Ernest Larkins II is a Pacific School of Religion Change-Makers Fellow; executive director of The Messengers of Hope, a faith-based HIV/AIDS intervention project and gospel choir; and Youth and Young Adult Pastor for City of Refuge UCC. His hit gospel song, “Rejoice with Me!”, is the title track on Bobby Jones’ latest album.

Rev. Norman Fong, executive director of San Francisco’s Chinatown Community Development Center, has been a pastor in Chinatown for nearly 40 years and is a nationally recognized leader in advocating for affordable housing and community empowerment. The Obama Administration named Rev. Fong a “White House Champion of Change” in 2013.

Marvin is the inaugural “First Church Berkeley Public Theologian in Residence” and a facilitator at the “Faith Leaders Round Table” at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. He is GLIDE’s Minister of Celebration.

On the first Sunday of every month, GLIDE offers Communion in the Sanctuary immediately following the 11:00 am Celebration.

Jean Jeffress, MDiv serves as a lay leader at First Congregational Church of Oakland, a lay-led congregation since 2011. She holds a Master’s of Divinity from American Baptist Seminary of the West at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Jean is approved for ordination with the Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church

Rev. Yolanda M. Norton is a PhD candidate in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel and Theology and Practice Fellow at Vanderbilt University. Her work focuses on the books of Genesis and Ruth, and how each text treats foreign women, and considers the ways in which insider-outsider paradigms in Scripture influence constructions of identity and facilitate the