Charles Fulton has been a national consultant on issues of congregational health and development for over a decade.  He developed an application of the theory of congregational life cycle to help congregations plan appropriate ministries for today and plan for their future.  His use of humor and irreverent style encourages truth telling and has earned him the reputation of the James Carville of the Episcopal Church.  He also developed a process for group decision making that minimizes conflict.  He leads the popular training event Start Up!Start Over! Congregational Development Seminar and co-chairs an ecumenical network of church growth leaders. 

In 2001 Charles Fulton was appointed the Director of Congregational Development for the Episcopal Church.  He supervises the work of the offices of Stewardship, Small and New Church Development, and Research.  He was also appointed by the Presiding Bishop to coordinate the national churches’ response to the 2020 Resolution to double the membership of the Episcopal Church by the year 2020.

Charles continues to serve as the President of the Episcopal Church Building Fund, an agency that since 1880 has fulfilled the mission to “Help Build the Church, and Helping the Church to Build”.  Prior to coming to the ECBF he was trained in architecture and served for 15 years as rector of a pastoral size congregation that he doubled to a program congregation.  He was called to the ECBF in 1987, assuming the role of President in 1990.  Charles created a planning process for congregations engaged in building projects, authoring   A Congregational Planning Process.  He formulated an understanding of how buildings can be tools for evangelism and created a provocative analysis of the ways we gather people for work and worship in the church.  To address these topics he authored The Church for Common Prayer, A Statement on Worship Space for the Episcopal Church and was the Associate Producer of the video “Churches for Common Prayer”.  He has designed the liturgical space at two General Conventions.

Mary B. May spent 22 years as a professor of English and Linguistics at several major universities.  During that time her skill at creating powerful classroom experiences in which students thrived intellectually and personally earned her many awards and recognitions as a master teach.

In the early 1980’s May’s interest in psycholinguistics and semiotics led her to shift her attention to cognitive theory and its application to all aspects of daily life.  In 1989 she left university teach and established her own consulting firm that specialized in cognitive process and professional development.  She researched and author two books on cognition, Metacognitive: Thinking About Thinking, and The Cognitive Cycle: A New Model for Choice and Change.

May believes we are in an age of major spiritual growth that calls us to become more conscious, aware, and responsible.  She continues to research and write about how understanding the way in which we take in and process information gives us the tools needed for personal and professional transformation.