Meet the Contributing Bloggers

This page was last updated on Sept. 10, 2009.

Welcome to our contributing blogger profile page. You will notice postings by the people below stretching beyond traditional meta-narratives of Adventism. As we express our faith in a post-Christian culture, we affirm an Adventism proclaiming the fullness of Christ’s vision for humanity.

Note: Commentaries and editorials are the sole expressed views and opinions of each contributing writer, and do not necessarily always reflect the views and opinions of the blog owner, nor the official views of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

We greet you now with a little portrait of ourselves.


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Gary Walter, Editor and Moderator
Personal Blog: Confessing My Dad Attitude

Formerly a successful and decorated EMS manager, and now a second-career, ordained Adventist pastor, Gary and his wife, Jennifer, have team-pastored, several churches, including an innovative church plant in Colorado Springs. Gary is a freelance writer and online social media consultant. His online profiles are located at: http://bit.ly/gwalter




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Marcel, Contributing Blogger.
Professional Blog: Marcel Schwantes Life Coaching

Marcel is a certified life coach, specializing in personal, leadership and organizational coaching. Marcel empowers his clients toward self-discovery and life-fulfillment, and loves to work with men seeking to walk in spiritual integrity every day. He holds a Masters degree in Organizational Psychology and aims to put change management into practice to help transform churches. He is the online editor at Adventist Today. Marcel leads a men's group at his local church in Collegedale, TN. Visit his professional life coaching website.




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Steve Parker, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: Thinking Christian

Steve Parker is the Associate Dean (Academic) at Flinders University School of Nursing & Midwifery. He holds a PhD in nursing and a degree in education. His teaching areas are critical thinking, interpersonal communication, research, and ethics. Steve's theological interests are eclectic, he loves thinking critically and resists any attempts to confine himself within any ideological box. Steve celebrates doubt as an ongoing opportunity to learn and grow. He attends a Seventh-day Adventist church at Morphett Vale, South Australia but has discovered that the freedom of God's grace transcends denominational and religious boundaries and gives no one the right to tell him (or anyone else) what they should believe. He believes that following Jesus is a life of enjoyment, risk-taking, eternal growth, humble revisioning of belief, and loving others. Steve enjoys reading widely, watching movies, is married and has two teenage girls.

You can read all postings by Steve here.


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Felisa Samarin-Meier, Contributing Blogger

Felisa is a graduate student at La Sierra University and will receive her MA in Religion, majoring in Christian Ethics and Theology with a minor in Biblical Studies, this June. She has worked as an associate pastor and still has the privilege to preach at several local churches. It has been her great pleasure to work as a volunteer for the Women's Resource Center at La Sierra University over the past few years, working with website redesign and conference planning. She currently enjoys yoga, the Los Angeles Lakers, traveling, party planning and collecting books. Felisa blogs on gender issues in the church.

You can read all posting by Felisa here.


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Bill Colburn, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: Segue

Pastor Bill Colburn is a convert to Christianity, having been raised in a more or less unchurched family. He currently leads two congregations that are contemporary expressions of Adventist Christianity: Oasis & Grace Point in TN. Bill's wife is Japanese and was raised within the Buddhist traditions. They have three free-spirited and awesome sons. Bill has spent the last ten years engaged in the Emerging Church Conversation. His Christian friends most often label him an 'orthodox heretic', which is the title of a newly published book by Pete Rollins. The subject of his blog musings are "living paradox."

You can read all postings by Bill here.


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Andy Hanson, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: Adventist Perspective

Andy Hanson, Ed.D, recently became Professor Emeritus at Cal State University, Chico where he taught Education. He is a member of Grace Connection and the Paradise SDA Church. He has degrees in English (PUC), MA in Education (Cal State Northridge) and an Ed.D. (USC). Andy was once the editor of Perspective: A Journal of Dialogue for SDA Laymen/Students and the on-line magazine Adventist Perspective. He's married with two sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren. His personal hobbies include fishing, golf, collecting police procedural fiction from around the world, and British novels set in the Victorian era. Andy brings his highly-regarded editorial insights on matters of church ethics /politics and reformation. He blogs regularly at Adventist Perspective.

You can read all postings by Andy here.


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Julie Smith, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: Healing the Wounded Feminine.

Julie Smith is a free-lance writer and musician. She received a Bachelor's Degree in music and a Master's Degree in Counselor Education from Portland State University. She considers herself a Christian Gnostic, which basically means someone who is passionate about a personal wisdom walk with God and who holds Christ at the center of it all. Healing The Wounded Feminine is a devotional ministry blog she started as a way to encourage others on their personal journey with God and remind us of how much we are loved by God--and that, just possibly, there might be a feminine side to God as well.

You can read all postings by Julie here.


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Kristopher Loewen, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: Loewen Thoughts

Kris Loewen is currently an associate pastor at the Yakima Seventh-day Adventist church in Yakima, WA. He has a Bachelor's degree in theology from Walla Walla University (then College) and is currently working on an MDiv through Andrews University. Kris sees his gifts aligning with public speaking, studying, synthesizing ideas, and writing. He is passionate about mission and moving our churches more towards mission outposts in our world and cultures. Favorite authors and speakers include Alan Hirsch, N.T. Wright, Erwin McMannus, and Rob Bell. Kris is excited about helping people learn to see God all through our world, not just in the 'religious', and to help give them the language and framework to speak about and describe these encounters.

You can read all blog postings by Kris here.


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Nathan Brown, Contributing Blogger
Personal website: Relevation

For Nathan Brown, reading and writing are hobbies that have taken over his life—in a good way. He is editor of the Australia/New Zealand edition of Signs of the Times, Record and The Edge, and was a regular columnist for Adventist Review for four years. He has degrees in law, literature and English. Hobbies include making radio, playing basketball and growing flowers. He is married to Angela and they have two mismatched dogs and sponsor kids in a number of countries. Nathan is the author of two books: the thought-provoking Relevation, Seven Reasons Life is Better with God and Ordinary People, Extraordinatry God (click here for more info).

You can read all postings by Nathan here.


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Leslie Foster, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: The Nomad Chronicles

Leslie Foster was born in Singapore and spent his childhood in Bandung, Indonesia, Berrien Springs, Michigan and Silang, Philippines. He received his degree in Film Production, along with another degree in International Studies (German) and a minor in biology from Southern Adventist University. Leslie is a member of Traveling Muse - an assortment of Adventist filmmakers working on developing a few shorts and a feature. His resume includes work on the critically-acclaimed feature film drama "Secret of the Cave." Leslie currently resides in Hollywood, CA, and works as an independent filmmaker. He one day dreams of being part of a nomadic community of artists.

You can read all postings by Leslie here.


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Former Contributing Bloggers


Tompaul Wheeler, Contributing Blogger
Personal Blog: The Wheeler Spin

Tompaul Wheeler is a news and political junkie from Tennessee who loves writing, theology, traveling, shooting pictures and videos, God, and Lisa. He thinks God's wisdom is simple but not for the narrow-minded. He has written two books, "Things They Never Taught Me," about the spiritual issues we usually fuzz over and ignore or just plain fail to explore, and his latest - Godspace, a devotional on topics like love, science, the arts, missions, and Adventism. He writes music reviews for Adventist Today and holds a Master of Divinity from Andrews University.

You can read all postings by Tompaul here.


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Travis Walker
Personal Blog: Emerging Adventist

Travis is currently finishing up his Masters of Divinity at Andrews University. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management. He previously pastored for 2 ½ years in the Baton Rouge area with the Arkansas-Louisiana Conference. Travis has a passion for contemporizing the Adventist message, practical theology, and spiritual formation. Some of his favorite authors include Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dallas Willard, Dan Kimball, John Eldridge, E.J. Waggoner, and Ellen White. Travis’s hobbies include playing guitar, backpacking, writing, traveling, golf, tennis, basketball, and pretty much every other sport accept hockey and soccer.

You can read all posting by Travis here.



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"Trailady"
Personal Blogs: Trailady and Signs & Wonders

Trailady is a thirty-something mother of four from Michigan who views life as a journey. She writes articles, music, and works in a management position. She is a professional Christian musician performing and ministering with the contemporary vocal group Message of Mercy. Having lived a rigid, ultra-conservative lifestyle for many years, she came to realize the futility of human works. Trailady is now a recovering legalist who has finally found rest in Christ's Righteousness. Her goal is to live a balanced life and draw closer to God.

You can read all postings by Trailady here


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Melvin Bray
Personal Blog: Useful Perhaps

Melvin is a learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity and believer in possibilities, living in Atlanta, GA. A graduate of Oakwood College with a teaching degree in language arts, his frustrations with religion hit a tipping point while at OC, and thus began his quest for assurance that God is bigger than the Adventist church, or even Christianity. In 2000, Melvin founded Kid Cultivators to train youth, youth workers and their families to live sustainable lives. Melvin joined the Emergent conversation in 2005, which has inspired him to rediscover the best intuitions in his own denominational tradition.

You can read all postings by Melvin here.


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Alex Bryan
Personal Blog: Breakfast Fires

Alex Bryan is pastoral director of mission and ministry at Collegedale Church on the campus of Southern Adventist University. He was formerly the pastor of an interdenominational church in Atlanta, Georgia. His work has included frequent contributions to the Adventist Review, blogging for Adventist Today as well as speaking (Adventist colleges, camp meetings, progressive local church environments), church planting, and creative leadership for mission to emerging cultures. Alex received a masters of divinity degree from Andrews University, and is currently in the midst of a doctor of ministry program at George Fox University, where he is studying "Leadership in the Emerging Culture" with Dr. Leonard Sweet.

You can read all postings by Alex here.


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Torsten Pedersen
Personal blog: Locus Standi

Torsten Pedersen is a law student at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. His contributions have included articles on church demographics and Adventism in Western Europe.

You can read all postings by Torsten here.

 


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Stephen Korsman (non-Adventist blogger)
Personal Blog: Sabbath Keepers

Stephen Korsman is a cradle Catholic from South Africa, and is a medical virologist in Mthatha, South Africa. His interest in apologetics and different belief systems began when he was 13. Topics like Trinity, the state of the dead, and which days Christians should observe (Sabbath, Sunday, Christmas, Easter, Passover, etc.) caused him concern. From there he developed an interest in Adventism, and began defending his faith from that perspective. He hopes to engage in more positive dialogue with Adventists than a mere defensive one, and gain and encourage better understanding of both faiths on both sides.

You can read all postings by Stephen here.

If you'd like to join our team as a contributing blogger, please contact Gary by email.