Speakers

Alex Gee Jr

Thursday Evening
Alex Gee is the pastor of Fountain of Life Covenant Church, a multiracial and multigenerational congregation in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1992 he pioneered the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, a nonprofit organization that develops emerging African American leaders to become partners in revitalizing and transforming community. He is passionate about promoting hope, transformation, and justice for disenfranchised people. Gee is author of When God Lets You Down: Trusting Again after Pain and Loss. He also co-authored Jesus and the Hip Hop Prophets. He and his wife, Jackie, live in Madison, Wisconsin. They have one daughter.

J. Kevin Butcher

Friday morning
J. Kevin Butcher is senior pastor of Hope Community Church in Detroit, Michigan. He has served as the senior pastor of churches in Indiana and Michigan. Butcher is passionate about helping believers live in authentic community— across racial, socioeconomic, and all lines of division. He also is passionate about helping believers find freedom from wounds of their childhood that so often keep them trapped, living addictively and dysfunctionally, and unable to experience true freedom in Christ. He and his wife, Carla, live in Gross Pointe Farms, Michigan. They have three adult daughters.

Noel Castellanos

Friday evening
Noel Castellanos has worked in full-time ministry in Latino, urban communities since 1982. He has served in youth ministry, church planting, advocacy, and community development in San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago. After serving on the Board of the Christian Community Development Association for many years, he established the CCDA Institute, which equips emerging church leaders. He is the co-author of A Heart for the Community, New Models for Urban and Suburban Ministry, and has contributed to various other books and publications. He and his wife, Marianne, live in southwest Chicago, and have three grown children.

Janine N. Davis

Saturday morning
Called to the ministry of reconciliation through preaching the word of God, community outreach, education, and life-skills training, Janine Davis started The Bridge Covenant Church in Detroit in 2010. She currently serves on the boards of the Great Lakes Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Cody/Rouge Faith Based Alliance in Detroit. Davis was the former director of Urban Center Development for Care Net, supporting a network of more than eight hundred pregnancy centers in the United States and Canada. She also served as pastor at Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit. She and her husband, Richard, live in Detroit.

Richard Lucco

Saturday evening
Richard Lucco is the executive director for ministry development for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Beginning July 1, he will also be serving as the interim executive minister of church growth and evangelism. Lucco has served as the senior pastor of Covenant churches in Kewanee and Elgin, Illinois; and in Salem, Oregon. He served as superintendent of the Great Lakes Conference from 2002 to 2012. Lucco has also worked as an area director for Young Life and program director for the “I Have a Dream” Foundation. He and his wife, Valerie, live in Chicago. They have four adult sons and two grandchildren.