TEENS
OMG: It's a multimedia generation

IN THE NORTHEAST
• Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook is an associate professor of feminist pastoral theology and church history at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. She is a former director of young people's ministries at the Episcopal Church Center and is the editor of Disorganized Religion: The Evangelization of Youth and Young Adults (Cowley Publications, 1998). Contact 617-868-3450 ext. 544, skujawa@eds.edu.
• Dean Borgman is professor of youth ministries at Gordon-Conwell seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. He's also founder and director of the Center for Youth Studies there and worked for years with Young Life, including with at-risk and troubled youth. He is the author of Hear My Story: Understanding the Cries of Troubled Youth (Hendrickson Publishers, 2003). Contact 978-468-7111, dborgman@gcts.edu.

IN THE EAST
• The Rev. Stephen W. Pogue and rap artist Kurtis Blow founded and lead The Hip Hop Church, which holds services at Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church in New York City. Contact SPogue@hiphopchurch.org, KBlow@hiphopchurch.org.
• Lisa Miller is associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College at Columbia University. She has studied the spiritual development of adolescents and has found that having a spiritual grounding - believing in a higher power - can help teenagers deal with crises, resist peer pressure and stay away from drugs and alcohol. Her work includes extensive study of adolescent spiritual experience and the ways in which family, community and policy can support spiritual development in young people. Contact 212-678-3852, lfm14@columbia.edu.
• William D. Dinges is associate professor of religious studies in the school of theology and religious studies at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is a co-author of Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001) and can speak about the views of teenagers and young adults toward the Catholic Church. Contact 202-319-6890, Dinges@cua.edu.
• Rabbi Eve Rudin is director of the Union for Reform Judaism's Kutz Camp, the national teen leadership program for the Union in New York. The Union's youth program offers leadership and social action programs (called Mitzvah Corps), summer camps and opportunities for Jewish teenagers to travel to Israel and connect online. Contact 212-650-4070 or 845-987-6300, erudin@urj.org.
• Jon Pahl is an associate professor of church history at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadephia. 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. Contact 215-248-4616, jpahl@ltsp.edu.
• Chris Boyatzis is a developmental psychologist who teaches at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He has studied religious and spiritual development in families, including how teenagers talk to their parents about religion. He's also worked in an area he calls "God in the Bod," looking at how young people's spirituality affects their body image and tendency toward eating disorders. Contact 570-577-1696, boyatzis@bucknell.edu.
• Read a 2004 Episcopal News Service article (scroll down for article) about a hip-hop mass in the Bronx.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• David F. White is visiting assistant professor of youth and education at Candler School of Theology at Emory University and director of research for the school's Youth Ministry Initiative. He's done research on alternative approaches to youth ministry. Contact 404-727-9315, dwhite7@emory.edu.
• Frederick Edie, a United Methodist minister, is assistant professor of the practice of Christian education at Duke Divinity School. He also is director of the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, which each summer invites high school students to live for two weeks in an intentional Christian community at Duke. Contact 919-660-3540, fedie@div.duke.edu.
• Neil Howe is a historian and economist who writes about generational issues. He is co-author, with William Strauss, of Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (Vintage, 2000). Howe is host of FourthTurning.com, an online forum on generations and history. Howe and Strauss say Millennials, born in the 1980s and 1990s, are optimistic, positive and engaged - they want to make a difference. Contact through his speaking and publishing company in Virginia, LifeCourse Associates, or howe@lifecourse.com.
• Rodger Nishioka is an associate professor of Christian education at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. He is the former coordinator of youth and young adult ministries for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Nishioka can talk about why many young people are absent from the pews and about what young people want church to be like. Contact 404-687-4659, NishiokaR@CTSnet.edu.
• Steve Matthews is youth minister at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Va. St. Paul's has been one of the partner congregations in the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project at San Francisco Theological Seminary. Contact 804-643-1219, smatthews@stpaus-episcopal.org.

IN THE SOUTH
• John P. Bartkowski is a professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. He has conducted research on religion and families and can speak about how teens' religiosity affects their involvement in risky behaviors, such as using drugs, and their social relationships, particularly dating patterns. He is working on a book about the distinctive religiosity of teenagers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contact 662-325-8621, bartkowski@soc.msstate.edu.
• Carol Lytch works at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary as coordinator of a Fund for Theological Education program (with funding from the Lilly Endowment) that gives high school students opportunities to learn about religion and theology. She also is an adjunct faculty member in practical theology and the author of Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004). Contact 502-992-5434, carol.lytch@mindspring.com.
• Read a June 11, 2005, Courier-Journal article about a hip-hop service.

IN THE MIDWEST
• Pastor Phil Jackson conducts twice-monthly hip-hop worship services at Lawndale Community Church in Chicago.
Read a Feb. 18, 2005, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly cover story. Contact 773-762-6389.
• Andrew Careaga is the author of eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation (Kregel, 2001). He is manager of public relations for the University of Missouri-Rolla and a volunteer youth pastor at Salem Faith Assembly Church in Salem, Mo. Contact andrew@eministryonline.com.
• Paul Hill, formerly a Lutheran parish pastor, is director of the Center for Youth Ministries at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He has been a church camp director and helped plan national events for Lutheran youth, and specializes in ministry with teenage boys. Contact 563-589-0341, phill@wartburgseminary.edu.
• Rhys H. Williams is a professor of sociology and head of the sociology department at the University of Cincinnati. He is doing research on immigrant college students, including their attitudes toward religion and spirituality. He is also co-director of the Youth and Religion Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment, which did field work in the Chicago area to see how religious institutions can meet the needs of teenagers and young adults. Contact 513-556-4717, rhys.Williams@uc.edu.
• Jeffrey Kaster is an adjunct professor of theology and directs the Youth in Theology and Ministry Program at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn. - a program that many of the teenagers who attend it call "God camp." Students come each summer to learn more about theology and the Catholic faith. Kaster also has written about what Catholic teens need to know about sex and homosexuality. Contact 320-363-2620, jkaster@csbsju.edu.
• Roland D. Martinson is a professor of children, youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. He has written books on parenting and youth ministry and has been involved with the Faith Factors project, a 10-year longitudinal study of the factors that lead young people who are Lutheran and Baptist to remain involved with their faith traditions. Contact 651-641-3207, rmartins@luthersem.edu.
• R. Stephen Warner is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is co-director of The Youth & Religion Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment. The first phase of that project involved talking to college students of different religious, ethnic and racial backgrounds about their experiences with their religions. A second phase involved observations of youth-oriented events in more than 50 Chicago-area religious institutions. In the third phase, researchers accompanied Christian, Hindu and Muslim families to their religious institutions to understand better how these institutions served their needs. Contact 312-996-0990, rswarner@uic.edu.
• The Rev. Anthony Vinson is director of 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, and created an online community. Contact 800-634-6723, vocdev@stmeinrad.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Tex Sample is coordinator of The Network for the Study of U.S. Lifestyles, in Goodyear, Ariz., and the author of Powerful Persuasion: Multimedia Witness in Christian Worship (Abingdon Press, June 2005). Contact 623-536-7976, texsample@cox.net.
• Wesley O. Black, professor of student ministries at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, has written about diverse approaches to youth ministry and can talk about what works - and doesn't work - in ministering to teenagers in churches. Contact 817-923-1921 ext. 6240, wblack@swbts.edu.
• Mark Regnerus is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He has done research on the influence of religion on adolescent behavior, including the influence of teens' religiosity on delinquency, whether they stay in school and what they think about sex, for example. Contact 512-232-6307, regnerus@prc.utexas.edu.
• Patricia Howery Davis is an associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She is the author of Beyond Nice: The Spiritual Wisdom of Adolescent Girls (Fortress Press, 2000). Contact 214-768-2167, pdavis@smu.edu.
• 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. Contact 505-514-9955, flynch@gmail.com.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Richard W. Flory is an associate professor of sociology at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., and a research associate at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He has done research on adolescents and religion, including the importance of rituals for young people. He is co-editor, along with Donald E. Miller, of GenX Religion (Routledge, 2000) and in 2003 helped create an interactive, multimedia art display about young people finding faith. Contact 562-903-4846, Richard.flory@biola.edu.
• Mark Yaconelli is 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 well as contemplative practices such as lectio divina and centering prayer. Yaconelli says the question he's heard young people ask most is: Do you know how to stay alive? Contact 415-451-2879, ymsp@sfts.edu.
• 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 Ministry." Contact 626-584-5547, kpowell@fuller.edu.
• 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. Contact 951-785-2000 ext. 2256, bgillesp@lasierra.edu.