The Rev. Stephen Sundborg is president of Seattle University. He was in Vatican City 25 years ago and witnessed the announcement of the new pope at his first appearance.

Sally Vance-Trembath is a lecturer at Santa Clara University. Her areas of expertise include the pope and the Catholic Church today.

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).

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 […]

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).

Lawrence Hoffman is a rabbi and a professor of liturgy, worship and ritual at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, N.Y. He has written and edited The Art of Public Prayer: Not for Clergy Only (Skylight Paths, 1999), which has been used by both Christian and Jewish congregations to plan liturgy.

JoAnn Heaney-Hunter is an associate professor of theology and religious studies at St. John’s University in Jamaica, N.Y. She is particularly knowledgeable about couples’ retreats and about Christian practice in marriage and families. Ask her about how retreats may relieve stress and strengthen religious practice for individuals in families or marriages.