Meet Our FMN Hosts!
Faith Matters Network is thrilled to invite some of the best on stage to host our anniversary weekend celebration, Transforming Faith: Celebrating the Power of Rooted Wisdom happening August 16th & 17th in Nashville, TN. It will be an exciting weekend honoring some incredible women leaders and trailblazers at our weekend event and celebrating a decade of impact as a womanist-led organization working towards healing justice. Read the bios of our hosts below and the inspiring work they do in the world. There is still time to get your tickets for our upcoming anniversary celebration– we hope you’ll join us!
Dawn-Lyen Gardner
Actress, Queen Sugar
Saturday, August 17th | Gala & Wisdom Keeper Awards
Dawn-Lyen Gardner has left an indelible mark on viewers as Charley Bordelon in the critically-acclaimed QUEEN SUGAR. Gardner, who Andrew Cristi of HUFFINGTON POST noted had “swiftly become” … “one of the hottest stars on television,” led the cast as the unforgettable Charley Bordelon, for which she received an NAACP Image Award nomination in 2022.
A graduate of the Juilliard School and an accomplished actor on stage and screen, Gardner’s creative work has long intersected with her advocacy, ranging from racial justice and immigrant rights to gender equity and climate change. She became an official ambassador for Women for Women International in 2018; and in 2020, she founded BELONG, an election support campaign and public conversation about belonging and political engagement. Currently, she is honored to serve on the advisory board for HARNESS, a culture and narrative change collective founded in response to the 2016 election by America Ferrera, Ryan Piers Williams and Wilmer Valderrama — and where she first met FMN’s own Rev Jen Bailey.
Chelsea Yarborough
Leadership Coach & Associate Director, The Association of Theological Schools
Friday, August 16th | Womanist Wisdom Live
Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough (she/her) is a friend, daughter, sister, professor, preacher, wonderer, ordained minister, poet, scholar, Enneagram teacher and leadership coach. She is a graduate of Elon University (B.A. ‘08), Wake Forest University (M.Div ‘15) and Vanderbilt University (PhD ‘21). Her research reimagines preaching and worship by exploring the methodologies that emerge from the rhetorical and ritual practices of Black women throughout history.
Chelsea is currently the Associate Director of Leadership Programming at The Association of Theological Schools. Her deepest hope is that anywhere she goes, her work guides others to reconnect with themselves through love and creativity, empowering them to share their unique spark with the world.
Melanie Jones-Quarles
Womanist Ethicist & Director, Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership
Friday, August 16th | Womanist Wisdom Live, “The Group Chat” Session
The Reverend Melanie Jones Quarles, Ph.D. is a womanist ethicist, millennial preacher, and intellectual activist. Melanie is an Assistant Professor of Ethics, Theology, and Culture and the Inaugural Director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary. She is a thinking woman of faith embodying radical love and revolutionary justice in the academy, Church, and global community. Melanie earned a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Howard University, a Master of Divinity with a certificate in Black Church Studies from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Ethics, Theology, and Culture with a concentration in Black Faith & Life at Chicago Theological Seminary. Her research engages womanist theological ethics and sacred texts, millennials and faith, Black aesthetics, and digital techno cultures. Melanie is an emerging millennial voice with noted academic and popular publications and features on television, radio, and news outlets. Follow Melanie at www.revmelanie.com and @phdbound on social media.
