Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a research professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research and of two encyclopedias published in 2007, the International Encyclopedia of Adolescence and the Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Arnett is the originator of the theory of emerging adulthood and the author of numerous articles on emerging adulthood, as well as the textbook Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach. His book Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, was published in 2004. He has also edited a book on emerging adulthood (with Jennifer Tanner), Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century, published in 2006. For more information, see www.jeffreyarnett.com.

Rodger Nishioka holds the Benton Family chair in Christian education at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. While he teaches in the area of Christian education and practical theology, he specializes in ministry with youth and young adults and iscurrently involved in a research project comparing the participation of young adults in mainline Protestant congregations and non-denominational independent Christian movements. Prior to his joining the faculty at Columbia, Nishioka served for 12 years as denominational staff in youth & young adult ministry for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

He has published several articles, chapters, and books largely focused on ministry with youth and young adults and the educational ministry of the church as spiritual formation.

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (see above)

Deborah K. Blanks is associate dean of religious life and the chapel at Princeton University and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Prior to entering the world of university chaplaincy, she served as a United States Navy chaplain. Blanks was the 2006 preacher at the Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry. She is an essay contributor to This is My Story: Testimonies and Sermons of Black Women in Ministry.

Robert Wuthnow is the Andlinger Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. He has published widely in the sociology of religion, culture, and civil society. His most recent book, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty and Thirty Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion examines the churchgoing habits and spiritual interests and needs of younger Americans and the ways they are influencing the face of religion.

Christian Andrews directs the ministries of Outreach Red Bank (ORB), a growing ministry originally organized for the purpose of bearing witness to the good news of God's grace to young people in Red Bank who had not connected to area churches. His primaryresponsibility is weekly preaching to the congregation, which has grown to include people of every age. www.theorb.org.

Deborah K. Blanks (see above)

Erika Funk is the youth initiative minister with Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She previously served for six years as the associate pastor for Christian education and mission at First Presbyterian Church in Pensacola, Florida. During her six years there Erika served as a leader for many Montreat Youth Conferences, the 7% conference for young P.C.U.S.A. pastors, and The Covenant Network of Presbyterians. Funk sees her current placement in Philadelphia and her work with Broad Street Ministry as a continuation of her commitment to young people, especially those who are not connected to or uncertain about the church. www.broadstreetministry.org

Peter Hazelrigg is the Presbyterian Campus Minister serving the community of Greensboro, North Carolina, which includes the campuses of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and Greensboro College. Hazelrigg began his ministry in Greensboro in 2007 after serving in campus ministry at Princeton University. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he also holds a master's degree in counseling from UNCG. Before going into ministry, Hazelrigg was a wilderness instructor working in Colorado and North Carolina.