David Adams is the director of institutional design and teaching professor of practical theology at BSK Theological Seminary. In addition to being the lead grant writer for BSK, he serves as director of BSK’s Flourish Center for Congregational Imagination and is the pastor of The Living Faith Church of Northern Kentucky. Having spent decades as a curriculum designer and editor, Adams has been teaching at BSK since 2003 and is a regular personality on the faithelement.net podcast.

Through in-place learning, the BSK Theological Seminary’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative project, “Siloam Project,” enhances partnerships with local congregations, exploring worship, ministry, and fellowship across the table. BSK interprets its mission by considering the needs of both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. and their constituent congregations that need flexible leaders capable of Christian theological reflection within their varied contexts, backgrounds, and settings.

Jonathan Barnes serves as associate dean/coordinator of student academic services as well as the program director for the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative grant at Lexington Theological Seminary. In addition, Barnes is an affiliate faculty, teaching in the areas of church history and mission. He has more than a decade of international experience, serving in South Africa and Mozambique with Global Ministries (DoC and UCC) and in South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) with the Mennonite Central Committee.

Lexington Theological Seminary’s Pathways project, “Building Bridges: Strengthening Theological Education for Underserved Students,” seeks to enrich support of African American, Latinx, and Catholic students by creating financially sustainable opportunities to earn a graduate theological degree through competency-based theological education and credit for prior learning.

Charisse L. Gillett is the 17th president of Lexington Theological Seminary. She is the first woman and African American to hold the position in the 160-year history of the institution. She is a member of the Board of Directors for The Association of Theological Schools and the In Trust Center for Theological Schools. An experienced administrator, she has led Lexington Theological Seminary to a period of sustainability in its finances, enrollment, and strategic vision.

Lexington Theological Seminary’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative project, “Building Bridges: Strengthening Theological Education for Underserved Students,” seeks to enrich support of African American, Latinx, and Catholic students by creating financially sustainable opportunities to earn a graduate theological degree through competency-based theological education and credit for prior learning.

Amir Hussain is professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Department of Theological Studies in Los Angeles. His own specialty is the study of Islam, focusing on contemporary Muslim societies in North America. Hussain served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2023, and from 2011–15, he was the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. His latest book, published in February by Fortress Press, is One God and Two Religions.

He is the principal investigator for LMU’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, “Transforming Catholic Leadership in Southern California.” That grant has helped LMU to increase access to theological education and pastoral formation for underserved populations in Southern California; and equip Catholic pastoral leaders in Southern California with more tools to address the most challenging aspects of ecclesial life in Greater Los Angeles.