The Holden Village Podcast

Sara currently serves as the Director of Admission at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) in Berkeley, CA, where she has the privilege of accompanying people in vocational discernment. She received her Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York in 2014 and a Certificate of Advanced Theological Studies from PLTS in 2017. She has worked as a legal assistant...

David approaches life and the world with a growing curiosity, wonder, and a posture of “yes.” He savors Ignatian and Jesuit spirituality and longs to enter the Story more each day, sensing the deep, present, joyful Love of Jesus, who calls us Beloved. David serves as the Director of Development at Tierra Nueva – a non-profit ministry that comes alongside incarcerated and immigrant people in the Sk...

Rev. Dr. Cynthia Linder comes from a Midwestern family with a crazy-quilted immigrant background (her grandfather was a Palestinian immigrant; her grandmother was from Italy.) Despite the homogeneity of her 1950s small town, she was deeply shaped by her grandparents’ diverse cultures—their plural languages, Mediterranean music and foods, and their spiritual and religious sensibilities. This textur...

The Rev. Julie Boleyn is a pastor in Berwyn, Illinois, a town of approximately 56,000 people. She serves as pastor to both Unity Lutheran, and Comunidad Unida (a new bilingual, intercultural worshiping community). Under her leadership Unity Lutheran launched Awake! Time to Rise, a community development organization that specializes in education and engagement. This organization has incubated other...

John is a Minnesota state senator and a strong advocate for government ethics, social and economic justice, and environmental stewardship of the planet. John works for public policies that serve the entire community, especially the homeless, those without healthcare and other vulnerable people. His focus is on prevention, addressing challenges up front, to build a better future and prevent problem...

Richard has served in law enforcement for over two decades. He’s held both federal and municipal level positions in a variety of investigative and operational assignments. Richard has spearheaded the introduction of mindfulness into policing as part of a larger cultural transformation toward a compassionate, skillful and resilient warrior ethos. He is a thought leader in resiliency, performance, l...

Dr. Laura Gifford is a candidate for Word and Service ministry in the ELCA and a scholar of American political history. Currently a student at Portland Seminary, she holds a Ph. D. in American history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and she taught history courses for several years at George Fox University and other northwest Oregon colleges. Her academic publications include books...

Jason DeRose loves audio storytelling. He began listening to public radio as a young child in the back seat of his parents’ car and began making radio himself in high school. He went to St. Olaf College and the University of Chicago Divinity School. Now, he’s the Western Bureau Chief and Senior Editor for Religion and LGBTQ Issues at NPR News, where he’s worked for more than a decade. He’s a membe...

"When I look back on my life, I see that birds have always been part of my family, speaking to me, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly... I can't imagine my life without birds, even if their presence is fleeting. They are my family, my relations, without them the world would be a less vibrant, less musical place." from Passings - Holly J. Hughes. Holly is a writing teacher, poe...

Katie Monsen is a lecturer in Environmental Studies and the Rachel Carson College at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she earned her PhD. She grew up in Spokane, Washington, attended Pacific Lutheran University, and also lived in Iowa while earning her master's degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She has fallen in love with food systems and ecosystems from the Pacific No...

Dr. Marc Marenco is a member of the philosophy department at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. He teaches courses in bioethics as well as philosophy of religion, science and religion, and First Year Seminar. He took his first graduate degree from Yale Divinity School in 1983 (M.Div.) followed by a degree in philosophy from Oxford in 1992. (D.Phil.) With a colleague in biology (Lisa Sardi...

Kathy Beckwith is a mediator from Dayton, Oregon, having worked with both school mediation training (K-12) and community mediation programs. She has mediated in parent/teen, victim/offender, and neighborhood mediation, and volunteers as a school mediation coach. A longtime peace advocate, Kathy became concerned about America’s strong reliance on war to resolve international conflict. Concern led t...

Barbara Rossing first came to Holden as Waitri in 1973 and also served as Village pastor 1986-88. She is professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where she also directs the seminary’s environmental ministry emphasis. Her publications include The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (Basic Books, 2004); Journeys Through Revelation: Apocalyp...

Rev. Kris Voss-Rothmeier is a Presbyterian minister and middle school teacher in Portland, Oregon. Right after college, Kris worked and lived in a homeless shelter through a volunteer organization in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, DC. He also worked as a full-time volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in San Antonio, TX and Baltimore, MD before living at Holden Village as the fire chief f...

Will Chiles is a graduate of Missouri State University with a degree in music and religious studies. He has also studied victim/offender mediation, dead languages, and Music Learning Theory. After graduating from MSU, Will worked as a cook, Wilderness First Responder, and liturgical composer in the Cascade Mountains at Holden Village, Washington. After spending a time as a cook in Wisconsin, he he...

Matt Hinkley has been a teacher for 13 years and grew up hiking the Cascades. He loves spending time in nature and has a passion for outdoor field science education that gives learners the tools to discover their own passion for the natural world. He’s taught science in grades 7-12 in middle and high schools in Berkeley and Seattle. He added AP Environmental Science to the Seattle Public Schools’...

Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg has served as Kol Ami's rabbi since 2014. Before coming to Kol Ami, she was an assistant rabbi and director of education at Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue, Washington for 11 years. Rabbi Kinberg is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. She is involved with JStreet, Jewish Federation, Jewish Fa...

Imam Adam Jamal is the Executive Director of Education and Assistant Imam at the Muslim Association of Puget Sound or MAPS in Redmond, WA. He was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He truly believes in the ability of faith to bring communities together. His current focus at MAPS is to help American Muslim youth face the challenges of growing up in a climate of rising Islamophobia. With his traditi...

The Rev. Terry Kyllo is an ELCA pastor serving as the director of Neighbors in Faith an interfaith effort to recognize Muslims as neighbors and partners in building a more peaceful world, authorized by the Episcopal and Lutheran churches in western Washington. A graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, he has been a pastor since 1991 and has served in partnership between Episcopalia...

Jennifer is Assistant Director of Snohomish County Public Defender Association and an affiliate Instructor of Law at University of Washington overseeing the Street Law Clinic. Snohomish County Public Defender Association provides legal defense to indigent people accused of crimes. The Street Law Clinic is an outreach program for law students to educate high school students in basic concepts of law...

Jen Blecha is on the Geography & Environment faculty at San Francisco State University, where she teaches about food sovereignty, sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, and waste reduction. Taking students on field trips to farms, markets, restaurants, landfills, and wastewater treatment plants has made her think a lot about the “urban metabolism” ~ what goes in and what goes out. A l...

Anthony Bateza earned degrees from Iowa State University (B.S, 2002), Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (M.Div., 2006), and Princeton Theological Seminary (Ph. D., 2017). Dr. Bateza is a specialist in Martin Luther, moral theology and Christian ethics. His research examines Luther’s understanding of human agency and his relationship with the virtue tradition. His other scholarly interests inc...

Cecilia Porter holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Victoria, and a master’s degree in archaeology from the University of Calgary. In between she worked on the central coast of BC on archaeological projects that made it a priority to collaborate with indigenous nations and work within their frameworks. For her Masters degree her research once again focused on working wi...

Pastor David Nagler is a born and raised Southern Californian. His degrees are from Humboldt State University, University of Redlands, and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. He has served congregations in Encinitas, San Diego, and Bend, Oregon. For 2 years, he served in Madagascar in a project that started interfaith dialogue between Christian and Muslim communities. From 2012 until January of...

Elected as the ELCA’s fourth presiding bishop at the 2013 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton earned a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School and a Bachelor of Music Education from the College of Wooster. Ordained in 1981, Eaton served three congregations in Ohio before being elected bishop of the ELCA Northeastern Ohio Synod in 2006 and re-elected in May 2013. Eaton...