Convocation on the Rural Church

Sandra McCracken is a prolific songwriter, modern-day hymn writer, and record producer. With more than thirteen studio albums to her credit, her soulful, alt folk-gospel songs soar whether in a grand theater or a country chapel, and her dynamic performances blur the lines of what church music sounds like, captivating and inviting audiences to sing along.

While many of her songs, such as “We Will Feast In The House Of Zion” and “Thy Mercy My God,” have settled into regular rotation in worship services around the world, her songs have also been recorded and/or featured by Ellie Holcomb, The FAITHFUL Project, All Sons And Daughters, Keith and Kristyn Getty, A Rocha Compilation, Bifrost Arts, The Porter’s Gate, Village Lights, Nashville Indie Spotlight, Rain For Roots, and Indelible Grace, and her music has also appeared on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Sandra has been a guest writer for Art House America, She Reads Truth, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and Relevant Magazine. In affiliation with Christianity Today’s Podcast Network, her Steadfast Podcast released its second season in March 2021, and this past April she began offering a small-group Bible study curriculum based on the Psalms (via smallgroups.com). Her most recent album release, Patient Kingdom (Integrity Music), released October 2020, and she has written her first book, "Send Out Your Light," which released September 2021. Sandra lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Tim Nicholson, and three children.

Whitney Kimball Coe is an ordained minister in the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee. She is also Vice President of National Programs at the Center for Rural Strategies where she directs the Rural Faith Initiative, a five-year project to document and share the ways rural congregations are serving their communities. Whitney also serves as a special advisor to the Rural Assembly, a program dedicated to building more opportunity and better policy for rural communities across the country.

As an organizer, speaker, moderator, and writer, Whitney has shared her perspectives on community and civic courage with audiences around the world. She has been featured on stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival and the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit, and as a guest on the radio program On Being with Krista Tippett. She resides in upper East Tennessee with her husband, Matt Coe, and their daughters Lucy and Susannah.

Edgardo Colón-Emeric is the Dean of Duke Divinity School and the Ruth and A. Morris Williams, Jr. Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry. His work explores the intersection of Methodist and Catholic theologies, and Wesleyan and Latin American experiences. His teaching covers a broad range of theological areas: systematics, Wesleyan theology, ecumenism, and Latin American theology. His research brings theologians like Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar into conversation with voices from the theological periphery like Bartolomé de las Casas and Saint Óscar Romero, guided by the conviction that Christian theology sounds best when it is symphonic. Colón-Emeric is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He serves on the World Methodist Council and on both national and international ecumenical dialogues.

Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal, Associate Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School, is an ordained American Baptist pastor and former Global Ministries mission partner for the United Methodist Church.  She has spent her ministry preaching in cross-cultural spaces and bridging denominational communities.  Her most recent book, Holy Ground: Climate Change, Preaching, and the Apocalypse of Place (Baylor University, 2024), engages the climate crisis through the sermons of South Pacific communities displaced by rising tides.  Her first book, The Overshadowed Preacher: Mary, the Spirit, and the Labor of Proclamation (Eerdmans, 2020), challenges faith leaders to leave behind false shadows of approval and embrace the overshadowing Spirit of God.  A former actress and playwright, Neal has also authored a collection of dramatic monologues, Blessed: Monologues for Mary (Cascade, 2012).  Her husband, Rev. Wesley Neal, is the pastor at Asbury United Methodist Church in Durham, and her children, Linden and Josiah, are enrolled in graduate programs at UNC and NCSU respectively.  The Neals have their North Carolina Triangle bases covered!

Kirk Hatherly is an elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the UMC and serves as the pastor of Hayesville First UMC where he has served for 21 years. He holds degrees from Ripon College (BA ,Economics) and Duke Divinity (MDiv). He is married to Darleen and they have 3 grown children. Kirk is also a proud fan/owner of the Green Bay Packers.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth Locklear Graduated from Pembroke State University in 1987, Duke Divinity in 1991, and Wesley Seminary in 2004. He has served in seven churches over his appointment seasons. He has been a member of Western North Carolina Conference for 10 years, and the North Carolina Conference for 35 years. He is currently retired and serving a part time appointment completing his third year. During this time he has served on the following organizations and committees: General Board of Church and Society, General Board of Religion and Race, Chair of Native American International Caucus, National Native American United Methodist Center, and Director of Southeastern Jurisdiction Association of Native American Ministries for 6 years.

Rev. Jeremy Troxler is a baptized disciple of Jesus Christ, Margaret’s husband, Ada and Della’s daddy, an ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, lead pastor of Guilford College UMC in Greensboro, NC, a child of his family’s tobacco farm, a former Morehead Scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill, a graduate of Duke Divinity School, a lover of books and walks, the keeper of a beagle mutt named Jasper, an ornery cat named Skittles, and a friendly junk-yard feline named Inky, the driver of a 2004 Chevy Silverado that is held together with Duct Tape, and a fan of the Braves.  Jeremy also previously served in ministry as the Director of the Thriving Rural Communities Initiative at Duke Divinity School, as pastor of Spruce Pine UMC and Maggie Valley UMC, and as the President’s Assistant serving on the island of Jersey within the Methodist Church of Great Britain.

Hanna Barlow is serving as a Licensed Local Pastor in the Western North Carolina Conference and has been serving in ministry for the past five years at Randall by the River: A United Methodist Community. She is a 2022 graduate of both Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned a dual M.Div./M.S.W. degree. Her ministry is shaped by a love for storytelling, honest conversations, and helping people encounter God in the middle of everyday life.

Rev. Amy Lambert is Parish Director at Morven United Methodist Church in Morven, NC of the Western Conference

Rev. Duncan Martin is Senior Pastor at Hawthorne Lane UMC in Charlotte, NC

As Duke Divinity School celebrates 100 years, this Convocation invites us to ask an urgent question: Who is my neighbor? For rural churches, this question touches on immigration, the need to belong, and how we can serve faithfully as our communities change. Immigration is often seen as just a political issue, but for churches, it’s also a chance to grow in faith, care for one another, and become better disciples of Christ. In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore a pattern in the immigration conversation—Hospitality, Hostility, Hope, and Holistic Care—and consider how churches can break cycles of fear, build real relationships, and become sources of healing in divided times. Together, we’ll reflect on what it means to welcome the stranger, build stronger ties across communities, and lead with humility, justice, and hope. You’ll leave with practical ideas for changing harmful narratives, building trust, and taking faithful next steps in ministry. 

Led by Gloria A. Winston, Executive Director of the NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry and Ismael Ruiz-Millan, Executive Director of Connectional Ministries.

Gloria A. Winston is also incoming Heritage District Superintendent (effective July 1, 2026). She is a leader in peacebuilding, spiritual formation, and immigration justice, with experience in pastoral care, chaplaincy, and community leadership. She has partnered with numerous nonprofits, guiding clergy and congregations in courageous bridge‑building, deep hospitality, and transformative community engagement.

As Duke Divinity School celebrates 100 years, this Convocation invites us to ask an urgent question: Who is my neighbor? For rural churches, this question touches on immigration, the need to belong, and how we can serve faithfully as our communities change. Immigration is often seen as just a political issue, but for churches, it’s also a chance to grow in faith, care for one another, and become better disciples of Christ. In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore a pattern in the immigration conversation—Hospitality, Hostility, Hope, and Holistic Care—and consider how churches can break cycles of fear, build real relationships, and become sources of healing in divided times. Together, we’ll reflect on what it means to welcome the stranger, build stronger ties across communities, and lead with humility, justice, and hope. You’ll leave with practical ideas for changing harmful narratives, building trust, and taking faithful next steps in ministry.

Led by Gloria A. Winston, Executive Director of the NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry and Ismael Ruiz-Millan, Executive Director of Connectional Ministries.

Ismael Ruiz-Millan seeks to connect, align, foster collaboration, and infuse the values of honoring the imago Dei in all God’s people at every level of the conference and beyond by cultivating spaces where all may experience belonging, healing, and transformation.

Are your people tired of being tired? Are you? A Rest That Works empowers pastors and their people to create a pace and passion for work and rest that is life-giving, transformative, and powered by God. More than a program, Restorative Wellness is a God-honoring paradigm that gives people permission to strategically stop and rest guilt-free – positioning individuals to thrive, families to flourish, churches to grow, and the Kingdom of God to advance. Learn more at www.RunHardRestWell.org

Led by Brenda Jank who is CEO and Founder of the Run Hard. Rest Well. Movement. As a catalyst for personal and organizational change, Brenda is high energy and story driven, equipping God’s people to explore transformative rhythms of work and rest for themselves and those they lead, love, and serve. Brenda speaks from coast to coast and is a thought leader in the arena of Restorative Wellness. Brenda is the founder of Run Hard. Rest Well. and the mother of five of the finest, feistiest children ever assembled under one roof. Brenda and her family have called Northeast Indiana home for the 33 beautiful years.  

Methodism, born from a missional impulse grounded in God’s grace, is intensely relational.  John Wesley was most proud of the early Methodist class meeting’s hospitality as “friends to all.”  In this workshop we will explore our roots and reflect on how we are participating in God’s missional grace in our communities.   

Led by Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner, Professor of the Practice of Church Ministry and Methodist Studies; Associate Dean for Wesleyan Engagement, Duke Divinity School. Her latest book, Knowing Who We Are: A Wesleyan Way of Grace describes the distinctiveness of United Methodism by inviting readers into a richer understanding of our identity, beliefs, and practices. Dr. Warner lives on a small farm with her husband and daughter in North Carolina where they care for a variety of creatures. A licensed flower farmer, she enjoys cultivating sustainably grown flowers as well as creating art through glass blowing.

How can we be the Church when the very ground we gather on has become a preservation site of nostalgia? Deep Time emerged from Trinity United Methodist Church as a contextual response to the need for ministry, employment, and community with neighbors navigating life after incarceration. Drawing on Gregory Ellison’s “See. Hear. Change.” framework, this work reframes congregational vitality not as full pews, but as faithful presence and neighborhood impact.

Led by Rev. Dustin Mailman who is Founding Pastor of Deep Time, a ministry that celebrates, employs, and creates spiritual community with people impacted by incarceration. As a friend of the disinherited, he often finds himself pressing into questions about the intersection of mysticism and social change. Rev. Mailman is a graduate of Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and Appalachian State University. 

Stories do more than communicate information. They help people make meaning of their experiences, relationships, communities, and lives. In this workshop, participants will explore “phenomenological listening,” a way of listening that pays attention not only to what is said, but also to the emotions, memories, interpretations, and lived experiences woven throughout a story. Through guided reflection and conversation, participants will practice ways of creating spaces where people feel heard, understood, and connected across differences. This workshop is especially designed for people who lead, serve, or care for communities where stories shape identity, trust, and belonging.

Led by Rev. Shonnie Streder who is a pastor, facilitator, and consultant serving in Western North Carolina. Her work focuses on participatory leadership, storytelling, conflict transformation, and helping communities navigate change with honesty and compassion. She co-trains Technology of Participation (ToP) Facilitation Methods nationally and works with congregations, nonprofits, and community groups to create spaces for meaningful dialogue and collaboration.

Part of the power of preaching arises from the quality of the preacher’s relationship with God’s Word.  And yet years of weekly sermons have a way of wearing down our appreciation for the Bible’s freshness and depth, and can blind us to its many surprises.  We come to see the pages of Scripture as water and broccoli, instead of what they are:  a land flowing with milk and honey.  In this workshop we will dig into particular stories and draw upon insights from one local church’s recent experience with The Bible Year to reinvigorate our love for the Scriptures and to renew our appreciation for their mystery and their life-changing power. 

Led by Rev. Jeremy Troxler, ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference and lead pastor of Guilford College UMC in Greensboro. He is also one of our panelists. See his bio under the Panelist section above.