Faculty Bios

FACULTY

Charles W. Harrison is in his third decade of ministry. He currently serves as CEO and Executive Director for the Center for Youth Ministry Excellence, which is the parent organization of the Youthworker Movement. He is also the Founder of the Center for Wesleyan Renewal. He preaches and teaches all over the USA and internationally, reaching out to young people with the Good News and training those who mentor them. He also serves as the current Director of PSYM.

Rev. Diana Northcutt is the Director of Local Church Youth Ministries in the Oklahoma Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. She has worked with youth in one form or another for more than 35 years, and has served in Oklahoma for 20 years. She co-wrote the book Get Real and continues to participate in teaching and coaching youth ministers through the Oklahoma Conference’s Youth Worker Academy.

Dr. Stephen Rankin, Ph.D. is SMU's Chaplain and Minister to the University. He received his Master of Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Northwestern University and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. He holds Elders Orders and full membership in the North Texas Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.

GUEST FACULTY

Dr. Andrew Root is in the Olson Baalson Chair as Associate Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary, USA. He writes and researches in areas of theology and youth ministry. Root is the author of The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry; The Promise of Despair: The Way of the Cross as the Way of the Church; Children of Divorce: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being; and Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation.