The Rev. James McDermott is a Catholic priest and former associate editor of America, a national Jesuit weekly. McDermott writes frequently about spiritual themes in popular culture and takes a keen interest in the comic book culture.

John W. Vest is the associate pastor for youth ministry at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and a Ph.D student in Biblical Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Vest wrote “When a Hero Dies,” a June 2007 essay from Sightings, the online journal maintained by The Martin Marty Center at the Divinity School […]

V. Bailey Gillespie is a professor of theology and Christian personality and executive director of The John Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. He can talk about Valuegenesis, a major study of Seventh-day Adventist youth in North America.

Kara Powell is an assistant professor in youth and family ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and executive director of the seminary’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry. She has worked in college and youth ministry and is co-author of the youth curriculum “Good Sex” as well as “Help! I’m a Woman in Youth […]

Mark Yaconelli is co-founder and former director of the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He has worked to develop a contemplative approach to youth ministry and can talk about adolescent spiritual development, youth ministry practices within mainline churches and teenagers’ responses to ancient disciplines such as silence and solitude, as […]

Richard Flory is a sociologist and executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He studies religious change, the spiritual practices of young adults and religion in Los Angeles. He is the author of Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism and  The Rise of […]

Fred Lynch, a youth evangelist, is the former youth minister at City on a Hill, a nondenominational congregation in Albuquerque, N.M., and founder of UrbNet, the Urban Youth Workers Network.

The Godfrey Mullen works on the Youth Liturgical Leadership Program offered by the Office of Vocational Development at the St. Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Ind. The program works with high school and college students and sponsors “One Bread One Cup” conferences to bring Catholic teenagers to a deeper understanding of the liturgy.