Presenters
Confirmed presenters and leaders are listed below. Continue to check here for updates as we build our exciting line-up.
Ensemble-in-residence
Plenary Speakers
Ordained on March 20, 2004, CeCee Mills has served in the Virginia and North Carolina Synods. She currently lives in the city of her birth, Greensboro, NC with her only child, Joshua Mills. She completed her seminary studies at the Lutheran Theological Center in Atlanta which at the time was an extension of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia. She is a certified coach, Ventures Stewardship facilitator, Healthy Congregations facilitator, and Bowens Family Systems Theory enthusiast/student. She also participates as a facilitator and activist in social and racial justice efforts.
Plenary
Workshops
Workshop and Worship Leaders
Marsha Anderson serves at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, NC, as lead pastor for faith formation, outreach, and congregational care. She has also served parishes in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and spent some time as a chaplain on mental health units in California. Marsha participated in the 30-day Spiritual Exercises as the keystone of her sabbatical in fall of 2023.
Workshops
Linda Borecki was a member of the first baccalaureate cohort and last faculty cohort at Concordia University Portland. She earned a graduate degree in sacred music in Westfalen, Germany, and a doctoral degree in theology from The Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Linda has taught Lutheran worship at Lutheran institutions in the United States, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. Her area of concentration is ethnodoxology—the “peoples’ praise” in Christian worship, ancient and modern, Western and other cultures. She is also worship director at Christ the Vine Lutheran Church (Damascus, Oregon).
Workshops
Lorraine Brugh is Senior Research Professor of Music at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. She is a past president of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and a charter member. From 2021-2022 Dr. Brugh served as Artist-in-Residence at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. She served as a reviewer and wrote short descriptions of hymns for the hymnal supplement from Augsburg Fortress, All Creation Sings, published in November 2020. On the occasion of a festschrift in honor of Gabe Huck, she contributed a chapter, “Where Do We Go from Here?” The book, Fully Conscious, Fully Active: Essays in Honor of Gabe Huck was published by Liturgy Training Publications in 2019. She is a member of the North Academy of Liturgy, the American Guild of Organists, and currently resides in Peoria, Arizona
Workshops
Ellen F. Davis is Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School. The author of eleven books and many articles, her research interests focus on how biblical interpretation bears on the life of faith communities and their response to urgent public issues, particularly the ecological crisis and interfaith relations. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2009), integrates biblical studies with a critique of industrial agriculture and food production. Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship and Ministry (Westminster John Knox, 2014), explores the prophetic role and word across both Testaments of the Christian Bible. Her most recent books are Preaching the Luminous Word (Eerdmans, 2016), a collection of her sermons and essays, and Opening Israel’s Scriptures (Oxford, 2019), a comprehensive theological reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. A lay Episcopalian, she has long been active as a theological consultant within the Anglican Communion. Her current work explores the arts as modes of scriptural interpretation.
Workshops
Katie Deaver serves as the General Manager of ONE LICENSE. Deaver’s love of music and religion has allowed her to serve in a variety of music ministry settings, as well as to study and teach religion, feminist theology and ethics. She lives in beautiful Marquette, Michigan and is an alumna of Luther College (BA) and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (MATS, THM, PHD).
Workshops
Chad Fothergill is a keyboardist and historian who serves the church as a musician, teacher, writer, and composer. He is author of Sing with All the People of God: A Handbook for Church Musicians and has contributed both writings and compositions to several worship resources. Chad presently serves as chapel organist at Duke University Chapel, assists with weekday liturgies at Duke Divinity School, and is cantor to the Lutheran Summer Music community. Prior to his appointment at Duke, he was interim co-director of the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University, past editor of the ALCM journal CrossAccent, and taught at Gustavus Adolphus College and the University of Delaware.
Workshops
Zebulon Highben serves as Director of Chapel Music at Duke University Chapel and as Associate Professor of the Practice of Church Music at Duke Divinity School. He conducts the Duke University Chapel Choir and the Duke Chapel Schola Cantorum, edits the Music from Duke Chapel choral series, teaches courses in music and liturgy, and oversees the Chapel’s extensive music program, which connects students, community members, staff singers, instrumentalists, and professional colleagues in myriad worship services and concerts.
Workshops
Conference Choir Director
Mark W. Johanson serves as Minister of Music & Worship at Christ Lutheran Church in Charlotte, NC. A church musician since the age of 12, Mark leads the 11-member Music/Worship/Tech staff at Christ Lutheran which oversees scores of volunteer musicians and worship leaders serving in both traditional and contemporary worship. Before his current position at Christ Lutheran, Mark had the opportunity to work as the associate minister of music at Christ Lutheran under Mark Glaeser. Having worked in both LCMS and ELCA congregations, Mark holds a strong desire for finding unity across synodical lines, seeking ways for Lutherans to be united in their ministry and calling for the sake of the Kingdom. He earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Valparaiso University, studying collaborative piano with Joseph Bognar and organ with Lorraine Brugh. He was a past Dean of the Charlotte chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and holds membership in the AGO and ALCM.
Workshops
Karol Kinard Kimmell, a lifelong Lutheran, recently retired after 26 years (1998-2024) as Director of Youth & Children’s Music at All Saints’ Episcopal in midtown Atlanta, with a full graded choir & handbell program for PreK -12th. She serves as Co-Director and faculty member for two annual summer conferences: Lutheridge Music Week, Arden, NC – a week of renewal and learning for church musicians – and the Choristers Guild Institute – a three-summer certification program for Children’s Church Choir Directors providing pedagogy and choral methods training. In August 2019, Karol led a children’s choir at the opening worship of the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee, WI. Karol has served as organist, choir director, and pre-school music teacher in NC, SC, and GA in Lutheran, Episcopal, and Presbyterian congregations and schools. She directed the Elementary Choruses at Atlanta’s Paideia School for eight years and in 2009 conducted the North Carolina Sixth Grade All State Chorus. Karol attended Wittenberg University and Lenoir-Rhyne University, receiving her BME (organ) from Lenoir-Rhyne. She is certified in Orff Schulwerk, Kindermusik, Musicgarten, studied voice at the Mannes School of Music, and sang with the Riverside Church Choir in NYC.
Workshops
Jerusha Neal’s scholarly work examines the action of the Spirit on the performative borders of body and culture. Her research interests focus on postcolonial preaching, climate stewardship, preaching and gender, and a theology of the Spirit in sermon performance. Her most recent book, The Overshadowed Preacher: Mary, the Spirit, and the Labor of Proclamation (Wm. B. Eerdmans), asks the sticky question of what is meant when preaching is described as “anointed.” It challenges preachers to leave behind false shadows and be overshadowed by the Spirit of God. It received a 2020 Christianity Today “Jesus Creed Book Award for the Preaching Life.” Neal is an ordained American Baptist minister with broad ecumenical experience, most recently serving as a Global Ministries missionary to the Fiji Islands through the United Methodist Church. During her years in Fiji, she served as Dean of Studies at Davuilevu Theological College, the oldest theological seminary in that nation. A former actress and playwright, she has authored a collection of dramatic monologues, Blessed: Monologues for Mary (2012). Neal has spent her ministry preaching in cross-cultural spaces and bridging denominational communities. God’s work in these in-between locations has convinced her that preaching matters now more than ever. Serving as keynote preacher for such events as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, the Young Preacher’s Festival and the Homegrown North Carolina Women’s Preaching Festival, Neal is committed to encouraging the voices of young preachers—and particularly the voices of women—in the risky proclamation of gospel hope. In 2020, she was awarded the “Exemplary Teacher of the Year” award from the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church.
Worship
The Raleigh Ringers is an Emmy-nominated, internationally-acclaimed concert handbell choir based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The group has been dazzling audiences with unique interpretations of sacred, secular and popular music, including rock ‘n’ roll tunes that the group has become noted for, along with original compositions written just for The Raleigh Ringers.
Concert
Friday Seminar
Edmund F. Tompkins began as Director of Music/Organist at the Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness, Flat Rock, NC, in February 2025. Prior to that, Ed served for 21 years as Minister of Music and Organist at Morning Star Evangelical Lutheran Church in Matthews, NC. He is a graduate of Duke University and Scarritt Graduate School and studied organ with Bob Ivey, Robert Parkins, Fenner Douglass, and Wilma Jensen. Ed has served on planning teams and boards for many music organizations, including Handbell Musicians of America, Choristers Guild, American Guild of Organists, and American Choral Directors Association. Ed is sought-after as a handbell clinician and director for festivals and music camps. He and his wife Judy live in Hendersonville, NC.Judy is recently retired from being an elementary teacher at Grace Academy in Stallings, NC. Daughter Mandy and her husband Kemper Gibson and their children Lila and Liamlive in Hendersonville. Son Lucas lives in Charlotte.
Workshops
Tom Trenney, composer, conductor, organist, preacher, and teacher, has been blessed to serve as Minister of Music to First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, since 2009. In 2019, he was invited to become Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choirs at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Tom’s choirs have been honored to perform for state, regional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and they have been award winners in the American Prize for choral ensembles.
Workshops
Hymn Festival
Worship