Writers for Liturgy that Matters

Minister Candace Simpson (she/her/hers) is a sister, preacher, and educator. She is a graduate of Trinity College and Union Theological Seminary. She is an associate minister at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York. Minister Simpson is especially drawn to Christian education as a political education tool for Black liberation.

It is Candace’s philosophy that Heaven is a Revolution that can happen right here on Earth. She is the lead writer and curriculum designer at Fish Sandwich Heaven, an online resource for dreaming a freer world.

Casey Overton (she/they) is a radical faith-rooted strategist and spiritual activist who is deeply vested in the development of healing cultures. As National Coordinator for Tikkun Magazine’s Network of Spiritual Progressives, they love being immersed in cooperative interfaith dialogue while creating restorative space for those marginalized within their respective faith institutions. She’s also an amateur poet, nap-taker, time-bender, and movement chaplain-in-training. She hails from increasingly black, middle-class suburbs in the stolen Appamattuck and Arrohatec lands outside of Richmond, VA. They hold a Bachelor’s in Strategic Communication from Hampton University as well as a Master’s in Christian Practice concentrated on justice and reconciliation from Duke University. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter for more content and updates!

Damon Garcia (he/him) is a writer, video essayist, and public theologian for a liberative Christianity. His work is inspired by liberation theology, decolonial theory, and anti-capitalist politics as he helps people unsettle and untangle the influence of Christian teachings developed to justify colonization. He is the author of The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus (Broadleaf Books, 2022). He lives in Santa Maria, California. Follow Damon’s work on Twitter @whoisdamon and at damongarcia.com.

Hailing from Nairobi, Kenya, Gracia Oletsa is a living work of art, or perhaps, at work in living art. Embracing the principles of creativity as work-in-progress and innovation as failing forward, Grey (they/she) uses writing as a primary form of connection and world-building. Writing is a North Star guiding them into community organizing and artist peer support. Through their work as a labor support specialist, they facilitate spaces where birth can be a site of liberative collaboration between body, mind, spirit, and environment. Grey is part mysterious cryptid, so feel free to catch them outside if you dare; she loves laughter, food you can eat with your fingers, and purchasing art supplies that will taunt her until they’re put to good use.

Rev. Linda Noonan (she/her) has spent the last 35 years of ministry between South Africa and the United States. Ordained by the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, she holds standing in the United Church of Christ. She is pastor of St. John’s United Church of Christ in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. She co-chairs the United Church of Christ Movement for Palestinian Solidarity (formerly UCC Palestine Israel Network) and teaches public theology, social change, and ritual at United Lutheran Seminary. She is learning to brew kombucha, grow native plants, and do everything a little more slowly.

Nichola Torbett (she/her) is a spiritual seeker, recovering addict, gospel preacher, podcaster, writer, resistance fomenter, dog-walker, nonviolent direct action trainer, and abolitionist. Driven by her passion for both spiritual formation and social change, she co-founded Seminary of the Street, a training academy for love warriors, in 2009 and Second Acts, a liturgical direct action affinity group, in 2014. She is co-editor of RESPISCENCE: A LENTEN DEVOTIONAL FOR DISMANTLING WHITE SUPREMACY and a contributor to THE WORD IS RESISTANCE, a podcast from SURJ-Faith, as well as to a number of radical discipleship publications. She currently serves as associate director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, a wilderness school for unlearning the ways of empire and a test plot for growing the just and decolonized world we dream of.

Rev. Molly Bolton (she/they) is a spiritual director, hospital chaplain, and poet who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with her partner and a tuxedo cat. She engages poetry as a tool for liberative spiritual care in clinical, ecclesiastical, and community settings.

Molly holds a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest School of Divinity and a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was trained as a chaplain at Cleveland Clinic and is ordained in the United Church of Christ.

Hikes with stream crossings, feminist romance novels, and porch-sits with beloveds are a few of their favorite things. Find them at revmollybolton.com and on insta @mjbolton.

For the first three years of enfleshed, M wrote the weekly sermon commentaries and liturgies. Following the transition to this glorious team, M filled in occasionally on sermon commentaries and returned to liturgy after Molly’s departure.