Retreat Leaders

Fostering wellness and healing is a passion and call for Tammy Devine, Principal of Devine Coaching. From nursing, to parish nursing, to health and wellness ministry, she has helped foster health, healing, and wholeness in the lives of God’s people. Tammy has a Masters in Leadership from Luther Theological Seminary, and she is a Lutheran Deacon.  She has served as the director of wellness for a long-term care facility, and until recently was the Wellness Manager for Portico Benefit Services,…

[Rev. Dr.] Gordon Peterson,  a retired ELCA pastor and an Adjunct College Professor, teaches Critical Thinking and Non-Profit Management. Prior to his retirement he served as Assistant to the Bishop in two ELCA synods, was Executive Director of a nonprofit organization, a parish pastor, and a mission developer.  His life-long educational pursuits include certification in the area of Civil and Domestic Mediation, Coaching for Excellence, Nonprofit Fundraising and several years of system’s study at the Center for Family Process in…

John Weit facilitates the Leading Well Training Experience in November, 2022 and February, 2023 at Spirit in the Desert.

Dr. Diane Jacobson is professor emerita of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, MN where she taught from 1982-2010.  She also served as director of the Book of Faith Initiative for the ELCA from 2008-2015. She is a rostered deacon of the ELCA. Jacobson has been a frequent speaker throughout the Church, including the 2011 and 2013 Churchwide Assemblies, the LWF 50th Anniversary Assembly in Hong Kong, and numerous synodical assemblies, rostered leaders gatherings, and churchwide consultations. Dr. Jacobson…

Michael Kerr is is a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA).  He served three installed pastorates and seventeen assignments as an intentional interim pastor. He has been working with Family Systems Theory since the early 1990s. He is a 25-year veteran of the ongoing seminar by the Center for Family Process in Bethesda, MD and a graduate of the 4-year ELCA Systems Academy training program. He is married to Dayna, and together they have two grown sons. Together with Gordon Peterson,…

abby mohaupt facilitates the retreat, Cultivating Climate Justice: Tools, Hope, Theology, and Spirit in March, 2023 at Spirit in the Desert.

Dr. David Tiede earned the B.A. degree from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., in 1962, attended Princeton Theological Seminary in 1962-63 and received the B.D. degree from Luther Seminary in 1966. He earned the Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1971. His service as President of Luther Seminary has given him opportunities to sustain his New Testament scholarship, especially in Luke and Acts, and to draw upon these resources in his leadership in theological education. His books, articles, and lectures focus…

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda has lectured or consulted in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and many parts of North America in theology; ethics; and matters of climate justice and climate racism, moral agency, globalization, economic justice, public church, eco-feminist theology, and faith-based resistance to systemic oppression. Her Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation (Fortress, 2013), won a Nautilus Book Award for social justice. She also is author of Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God (Fortress, 2002), Public Church: For…

Lisa Dahill facilitates the retreat, Cultivating Climate Justice: Tools, Hope, Theology, and Spirit in March, 2023 at Spirit in the Desert.

Margaret Fell has worked with Fr. Michael Lapsley and the Institute for Healing of Memories since 2007. She was one of the founding members of a working group of the Minnesota’s Warrior to Citizen Campaign which has offered the Healing of Memories workshops for veterans since 2009.  She served as Chair of the Institute for Healing of Memories-North America from 2011- 2014 and has been a Healing of Memories workshop facilitator since 2011. Margaret is an Episcopal priest.  She holds a…

Graciela Marroquin enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 18 in 1992, beginning as a plane captain. In 2003 Marroquin transferred into the Army National Guard, and in 2004 served a tour in Baghdad, Iraq, as a combat-medic and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After serving 14 years in the military, she returned to her civilian job at a community mental health agency, while earning her Master’s Degree in Social Work. She now resides in Tempe, AZ where…

Ruth Ivory-Moore facilitates the retreat, Cultivating Climate Justice: Tools, Hope, Theology, and Spirit in March, 2023 at Spirit in the Desert.