The Rev. Thomas P. Rausch is a professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A Catholic priest, Rausch is the author of Authority and Leadership in the Church: Past Directions and Future Possibilities.

Kyriacos C. Markides is a professor of sociology at the University of Maine and author of The Mountain of Silence: a Search for Orthodox Spirituality (Doubleday/Random House, 2001).

Primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in North America (historically Arab) is Metropolitan Philip, in Englewood, N.J. Find a local parish.

The Orthodox Church in America website gives a detailed explanation of the faith. It also lists the 19 self-governing and self-ruling Orthodox churches worldwide, which include the OCA. (The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is directly under the authority of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople in Turkey, and is not administratively related to the Church […]

David J. Lose holds the Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. He is author of Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003).

Dan Kimball is pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, Calif., and author of The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for a New Generation (Zondervan, 2003) in which he coined the phrase “vintage Christianity” for the experience of a generation in search of mysterious, authentic, deeply spiritual and thoughtful faith outside traditional churches. He is author of additional books about […]

The Alban Institute in Herndon, Va., provides data and expert commentators on congregational and clergy dynamics.

The Hartford Institute for Religion Research at the Hartford Seminary is an excellent resource and includes a database of more than 800 megachurches in the United States. Contact Scott Thumma, professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary.

Ruth Haley Barton is co-founder of The Transforming Center, an organization in Wheaton, Ill., that helps develop church leaders. She teaches separate workshops on encountering God alone and in community. She is the author of Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence (Intervarsity Press, 2004).