He retains an un-paid associate affiliation with the Institute. From 1989 to 1995 he directed the Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national financial intermediary that channels corporate investment into inner city neighborhoods. From 1979 to 1988, Mr. Lenz was the director of a non-profit housing development corporation in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

Mr. Lenz graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in American Studies and a minor in Urban Studies from the University of Notre Dame. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. Mr. Lenz received a Masters in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His Masters thesis was published in the journal Social Policy. From 1977 to 1979 he was a Rotary Scholar in urban planning at the Technical University of Berlin.

Mr. Lenz is currently the Alinsky Fellow at the German Institute for Community Organizing at the Catholic University of Applied Social Sciences in Berlin, Germany. He is a regular lecturer on community organizing at both the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois and Loyola University Chicago. Mr. Lenz has written articles and book chapters on community organizing, housing and neighborhood development. Most recently his essay “Fostering Public Life in the New Suburbia through Community Organizing” was included in What’s Happening in the Neighborhood published by the National Neighborhood Coalition.   

He is married and lives with his wife and children in Evanston, Illinois.  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Courses Tom Lenz teaches:

Community Organizing for Missional Living

A former pastor and college English teacher, Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and networker among innovative Christian leaders. His dozen-plus books include A New Kind of Christianity, A Generous Orthodoxy, and most recently, Naked Spirituality. He and his wife, Grace, live in Florida and have four adult children and two granddaughters. He's an avid wildlife and outdoors enthusiast who believes God's first language is this amazing universe.

He graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, magna cum laude, 1981). His academic interests included Medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Walker Percy. In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada. And in 2010, he was awarded a second Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Virginia Theological Seminary.

Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980's, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular speaker for campus groups, seminaries, and clergy and leadership conferences, nationally and internationally. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including the gospel and global crises; theology and postmodernity; liturgy, preaching and spiritual formation; evangelism and inter-religious dialogue, and faith and social justice. Learn more about Brian McLaren...

The Rev. Ralph McMichael founded the Center for the Eucharist in July 2010 and serves as its Executive Director. He has a Ph.D. in systematic theology from The Catholic University of America. Fr. McMichael has been an Anglican priest for twenty-nine years, having served as a seminary professor, dean of a diocesan school for ministry, canon for ministry formation, and in parish ministry. Author of two books and editor of another one, he has written, taught, and lectured extensively on the history, theology, and practice of the Eucharist. Fr. McMichael’s publications include “The Doctrine of the Eucharist in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer,” (Pro Ecclesia) and “The Redemption of Creation: A Liturgical Theology,” in his edited volume Creation and Liturgy. His newest book, Eucharist: A Guide for the Perplexed was published by T&T Clark in 2010. He is currently editing and writing a two-volume textbook on Anglican theology to be published by SCM Press, London. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Courses Ralph McMichael teaches: 

Anglican Theology and Ethics: Exploring the Anglican Communion's breadth and depth

Paul Nahirney is president of Nahirney and Associates. He has more than 40 years of experience in leadership and service in the non-profit sector, with special interests in fund development and stewardship and congregational renewal and development. He has overseen major capital campaigns, faciliated strategic planning, and assisted congregations of all denominations in renewing their commitment to mission-based service.

Paul holds a DMin in congregational development from Seabury and teaches fundraising in the program's course on nonprofit management and community development. Learn more about Paul.