Lovett H. Weems Jr. is Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and directs the Lewis Center for Church Leadership. Its 2012 report on clergy age trends in the United Methodist Church found that the percentage of middle-age elders continues to shrink, falling from 65 percent of active elders 12 years ago to 41 […]

Bishop Earl E. McCloud Jr. is ecumenical affairs officer for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He and leaders of the Interdenominational Theological Center organized a September 2006 meeting of 300 representatives of historic black churches and black Muslim leaders in Atlanta to organize an initiative against “black on black crime” in Atlanta.

Roy M. Oswald is an ordained Lutheran pastor and the executive director of a parachurch organization focused on effective leadership in the church, the Center for Emotional Intelligence and Human Relations Skills. Oswald, a former senior consultant with the Alban Institute, is the author of Clergy Self-Care: Finding a Balance for Effective Ministry. He lives in Boonsboro, […]

John Frederick Lehr is a pastor, consultant and counselor and the author of Clergy Burnout: Recovering from the 70-Hour Work Week and Other Self-Defeating Practices. He is based in the Baltimore area.

Bertram L. Melbourne is an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and an associate professor of New Testament language and literature at Howard University School of Divinity.

David W. Wills is Winthrop H. Smith ’16 Professor of American History and American Studies in the religion and black studies departments at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass. He is general editor of “African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project.” Wills is a historian of religion in the U.S. with particular emphasis on African-American religious history.

Cheryl Lynn Greenberg, professor of history at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., writes about 1960s black activism and about black-Jewish relations, including Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century (Princeton University Press, 2006).

The Rev. James P. Wind is president of the Alban Institute, which provides ecumenical resources for congregations, and his expertise includes trends in clergy supply and demand.

Kenneth L. Swetland is senior professor of ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass., where he also leads the Oasis counseling program for seminary alumni facing a crisis or transition. He wrote The Hidden World of the Pastor: Case Studies on Personal Issues of Real Pastors.