Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for matching grants to states to provide abstinence education and, at state option, mentoring, counseling, and adult supervision to promote abstinence from sexual activity, with a focus on groups that are most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock.

Women for Sobriety in Quakertown, Pa., describes itself as the first national self-help program for women alcoholics. It was founded by the late Jean Kirkpatrick in 1975 with the belief that women with addictions had different psychological needs in recovery than men. This notion stemmed from the fact that at that time, men had better recovery […]

Rachelle Mee-Chapman is abbess and founder of a small urban abbey, ThPM (Thursday Night Gathering) in Seattle.

Deborah Loyd is a pastor and planter of The Bridge Christian Church for street kids and socially disenfranchised people in Portland, Ore. and is co-founder of Women’s Convergence that supports women in Christian ministries.

Liz Buxton is pastor at Cedar Grove and Harmony United Methodist churches in Alton, Va. She is working to connect women in the emergent church movement (they call themselves (f)emergents).

Heather Kirk-Davidoff is a pastor in Maryland and serves on the board of Emergent. She is co-founder of the Emerging Women Leaders Initiative. She has published a number of essays and is a frequent contributor to the Alban Institue’s Congregations Magazine.

Kelly Bean is pastor of a Portland, Ore., house community, Third Saturday. She is a member of the founding team of the Emerging Women Leaders Initiative and served on the board of directors of Off The Map. Bean’s history included a painful departure from a beloved conservative congregation that excluded women from leadership.

Blogger Elizabeth Potter is the co-founder of (f)emergent, a network of female emergents, and is part of the Emergent Coordinating Group. She writes about her emerging community, her work as a local ecumenical activist and church planter and her life as an ordained minister in Grand Haven, Mich.

Mark Driscoll is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church, a fast-growing, nondenominational, theologically conservative congregation in Seattle’s urban Ballard neighborhood. He was named one of the 25 most influential pastors of the past 25 years by Preaching magazine in 2010.