wfn.org | UCC's Guess and Leanza to present workshops at RCCongress 2010

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Guess and Leanza to present workshops at RCCongress 2010

> Written by Staff Reports
> November 6, 2009

Religion Communication Congress 2010: April 7-10, 2010 in Chicago

The Rev. J. Bennet Guess, UCC director of communications, and Cheryl
Leanza, policy director for the UCC Office of Communication, Inc.,
will join more than 50 presenters and speakers at Religion
Communication Congress 2010, the world's largest interfaith gathering
of religion communicators, scheduled for April 7-10 at the Chicago Marriott.

Under the theme Embracing Change: Communicating Faith in Today's
World, more than 1,000 communications professionals from different
from different faiths, different countries, and different areas of
faith communications.

The congress will feature panel discussions, roundtables,
performances, exhibitions and skills-building workshops focusing on
the changes in technology, society and perceptions of religions that
affect the way communications professionals and others for who
communication is important to their ministry tell their faith stories.

Guess and Leanza will co-present the workshops "Media Reform and the
Religious Community" and "Join the Coalition: Media Justice is Social
Justice." The first workshop addresses how communities of faith can
organize to ensure media is accessible to and representative of
diverse communities. The second will discuss the activities of the
interfaith media justice organization "So We Might See."

"We have an exciting and broad offering of workshops that will appeal
to people at different levels in their careers, said Shirley Struchen,
executive director of event.  "We have sought out professionals at the
very top of their fields to share their expertise and make this an
enriching experience for the variety of faith communicators who will
be attending the RCCongress 2010 from all over the world."

Best-selling Tuesdays with Morrie author Mitch Albom will speak at the
opening banquet.  Albom's new book, have a little faith, debuted in
the No. 1 spot on the Oct. 16 New York Times nonfiction best-sellers
list. The book describes his own journey of faith, influenced by a
Jewish rabbi and a Christian pastor.

Other presenters include Diana Eck, founder of Harvard University's
pluralism project; columnist and distinguished authority on American
religion, Martin Marty; Ingrid Mattson, first female president of the
Islamic Society of North America; Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago's
Trinity UCC; musician, composer and storyteller Ken Medema, and
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, religion correspondent for National Public Radio.

Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), the movement that teaches young leaders
to look beyond diversity and build relationships of mutual respect and
shared values will present at the closing banquet.

A pre-congress seminar, "Global Media, Global Religion: Research in
Popular Media and the Remaking of Religions" will be led by Stewart
Hoover and Nabil Echchaibi, from the Center for Media, Religion and
Culture, University of Colorado at Boulder.

For more information and registration, please visit the RCCongress
2010 website at <RCCongress2010.org