Ken Wilson is senior pastor at the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, Mich., which encourages its members to make fixed-hour prayers, an unusual thing for a nondenominational church to do.

The Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity is at the University of North Carolina. Gene Nichol, a law professor at the university, is director.

Jim Mullin-Norgaard teaches Celtic Body Prayers at his retreat center in Beaver Island, Mich.

The Center for Poverty Research is at the University of Kentucky. James P. Ziliak, who holds the Gatton Endowed Chair in Microeconomics, is director.

The Center for the Study of Urban Poverty is at the University of California, Los Angeles. The director is Abel Valenzuela Jr., professor of Chicana and Chicano studies, who has expertise in urban poverty and immigration issues.

Julie Tallard Johnson is the author of Spiritual Journaling: Writing Your Way to Independence, published in 2006, and conducts spiritual journaling workshops in Wisconsin.

The Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality is at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. Charles Varner is the associate director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Contact through the website.

Mike Lewis is a Christian artist who travels to churches and other groups and paints portraits of Jesus during worship services. He lives in Nashville, Tenn.

The Center for Comparative Family Welfare and Poverty Research is at the University of California Berkeley. The director is Neil Gilbert, Milton and Gertrude Chernin Professor of Social Welfare and Social Services, who wrote Transformation of the Welfare State: The Silent Surrender of Public Responsibility.