Donald E. Miller is a professor of religion and sociology at the University of Southern California and executive director of the school’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture. His books include Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium, for which he looked at “new paradigm” churches, in particular three megachurches that began in Southern California.

Author and researcher C. Kirk Hadaway is director of research for the Episcopal Church Center. He has written widely on the subject of church growth and also worked with the United Church of Christ and Southern Baptist denominations.

Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) involved in recruiting, equipping, and nurturing new church planters and emerging leaders, with the goal to help these leaders start sustainable new congregations of all expressions. The church plants are diverse, with Hispanic, Asian, Haitian, African-American and Anglo members. Contact Rick Morse, vice president for mission initiatives in Indianapolis.

Mark David Hall is a professor of political science at George Fox University in Newberg, Ore. Publications include The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life (2009); and The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding (2009).

Article on Beliefnet.com reprinted from Charisma News Service.

Frank Ravitch is chair of law and religion at Michigan State University and a scholar of constitutional religious freedom protections. He is author of  several books on the Constitution’s religion clauses, including Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America and Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses.

Frank Lambert is a history professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and author of The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton University Press, 2003).

Carl Esbeck is a professor of law at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he specializes in First Amendment issues, especially the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.

Jay D. Wexler is a professor of law at Boston University School of Law, where he teaches law and religion.