MIND leadership

The MIND steering committee, elected annually at the September general meeting, meets five or six times a year to set strateguc direction and plan programming for the organization.

Dr. Dorothee Benz, chair

Dorothee Benz is a lifelong United Methodist and a member of Park Slope UMC, a reconciling congregation in Brooklyn. As a young adult she had wanted to go into ministry, but the year she came out as a lesbian was the same year the UMC voted to bar gays and lesbians from ministry. Benz works for social justice, by day for the rights of workers, and by night for the rights of LGBT people. She has more than two decades experience as an editor, journalist, web manager and communications strategist in the labor movement and is currently the deputy director of member communications at the United Federation of Teachers in New York City.  Benz has a Ph.D. in political science from the City University of New York, and a B.A. from Harvard University. Her writing and web design have won numerous awards, and she has published articles in Politics and Society, Dissent, Working USA, New Labor Forum, In These Times and elsewhere. Benz is a bodybuilder, backpacker, Adirondack 46er and sandcastler.

Rev. Scott Summerville, treasurer

Rev. Scott Summerville has been a clergy member of the New York Annual Conference since 1976.  He has served churches in Kingston, NY, Stamford,  CT, and Brooklyn and is serving currently as the pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church in Yonkers, a reconciling congregation. Scott is married to Rev. Mary Ellen Summerville, who is also a NYAC clergy member and who works as a hospice chaplain. They have two adult children, Meredith and Thomas.  In addition to parish duties and his work for MIND Scott is a trainer and consultant in congregational conflict and mediation.  He is also a trainer in the New York Annual Conference in boundaries and sexual ethics for clergy.

Rev. Matt Curry

Rev. Matthew T. Curry has been pastor of the United Methodist Church of Mt. Kisco, NY since July 2002, where he is affectionately called “Pastor Matt.” A United Methodist his whole life, Matt grew up in Fort Walton Beach, on Florida’s panhandle. He has a degree in music from Emory University and a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music; he is currently completing a Master’s degree in Change Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Matt is the Chair of the New York-Connecticut District Council on Ministry and has served on the New York Annual Conference Board of Church and Society and the board of the NYAC chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action; his community involvement includes membership in the Northern Westchester Interfaith Council and the Union Hook and Ladder Company of the Mount Kisco Volunteer Fire Department. Matt is married to his high school sweetheart, Maria Colaco. They live with their daughter and Saint Bernard in Mount Kisco.

Jayson Dobney

Jayson Dobney has been active in reconciling work through Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) for many years. Originally from South Dakota, he moved to New York in 2007, where he is the associate curator and administrator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Musical Instruments. He joined the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, a reconciling congregation, and joined MIND as soon as he got to New York, and continued his reconciling activism without missing a beat. In 2010 he became the minister of music at Memorial UMC.

Shirley Gerrow

Shirley Gerrow is a member of Central Valley UMC, where she is active in many aspects of the church’s ministry. She has been instrumental in MIND’s annual conference witness, serving as our transportation coordinator for several years and helping anchor our witness at the MIND table. She and her partner Robin Burkhardt are renown for their hospitality in sharing their beautiful woods home with visitors from near and far.

Rev. Wongee Joh

Rev. Wongee Joh received her M.Div. degree from Drew Theological School in 2008 and serves as the pastor of Holmes UMC in Holmes, NY. She also serves as an associate chaplain at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie. As a Korean-American woman pastor, she encounters challenges in ministerial contexts that require critical reflection on how Biblical authority is abused and misused to legitimate injustices as well as active engagement in order to transform them.

Rev. Lucy Jones

Lucy Jones is a clergy member of the New York Annual Conference serving in appointment at the Grail Center in Cornwall on Hudson, a spiritual retreat center operated by a women's international peace and justice movement.  She pastored rural churches in Columbia and Ulster countries for 12 years. Lucy is a member of the Methodist Federation for Social Action-New York Chapter steering committee and joined the MIND steering committee in 2010.  Lucy came to Methodism and church involvement after visiting Park Slope UMC in 1989 while working at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.  The hypocrisy of the institutional church had been very disturbing to her throughout her adolescent and early adult life.  The welcoming sign at PSUMC and its radical hospitality spelled out in its stance on the UMC’s struggle with homosexuality made a huge difference in her search to find a meaningful, honest and justice-oriented spiritual home.  Eventually, she went to Union Theological Seminary and graduated with an M.Div. in 1998.  The bottom line for her is that the world needs all the love it can get.  The church should be about fostering that love rather than denying it and excluding anyone.  It’s a great disappointment that the church is not leading but lagging behind on correcting the social injustice of heterosexism.

Meredith Kadet

Meredith Kadet is a second-year M.Div. student at Union Theological Seminary, where she studies feminist theology and ethics. She is also a community minister with Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square, assisting with parish programs, public action and pastoral care. Prior to entering seminary, Meredith spent a few years in professional fundraising and development. A lover of food and cooking and a critic of the food system, she has spent two summers working on organic farms in New York State.

Rev. Darlene Kelley

After graduating magna cum laude from Drew Theological Seminary in 2004, Darlene received an appointment to the Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church in Kingston, NY, where she has been serving as the pastor and the director of the Caring Hands Feeding Program. For the past four years, she has also been co-teaching Christian Ethics and Introduction to Theology at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility through Rising Hope Ministries. Darlene also serves on the Catskill Hudson District’s Committee on Ministry and is the vice president of the Kingston Area Council of Churches. She earned a bachelor’s degree, with a concentration in history and philosophy, from Goucher College in 1981. She lives in Kerhonkson, NY and has a husband, three stepchildren, four cats and a dog.

Rev. Sara Lamar-Sterling

Rev. Sara Lamar-Sterling is the pastor at First & Summerfield UMC, a reconciling congregation in New Haven. She is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary and holds an M.A. in music history from CUNY Graduate School and University Center as well as a B.A. in music, with minors in French and drama, from Hofstra University. Before her appointment to First & Summerfield in July 2007, she served as associate pastor at Park Avenue UMC (NYC) and Nichols UMC in Trumbull, CT. Sara serves on the boards of Interfaith Cooperative Ministries, Greater New Haven, and “Real Life. Real Talk,” a program that equips parents to speak with their children and teens in age-appropriate, medically accurate ways about human sexuality. She is currently chairperson of NYAC’s Personnel Committee and an ex-officio member of the Commission on Higher Education and Campus Ministry. Sara is also on the board of the Conference Board of Church and Society.

Nehemiah Luckett

Nehemiah Luckett is the associate minister of music at Asbury United Methodist Church, a reconciling congregation, where he is also the co-chair of the church’s Reconciling Committee. He has his family roots in Alabama, where his father is a United Methodist pastor. From an early age Nehemiah was playing the piano, performing and directing choirs for his father’s church. But as a teenager, when he came out to himself and his friends, his father’s advocacy of “traditional family values” and vocal opposition to gay rights was a source of profound agony, and he faced the choice of leaving the church and father he loved or living a life of lies. He came north to attend college at Sarah Lawrence, and found welcome and reconnection to the church at Asbury. At Asbury, Nehemiah works with both the Junior and Senior Choirs, composes music for liturgies, and even wrote and directed a contemporary mass, which premiered at Asbury Church. He also composed the music for “Brick by Brick,” a musical based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, which premiered at Sarah Lawrence College in April 2007.  

Charlotte Patton

Charlotte Patton is an actor and member of the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, a reconciling congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She grew up United Methodist and left the church for a few years to explore other spiritual paths.  When she returned to the church she was reluctant to join because of the UMC’s prejudice against lesbian and gay people; she was and remains especially offended by the clause in the in the Book of Discipline that states “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” She decided that the only way she could re-join the UMC was to do everything in her power to change that clause. MIND is the most effective way she has found to carry out that pledge to herself. She has appeared in a number of theatres in New York, L.A. and regional theatres where she has become quite adept at playing alcoholics and drug addicts.  She has appeared in soaps, commercials, voice-overs and in her one-woman cabaret show. She co-starred in an episode of the NBC drama "Mercy" in 2010.

Rev. Sara Thompson Tweedy

Rev. Sara Thompson Tweedy lives with her spouse, Kris Marcell. Together, they are renovating a home; raising their most precious son, Maximillian Frederic Tweedy-Marcell; walking Samson the dog; feeding Delilah the cat; and living life to the fullest. After graduating from Yale Divinity School, Sara followed in her mother's and uncle’s footsteps as a minister. She served as the pastor of The Federated Church of Kerhonkson in Kerhonkson, NY for seven years before moving on to Sullivan County Community College. At SCCC, Sara works full-time in the Department of Learning and Student Development Services as a counselor and academic advisor. She is also the head women’s basketball coach. Sara is the co-founder of Sanctuary, a spiritual gathering devoted to the GLBTQ community and its supporters. This is part of the larger inclusive ministry of Memorial UMC, a reconciling congregation in White Plains, NY. In addition to these and many other things, she is an interior certified firefighter, recording secretary, and chaplain in the all-volunteer Kerhonkson Fire Department; an angler; outdoorswoman; political junkie; and cosmopolitan connoisseur.