Celebrate Recovery is a Christian-based recovery curriculum used by church-based groups throughout the U.S. and abroad. It was developed at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., by Pastor John Baker. Celebrate Recovery uses eight recovery principles drawn from the Beatitudes that parallel AA’s traditional 12 steps.

Ruben Martinez is a writer, performer and teacher and the son of immigrants — his father is from Mexico, and his mother from El Salvador. Martinez is the author of The New Americans, which tells the stories of seven immigrant families and is the companion book to a PBS series on immigration from 2003. He also wrote Crossing […]

Wade Clark Roof is F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society and chairman of the religious studies department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a columnist for Beliefnet and author of, among other books, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton University Press, 2001). He is also editor in […]

Mark Oestreicher is president of Youth Specialties in El Cajon, Calif. He is a leader in the emerging movement. Youth Specialties markets training seminars, conventions and educational materials to Christian workers. Oestreicher has authored and contributed to more than 60 books and training materials that help youth workers present traditional Christian concepts to the modern youth sensibility.

George Barna is directing leader of The Barna Group, an evangelical research company in Ventura, Calif. He is author of nearly 50 books and over 100 articles. He is a popular speaker at ministry conferences around the world and has taught at Pepperdine and Biola Universities and several seminaries.

Ryan K. Bolger is an assistant professor of church in contemporary culture in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He is a scholar of the emerging scene and, with Fuller professor Eddie Gibbs, wrote Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker Academic, 2005).

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He has criticized conservative evangelicals who have spoken against or have remained silent on immigration and argued that the August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, was driven, in part, by anti-immigrant rhetoric. Arrange an interview through the Kairos Co.

Karen Torjesen, professor of Women’s Studies in Religion and early Christianity, is dean at the school of religion at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, Calif.

Allan Figueroa Deck is a lecturer of pastoral studies in Spanish at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He has commented on the importance of Hispanics to the Catholic Church in the United States.