Pastor Phil Jackson conducts hip-hop worship services at Lawndale Community Church in Chicago with the Firehouse Community Arts Center, which seeks to “uncover and develop the gifts and strengths of North Lawndale’s youth and young adult residents.”

Jon Pahl is an associate professor of church history at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He has written about young people and violence and is the author of Youth Ministry in Modern America: 1930 to the Present (Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), which examines youth ministry in four traditions: Lutheran, evangelical Protestant, Roman Catholic and African-American.

Rabbi Eve Rudin is Director of the Congregational School at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City. Previously, she was Director of the Department of Camp Excellence and Advancement for the Foundation for Jewish Camp, as well as the Director of the URJ Kutz Campus for Reform Jewish Teen Life and the North American Federation […]

The Rev. Stephen W. Pogue c0-founded and led The Hip Hop Church, which holds services at Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church in New York City. He is now pastor of The Greater Centennial A.M.E. Zion Church in Mount Vernon, New York.

Dean Borgman is the Culpepper Chair of Youth Ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s urban campus in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also founder and director of the Center for Youth Studies, a national and global network of those interested in the research of adolescence and the youth culture. His areas of expertise include urban and cross-cultural youth […]

Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook, is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, an educator, historian of religion, and practical theologian. She is currently professor of practical theology and religious education at Claremont School of Theology, and professor of Anglican Studies at Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont. She is the editor of Disorganized Religion: […]

Christian Smith is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He was co-principal investigator for the Youth and Religion Project. He is the author, with Melinda Lundquist Denton, of a book summarizing major findings from that study called Soul Searching: The Religious and […]

Sarah M. Pike is an associate professor of religious studies at California State University in Chico. She has written about New Age and neopagan religions and is working on a project about teens on the margins of American culture. She addresses Scientology in her writings.

Ted Swedenburg is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He has done research on popular music, including Islamic and Middle Eastern influences on rap and hip-hop music, and has hosted a world music show on the radio. He can speak about the impact that Muslim young people are having in the […]