Who We Are

Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell joined the Susanna Wesley Foundation as a Research Associate in March 2025. For the last 15 years, he has been considering the relationship between lived experiences of crises and transition, the different sources of hope we might rely on, and new forms of leadership in communities and institutions in north west England. In 2021 he was awarded his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London where he offered a new paradigm and consultative methodology for faith based organisations in the Temple Tradition of Public Theology. His first book, Curating Spaces of Hope: Transformational Leadership for uncertain Times, was published in March 2025 with SCM Press.

Dr James Butler is an MA lecturer at the Church Mission Society (CMS) pioneer mission training programme. He teaches in the areas of mission, ecclesiology and practical theology.

His PhD explored how Small Missional Communities sustain their social action.

In his work as a postdoctoral researcher he explores themes of learning, discipleship and social action.

Rev. Shannon Conklin-Miller leads the development of initiatives to support theological education and leadership formation for ministry with Methodist-related institutions all over the world. She has extensive international experience engaging cross-cultural constituencies, building trust, and developing collaborative projects across diverse contexts. She has served as a local church pastor, a hospice chaplain, a programme director at Duke Divinity School, and most recently as an Associate General Secretary on the Ministry Team of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, The United Methodist Church. Her interest is in working with partners to develop contextually relevant and accessible resources for ministry and building sustainable networks of peer learning and support.

Erica Dunmow is Chair of Urban Theology Union, Sheffield and Director of the Reclaiming Local Lay Ministry for Mission Project. She began work within the third sector, holding national roles for nearly 20 years. Since 2004 she has held national and local roles in developing mission and new congregations, especially in urban contexts.

Prof Steven van den Heuvel is Director of the Institute of Leadership and Social Ethics at Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium, researching for a just and sustainable society. Recent books include Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics: A Multidisciplinary Approach (2022), Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Hope (2020) and Leading in a VUCA World (2018).

Dr Susanna Snyder is a Departmental Lecturer in Applied Theology at the University of Oxford, and her research has focused on faith-based engagement with refugees, and social justice, spirituality and the arts. With a background in Christian ministry, she has worked at universities and theological colleges in both the US and UK. Her publications include Asylum-Seeking, Migration and Church (Ashgate, 2012) and Parenting for a Better World: Social Justice Practices for Your Family and the Planet (Chalice, 2022), and her current research project employs creative and collaborative methods to explore lived experiences and theologies of hope.

Dr Anthony Thorpe is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Education, University of Roehampton having previously held the role of Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Management. He recently co-authored a book ‘Educational Leadership and Critical Realism’ and has conducted several Susanna Wesley Foundation projects such as one on ‘Methodist school leadership and governance’.

The Revd Dr Keith Elford is Coordinator, Centre for Leadership Learning, and Programme Leader, MA in Christian Approaches to Leadership at Sarum College. His doctoral research project focused on the relationship between ecclesiology and organisational theory.

Dr Megan Seneque is an experienced facilitator in transformational change and leadership. She is working with the Methodist Church’s Discipleship and Ministries Learning Network exploring what it means to build communities of practice and to effect systemic change.

Dr Tim Harle lives at the interface of business and faith. He has worked at senior levels in a range of organisations, as well as working in Whitehall. He was Programme Leader for Sarum College’s MA in Christian Approaches to Leadership, and a Visiting Fellow at Bristol Business School.

The Revd Ermal Kirby joined the Susanna Wesley Foundation as a part-time Research Officer in January 2016. Now an Associate of SWF, his main research focus examines Cultural Diversity and Methodist Circuit Ministry.

Dr Kathryn Kissell is a Counselling Psychologist who engages with the intersection of psychology and ministerial practice. We have collaborated with Kathryn to produce the ‘Flourishing Ministers, Flourishing Communities‘ resource.

Dr Nick Mayhew-Smith is a writer and researcher specialising in the impact that religious activity and ideas have on culture and commerce, on heritage, and on the environment. His research and publication topics have included environmental theology, faith-based businesses and enterprises, and the ongoing legacy of religious activity in the British landscape. He is Head of Whitelands College at the University of Roehampton.

Dr Lia Dong Shimada joined the Susanna Wesley Foundation as Research Associate in November 2015. She became Senior Research Officer involved in developing the Foundation’s research portfolio, with an emphasis on diversity in leadership and ministry, a role she continued until 2024.

Her project outputs included editing the book ‘Mapping Faith: Theologies of Migration and Community‘ (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020), and the project ‘Death, Dying and the Afterlife‘, in collaboration with Theos Thinktank.

The Revd Mark Wakelin is a Methodist Minister in the Sutton Circuit at Epsom Methodist Church. He has served the Church in various ways: as President of the Methodist Conference, Connexional Secretary for Internal Relationships, Director of the Guy Chester Centre, National Secretary for the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs, and Circuit Minister in Stockport and Lincoln.

Ollie Elliott currently leads a church on the outskirts of London and is passionate about building a church which is diverse and welcomes people from all different backgrounds. No-one expected Ollie to become a pastor! He struggled at school due to being dyslexic, battled with PTSD and addiction issues as an adult, and led a very dysfunctional life until he came to Christ in his thirties. But Ollie’s working-class roots and his passion to preach the Bible to ordinary, everyday people have led him to focus his DTh studies on ‘Homiletics as an Inclusive Pathway to Theological Education: A Practical Theology of Homiletics for Working-Class People’.

He is ordained in the Church of England and has been teaching in theological education since 2015, most recently at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Arising from his experience as a pioneer minister on a new build housing development from 2010, Andrew has been particularly interested in new forms of church, church planting, and pioneering. From January 2025, Andrew will be taking up a role as Director of Mission and Ministry Development in the Diocese of Rochester.

My doctoral studies into the many ways of knowing God, through the lens of an experience of disability, have made many insightful, discoveries. As a programme of reflective practice, I have discussed if vulnerability is overemphasised as a framework through which theological debate is undertaken. Whilst a valid trajectory, I have asked if such a position has been too sympathetic in its scope. Instead, I have chosen to pay deliberate attention to how a person is valued and how this value-able framework might reaffirm the inherent dignity that is assured to us by God. Asking “Who is the one we Value?”, I have searched for a route into a deeper understanding of empathy, so that the practice of the church might mirror the value of each person. The writings of Edith Stein – phenomenologist, martyr and saint – have begun to take a central place in such a search. Stein, as with Susanna Wesley, held the value of the human person as a meeting point for practice, which I have found to be a game changer in the development of faith and faith-full education. Thus, based on such reflection, my research has begun to prepare a training programme which recognises and responds to the value in and of, each person as they live their individual, particular and Universal nature, as they seek to know God.

Revd Dave Hill is an Anglican minister working in the Peak District. Having worked with teenagers for over twenty years, his DTh studies are focusing on the greater integration of imagination and embodiment in the faith formation of Anglican youth.

My research aims to explore how engagement with biblical narratives through practical, embodied, and multi-sensory approaches can support the faith development and spiritual formation of individuals with neurodiverse conditions. By incorporating visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities, among other sensory inputs, this study seeks to make Scripture more accessible, meaningful, and inclusive for individuals with diverse cognitive and sensory profiles.

Sally Rush is a Community Worker with Younger Adults at Wesley’s Chapel and Leysian Mission and is also a Methodist Lay Preacher. Her doctoral research focuses on calling and vocation among lay employees of the Methodist Church.

Rachel Summers is a pioneer priest based in a forest in East London. She’s interested in the links between neurodivergence and outdoor worship, and how these wild ones might rewild the church.