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October 6-8, 2026 | Holiday Inn and Suites, 400 7th N St, Liverpool, NY
This will address both our ministry with others and our own spirituality.
Our keynote speaker is Dr. Marlena Grave.
Dr. Marlena Graves is the Assistant Professor of Spiritual Formation at Northeastern Seminary on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, NY. She has written five books, two of which were award-winning, edited an academic anthology, and has contributed to many, many other books. She has over 250 articles/devotions published in a variety of venues, including Christianity Today, Relevant, Sojourners, the Christian Century, and more. In the last eight years, she has been interviewed by both New York Magazine and Reuters about white evangelicals, politics, and nationalism. She has appeared on dozens of podcasts and is a sought-after speaker. She has spoken at churches, university chapels, retreats, and nonprofits all over the United States.
In addition, she has held pastoral positions at several churches, including a church plant in Springfield, Ohio. She has worked for many nonprofits in solidarity with the poor, migrant farm workers, immigrants from Central and South America, and local community members and leaders who sought to address police brutality in the Toledo, Ohio, area and address the lead paint poisoning of children. Marlena has been on the board of several organizations, including Evangelicals 4 Justice and The Redbud Writers Guild. She is married to her husband Shawn, a philosophy professor, and has three wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, and growing girls. She wants people to know God delights in them. She has been dubbed "a missionary to the American Church." She loves to laugh, Northeastern Seminary and the School of Theological Studies at RWU, anything to do with Puerto Rico, being out in nature, and being with family and friends and good folk. She received her PhD in American Culture from Bowling Green State University with a concentration in social history, focusing on the areas of race, gender, immigration, and American evangelicals.
