Team | Friends Incubator for Public Ministry

Roles and Elders

Meet our convener and advisory board

Convener for the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry Project

Windy Cooler (She/Her)

Windy is more passionate about public ministry among Friends than anyone I know. This passion is not idealistic; it comes from a deep sense of calling and commitment that has endured many challenges. Her combination of prophetic spirit and thorough research is a gift to the Society of Friends. I enjoyed collaborating with Windy on a series about public ministry. Her invitation to co-facilitate the series encouraged me to dive more deeply into the common challenges and opportunities between programmed and unprogrammed Friends. Many people will benefit from her continued research, resource-creation, nurture, and ministry incubation.
-- Andy Stanton-Henry, Quaker Leadership Center

As someone who has served Quaker organizations in staff roles, while also carrying a ministry among Friends, the support Windy offers is both clarifying and deeply caring. She is a gifted listener who has offered me a place to reflect on possible models for serving Friends when my ministry doesn’t “fit neatly” into some of the ways we view public ministry. There are so many intersections (of people, ideas, groups) in our Quaker world, and in many of them we find the question of balancing tradition and innovation. A public ministry incubator would create, with intention, a container to hold the kind of support and resources that nurture Friends who are seeking to follow leadings and serve in ministry. A “container” does not need to be solid or constrictive, but helps to give a shape to what it holds; many of my conversations with Windy have explored the porous possibilities for shaping ministry that is both listening for Spirit and moving in ways needed today.
-- Melinda Wenner Bradley, Faith & Play Stories

Windy is a long-time Quaker public minister with an embraced ministry of right relationship. In her 2019 minute of embrace by Sandy Spring the meeting says that “Windy brings the gifts of love, energy, experience, relationship building, moral courage, introspection, hearing, communicating and administering to this work.” And in 2024 the meeting affirmed in a general travel minute that “Windy’s ministry with Friends is part of a larger call to right relationship in the world, a call that is provided by and informed by the Spirit” and that “We trust that you will experience Windy’s gifts of love, wisdom, moral courage and relationship building as you engage with Windy.”

Windy has traveled, researched, written, taught and eldered full-time in the ministry since 2018 after being called to ministry in 2013. Much of her ministry work has been in discernment practices for times of community crisis; she is the co-author of the Coming Together for Continuing Revelation discernment practice which has been productively used in both America and Europe since 2021. She is the past convener of the Life and Power: Quaker Discernment on Abuse project.

She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Earlham School of Religion and a recent Doctor of Ministry degree from Lancaster Theological Seminary -- earned, in part, through her completion of research into public ministry practices amongst Friends entitled The War For and Against Quakers: Right Relationship and Public Ministry in the Religious Society of Friends.

This summer Windy is traveling to ten yearly meetings in the United States carrying a workshop and message on how meetings can fully embrace the ministry of all. She is currently co-authoring a book for a general audience on what the church can learn from the strength and testimony of Quaker public ministry, tentatively scheduled for publication in 2027.

Advisory Board Members for The Friends Incubator for Public Ministry Project (2025-26)

Layla Cuthrell (She/Her)

Layla Cuthrell is an animator and filmmaker leading the QuakerSpeak project at Friends Publishing Inc. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a BA in fine arts.

Jay Marshall (He/His)

Jay Marshall is a life-long Friend with a variety of ministry gifts and experiences. Recorded in North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), he served in pastoral ministry for several years and is dean emeritus of Earlham School of Religion. Jay is author of several books, including Vitality Among Friends, Thanking and Blessing: A Spirituality of Gratefulness, When the Spirit Calls, and Spice Up Your Life: Reflections on the Testimonies (forthcoming). He blogs occasionally at jaymarshallonline.com.

George Peachey (He/His)

George Peachey is a pianist by profession and has been active in the music scene of the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area for over 40 years, playing a wide variety of music including opera and other vocal music, chamber music, and piano solo. He has been involved with Sandy Spring Friends Meeting since 2010 in a variety of capacities, most recently serving on the Finance Committee.

Riley Robinson (He/His)

Riley Robinson is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington (DC). He has served on the FCNL Central Committee, on the national board of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and as Clerk of the Executive Committee of AFSC’s Middle Atlantic Region. He has also served on the board of Friends United Meeting and on the Friends General Conference Central Committee.

Riley is currently employed at FCNL. Previously, he served as Administrative Secretary at Friends Meeting of Washington and as General Secretary of Baltimore Yearly Meeting.

He recalls with respect a Friend who noted that many Friends organizations must fulfill the multiple roles of worshiping community, historic institution, and nonprofit corporation. Some could name more.

For nurture, Riley regularly attends Quaker events such as Friends General Conference Gatherings and the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology.

Michael Sherman (He/His)

Michael Sherman is the Friends United Meeting (FUM) Coordinator for North American and Caribbean Ministries. He has served as the Program Director at Quaker Haven Camp and pastor of Raysville Friends and Muncie Friends Churches in Indiana. He has a degree in Organizational Leadership and Supervision from Purdue University and an MDiv from Earlham School of Religion. Michael is married to Kristen.

nova sturrup (All Pronouns)

nova sturrup is a whimsical wonderer interested in worship and the ways faith informs imaginings and realities regarding community, belonging, and inclusion. nova’s eyes light up in conversation about technology for radical inclusion in spiritual spaces, liberation theologies, Black literature as sacred text, and art-making as everyday ritual and spiritual practice.

nova is the creator and facilitator of the Black Femme Bible Study, a sacred text workshop series rooted in the Truth of the Black American experience as theologically and spiritually significant. nova currently serves the Religious Society of Friends as the Community Organizer of the New York Quarterly Meeting and is a member of Brooklyn Meeting. nova finds spiritual belonging in many places, but you can mostly catch them worshipping with Brooklyn's 9am online Worship Group.

Della Stanley-Green (She/Her)

Della Stanley-Green is co-director of the Quaker Leadership Center (QLC), a ministry of Earlham School of Religion that innovatively provides Quaker Meeting leaders with the opportunity to increase their capacity for adaptive leadership in this time of disruptive change.

She is a Recorded Minister in Western Yearly Meeting and a trained spiritual director. She served as the leader of the Interim Co-Superintendent Team for Western Yearly Meeting (western and southern Indiana and eastern IL) from 2019–22. Della also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the MBAOnline@UDayton program teaching “Non-Profit Management.” She previously served in ministry with Christian Theological Seminary, Indiana Network for Higher Education Ministries, and Friends United Meeting, as well as a previous time serving Western Yearly Meeting as Associate Superintendent.

Della is a graduate of Earlham School of Religion with a Master of Ministry and of San Francisco Theological Seminary with a Graduate Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction. She has chosen to serve on the board out of faithfulness to her call to help Friends grapple with the necessity of putting our lights on the lampstand.

Rachael Swancott (She/Her)

Rachael Swancott is Woodbrooke's Head of Community and Engagement. She has a particular interest in working with Friends to be an anti-racist faith group and in inclusivity and diversity in our communities in general. She is a life-long Friend who is passionate about nurturing our meetings and building strong, lasting communities for Friends to thrive together.

Rachael lives in Staffordshire, UK, with her wife Nicola.

Kathleen Wooten (She/Her)

Kathleen Wooten is a member of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends who has traveled extensively in gospel ministry. She is a lifelong New Englander with a background in public education and community arts development.

Kathleen believes in naming and supporting all the varied gifts and talents that allow us to grow in healthy communities.

She holds a B.Mus in Clarinet/Music Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an M.A. in Critical and Creative Thinking with a focus on organizational change from the University of Massachusetts Boston. After a first career in music education in the public schools, Kathleen now supports faith organizations and non-profits in their digital communication strategies, including the Friends United Meeting and American Friends Service Committee–NH Program.

Kathleen is spouse to David and mom to college student Maille. She also enjoys playing the clarinet, attending local hockey games, and fostering a rather large herd of guinea pigs for local rescue organizations.