SPEAKERS & FACILITATORS

Session Speaker
Workshop Facilitator

Steff Fenton is a trans Christian author, speaker, storyteller, and educator based on Wurundjeri Country. Having co-founded and co-pastored a queer inclusive church in Sydney, Steff now facilitate keynotes, workshops, and peer groups for LGBTIQA+ people and allies to engage expansive connections with their faith and spirituality. They are the author of 'Gender Expansive Faith: How Trans Lives Are Illuminating the Divine, Transforming Feminism & Ending Christian Patriarchy'.  Steff is passionate about people finding their own expansive forms of spirituality beyond harmful religious experiences. They're an ENFP, Enneagram 2, wedding celebrant, and soon-to-be parent.

You can find Steff at steffenton.co

Organisation Team
Workshop Facilitator

David is a pastor in the Banyule Network of Uniting Churches, but has spent most of his life working in hospitality. He is a 61 year old bi guy with a love of brutalist architecture and cinnamon rolls. 

Workshop Facilitator

Elga Rodriguez is the Disability and Inclusion Advocate for the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victora and Tasmania. With more than 12 years of experience in advocacy, accessibility, and inclusive community development, she has worked across the not-for-profit sector, local government, and higher edication to advance equity and belonging.

With a background in law and public policy, Elga is a passionate advocate for disability inclusion and accessibility. She is committed to helping create communities where people with disability feel welcomed, valued, and able to participate fully in church and community life.

Organisation Team
Workshop Facilitator

JJ has been leading in all-age faith spaces since she was a kid herself, volunteering with both churches and non-denominational groups, and has found that a contentious place to be queer. She's currently a candidate for ordination in the Uniting Church, and uses her free time to read sci-fi and look at birds. 

Workshop Facilitator

Aaron Kelly spent fifteen years in ministry, eleven of them as a pastor in the Australian Christian Churches. He planted a vibrant and fast growing church here in the City on Banyule. For all those years he preached and pastored inside the very theology that tells queer people they are broken and need to change, and he believed it about himself. That began to unravel when a lesbian couple started attending the church he pastored. Face to face with their faith and their lives, the theology he had always held simply did not hold, and neither, in the end, could the story he had been telling about himself. 

Today Aaron uses that same theological fluency in reverse: not to build the case against queer people, but to take it apart. He is one of the hosts of the Queerfully Made podcast - conversations at the intersection of faith, sexuality and gender. 

Aaron brings a rare vantage point to this conversation, the person who once ran the machinery, now dedicated to dismantling it and helping others find their way out. 

Organisation Team
Workshop Facilitator

Kelly Woods loves creating spaces where people can explore spirituality, identity and belonging with curiosity and honesty. She currently words for the Uniting Church, with a focus on new and digital communities. She is an artist, retreat facilitator, co-founder of Sonderverse, and is a contributor to Edge-Walkers with her chapter on 'Digital'.

Also known as PastoralHare, you can find her across socials and at pastoralhare.com

Workshop Facilitator

Damien Stevens-Todd (he/they) is the LGBTIQ+ Specialist Mental Health Manager and Program Manager at Thorne Harbour Country based in Bendigo, Victoria, working across the Loddon Mallee region with a focus on improving mental health and wellbeing, and Blood Borne Virus and STI prevention, testing and treatment for priority populations, and for over 20 years has worked to improve the lives of LGBTIQA+ people living “in the sticks”.

Damien lives with his husband, Cris, and their 8 year old daughter, Fletcher, in Shepparton, Victoria. Damien is involved in a range of projects, leadership programs and organisations such as OUTintheOPEN Festival and Goulburn Valley Pride in Shepparton, Uniting Network Australia for LGBTIQ+ people, their families, friends and supporters within the Uniting Church in Australia, and many more. 

We have some good bio's coming in...

We have some good bio's coming in...