Father Adam Bucko has been a committed voice in the movement for the renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic movement. He has taught engaged contemplative spirituality in Europe and the United States and has authored Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation and co-authored Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation, and The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living. 

Committed to integration of contemplation and just practice, he co-founded an award-winning non-profit, the Reciprocity Foundation, where he spent 15 years working with homeless youth living on the streets of New York City, providing spiritual care, developing programs to end youth homelessness, and articulating a vision for spiritual mentoring in a post-religious world. He currently serves as a director of The Center for Spiritual Imagination at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, New York, and is a member of “The Community of the Incarnation,” a ‘new monastic’ community dedicated to democratizing the gifts of monastic spirituality and teaching contemplative spirituality, in the context of hearing and responding to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. 

Adam lives in New York with his wife, Kaira Jewel Lingo, a Buddhist teacher and former nun in the community of Thich Nhat Hanh. Together they lead The Buddhist-Christian Community for Meditation and Action.

Minister Pato Banton aka “BrotherFriend” is an internationally renowned Reggae Legend, whose four-decade career has also earned him a Grammy Nomination and a place in the British Music Hall of Fame. Pato also received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his tireless community work and his successful efforts to help reduce gun crime across his hometown of Birmingham, England. His journey has increasingly transcended the music business into arenas of youth outreach, teaching in schools, colleges & prisons, writing new curricula for children with learning disabilities, Music Outreach Workshops around the world for “at risk” young people in disadvantaged communities, and Global Spiritual Ministry. 

In 2018, Pato and his wife Antoinette Rootsdawtah were presented with the “Unity Earth ~ Keepers Of The Flame Award” and later that year they were both appointed as “Goodwill Ambassadors of the Golden Rule” by the United Religions Initiative. In 2019 their Spiritual Family won the “URI Hermes Award” for creative collaboration and communications with other Cooperation Circles around the world and shortly thereafter they were both invited to become official members of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle, a dynamic and visionary project of the Source of Synergy Foundation. Pato’s most recent project is a Movie Documentary entitled The Spirit Of Ubuntu, which is due for release in January 2024. 

Now based in Southern California, Pato continues to record and tour the world extensively, promoting peace and spirituality, while simultaneously serving as a Teacher, Counselor, Mentor & “Minister of the verb”.

Reverend Sylvia Sumter is currently the Senior Minister of Unity of Washington, DC, and has served in this position since 1991. Prior to her tenure in Washington, DC, she served as the Chairperson of Communication Studies and Skills Department for Unity School for Religious Studies, in Unity Village. 

She is a gifted spiritual teacher whose work has had an extraordinary effect on so many around the world. She is committed to the transformation, awakening, and upliftment of humanity through helping individuals raise their consciousness and take their rightful place as light bearers and divine expressions. 

Rev. Sumter is the founder of Stand Up For Humanity, a movement dedicated to promoting and supporting a world that works for all. Its mission is to create a global effort to encourage everyone to take a stand for all people in whatever way fosters a positive contribution from the simple to the sublime. 

She is a contributing author in Our Moment of Choice – Evolutionary Visions and Hope for the Future; Meditation – Intimate Experiences with the Divine through Contemplative Practices; Sacred Secrets – Finding Your Way to Joy, Peace and Prosperity. She was initiated as a Oneness Meditator through the Oneness University outside Chennai India. She was the recipient of the illustrious New Thought Walden Award under the category of New Thought Wisdom. She has served on the national Boards of Trustees for Unity Worldwide Headquarters and Unity Worldwide Ministries. She is committed to her lifelong mission of spiritual enlightenment.