Our Friday panel will focus on how churches can be successful with a hybrid model of in-person and online worship. Meet the panelists:
Rev. Marta Fioriti and Mandy Todd have been friends and colleagues for over a decade. Since 2019, they have been partners in ministry at Black Forest Community Church, a small but mighty United Church of Christ congregation in northern Colorado Springs. With fearlessness and creativity, melding a unique combination of innovation and tradition, Marta and Mandy are committed to creating intentional gathering spaces within the congregational setting and on their podcast Jesus Has Left the Building.
Marta has her undergraduate degree in Christian Education and a Masters of Pastoral and Spiritual Care and is currently working on a Doctor of Ministry in Prophetic Leadership from Iliff School of Theology.
Mandy received a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education and Master of Theological Studies degree focusing on sacred music. She is currently in her final year of pursuing a Doctor of Ministry in Public Theology degree at Drew University.
Rev. Ian Holland began his first settled call as pastor to The First Church in Swampscott, Congregational (in the Southern New England Conference of the UCC) in November 2011. First Church is a small but vibrant community first gathered in 1849 in Swampscott, MA, a seaside town 30 minutes north of Boston (if the traffic is just right!). He serves the church with a deep abiding love for God, God’s people, and the church, and a commitment to social justice through participation in ECCO, a local interfaith community organization. He brings to his ministry an incurable curiosity about the Bible and what it might say to us today, a fading Irish accent, a sense of humor, and a background in technology and computer science.
Before he was called to ordained ministry Ian was a corporate executive and academic specializing in software design and development. He grew up in Ireland but has lived in Massachusetts for many years with his wife, son and daughter.
Reverend Cean James is the Senior Pastor of Salt & Light, an interdenominational, intergenerational congregation worshiping and working in Southwest Philadelphia and Mt. Airy. Salt & Light represents the union of churches that have been ministering in Philadelphia for over 150 years. S&L is a 600 member congregation that is the rare combination of Pentecostal fire and social justice activism; a congregation that is vibrant in worship and active in fighting for justice.
Pastor James also serves the wider church as the Associate Conference Minister of Congregational Development for the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, UCC. In this role Pastor James works with the churches of the conference in renewal, vitality, growth, and planting new ministries.