Rev Scott Clark
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Rev. Scott Clark serves as Chaplain and Associate Dean of Student Life at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS). Scott is a graduate of SFTS, and also has worked with the seminary’s Program in Christian Spirituality. Before going to seminary, Scott practiced law for twelve years in Birmingham, Alabama, where he worked mainly on cases involving employment discrimination and constitutional law. …
Jess Cook
Program & Communications Manager
Gender pronouns: they/them/theirs
Jess Cook is a candidate for ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA). A native of East Texas and lifelong Presbyterian, Jess holds a Master of Divinity from Union Presbyterian Seminary, a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the University of North Texas, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Baylor.…
Rev Ashley DeTar-Birt
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Ashley DeTar Birt is a recent graduate of Union Theological Seminary where she obtained her M.Div. She also holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Ashley currently works as the Pastoral Fellow for Youth and Families at Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York, NY with some of the most fun kids she’s ever met.…
First Presbyterian Church
More than a year ago, session authorized the creation of our Welcoming Team which was charged with leading us through a journey toward becoming a fully welcoming and inclusive church. What a journey it has been. The Team began with an assessment of our church’s embodiment of welcome. Based on that assessment, we had a good idea of the work we needed to do.…
Urbana, Illinois
Gates Presbyterian Church
In the fall of 2017 the session of Gates Presbyterian Church began to explore meaningful conversations about how our congregation can practice more intentional welcome, including with our gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) members. We invited a neighboring pastor, to come talk to the session about what it means to be a “More Light” church and about their church’s long involvement in being a welcoming congregation with the LGBTQ community.…
Rochester, NY
Jenny Hardin
Gender pronouns: she/her/hers
Jenny Hardin is currently a candidate for ministry under care of Great Rivers Presbytery. As she seeks a call, Jenny serves a number of churches in the area as pulpit supply and works as a barista at a local coffee shop. When she isn’t practicing her latte art or preparing for worship, Jenny spends time on do-it-yourself home improvement, gardening, and reading.
Highland Presbyterian Church
Highland Presbyterian Church has always been a place of welcome and inclusion. However, we have chosen this moment in history to become a More Light Church because we feel it is now more important than ever to stand up for folks in the LGBTQ community, to support them, and to loudly proclaim that this is a safe space for them to be who God created them to be.
Louisville, KY
Ethel Hornbeck
Gender pronouns: she/her, hers
Ethel Hornbeck is the Director of Spiritual Formation and Campus Ministry at Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church, where she has been shaping education and spiritual formation programming for the last 12 years (including a series of events that culminated in SPC formally affiliating with More Light Presbyterians in 2014.) She also works with students at Shepherd University in a campus ministry project called Connections.…
Immanuel Presbyterian Church
Immanuel already values inclusion across faith experiences, sexual orientations, gender expressions, and cultural backgrounds – this is reflected in the great variety of peoples on our staff and in our membership. It is our responsibility and our joy to bring the kingdom and the kin-dom of God to our world through love and service to others.…
McLean, Virginia
Amy Kim Kyremes-Parks Board Co-Moderator
Gender pronouns: she/her/hers
Amy Kim Kyremes-Parks serves as the Director of Spiritual Formation at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. She is an enthusiastic, creative and thoughtful woman always open to new opportunities to support and sustain the life of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Amy Kim, along with her husband Justin, children Natalily and Isaiah enjoy life together in OH-IO learning new things everyday about living it the mid-west.
Alex Patchin McNeill
Executive Director
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Alex Patchin McNeill has served as the Executive Director of More Light Presbyterians since 2013. During his tenure at More Light, he has equipped congregations to live into policy change for inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people and has successfully enacted policies for marriage equality in the Presbyterian Church, USA. Under his leadership, More Light now serves as a capacity-building organization, equipping congregations to work intersectionally on justice issues.…
Rev Derrick McQueen
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Rev. Derrick McQueen is a Ph. D. Candidate in Homiletics and New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He entered the Ph. D. program after completing his M. Div. with a focus on Theology and the Arts, also at Union. He earned his B.A. in Theatre Arts at Drew University in 1987.…
Dr. Mati Moros
Gender pronouns: she/her/hers
Matilde Moros, PhD, is a theological social ethicist working in the field of gender, sexuality and women’s studies. The ethics of resistance and subversion of hegemonic world-views and narratives of power lead her teaching and learning toward a counter-narrative “testimonio” method of decolonial, transnational feminist ethics. Feminist social ethics must respond to sexual and gender violence and the multiple intersections of which race and its various social constructions has led to the exclusion from centers of power of many peoples including Latin American and Latinx communities.…
Mark Olson
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Mark Olson is a ruling elder and a member of First & Central Presbyterian Church, a More Light congregation in Wilmington, Delaware. As immediate past moderator of New Castle Presbytery, he currently serves as chair of the presbytery Council and has also served several terms as a trustee of New Castle Presbytery, including as chair of the trustees.…
Rev. Drew Patton
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Rev. Drew Paton is pastor of South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, New York – a More Light congregation since the late 1980s. Before joining South, Drew served for five years as pastor of St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church in Spencertown, NY – an eclectic community of spiritual seekers with country roots and progressive values.…
Rev Bruce Reyes-Chow
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Bruce is a pastor, author, consultant, and coach. A 3rd Generation Chinese/Filipino, armchair sociologist, and technology enthusiast Bruce speaks and teaches on faith, race, parenting, and technology in a variety contexts from seminaries to conferences to congregations to pre-schools. While he speaks to both religious and secular audiences, he committed to living and expressing a Christian faith that is beautifully complex, unimaginably just and excruciatingly gracious.…
Susan Robertson
Operations Assistant
Gender pronouns: she/her/hers
Susan Robertson has worked for MLP for almost 15 years as the financial assistant. Being on staff with MLP is important to her because she gets to work with a tremendous group of people and help to create change within the PCUSA. Susan has been with her wife, Brenda, for 17 years and have 2 adult children and 3 cats. …
St. Phillip Presbyterian Church
Although not being an official “More Light” church, St. Philip Presbyterian Church in Houston, TX, has had a long and supportive involvement with the organization. Beginning in the late 1990s there were St. Philippians, individually and as members of the church’s Peacemaking Committee, who worked actively with such organizations as TAMFS, PLGC, Covenant Network, and MLP.…
Houston, Texas
Rev Kyle Walker Board Co-Moderator
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Rev. Kyle Walker is a Texan by birth and a gay man by the grace of God. His ordained life in ministry began in 1997 as an Associate Pastor for Youth and Christian Education at Springdale Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Since that time he spent 14 years in student ministry on behalf of the PCUSA and UCC at Texas A&M University where the Department of Student Life honored him with their Rainbow Award for helping the university create a climate of inclusion for LGBT persons.…
Rev Floretta Watkins-Barbee
Gender pronouns: she/her/hers
The Reverend Floretta L . Watkins graduated from Mercer University in Macon, GA, where she earned a BA in Communications. In 1993, she graduated from Johnson C. Smith Seminary of the Interdenominational Theological Seminary with an emphasis in Homiletics and Christian Education.
After serving as a campus minister at South Carolina State University and Claflin College, she received a call to serve Pleasant Ridge of Lancaster, SC and Hermon Presbyterian Church in Rock Hill, SC. …
Daniel Williams
Gender pronouns: he/him/his
Daniel Williams has been organizing in his communities since he was a teenager in Albuquerque, NM. His organizing experience includes work on student mobilization, worker justice, LGBTQ inclusion, reproductive justice, and numerous electoral campaigns. He is a ruling elder, an aspiring circus artist, an Inquirer under the care of the Presbytery of Santa Fe, an aficionado of scented candles, a committed Aaron Sorkin fan, a member of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, and a 2016 Master of Divinity graduate of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
