Martha Grace Reese, JD, MDiv
Author of Unbinding the Gospel & Real Life Evangelism Series
President, GraceNet, Inc.
Martha
Grace Reese is an ordained pastor who serves as President
of GraceNet,Inc. GraceNet is a not-for-profit
corporation that specializes in research
and the training of gifted clergy in focused,
effective spiritual leadership. She has just completed her directorship of the Mainline Evangelism
Research Project, a national, four-year study of evangelism
funded by the Lilly Endowment. Reese is author of the best-selling Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism (Chalice Press, January, 2007) and the upcoming Real Life Evangelism Series.
Reese has extensive experience as a consultant for church pastors and denominational executives. During the past decade, she has served several hundred of these church leaders in ten mainline American denominations as a congregational consultant, retreat leader and spiritual leadership coach. She has envisioned and given leadership to two major initiatives in pastoral leadership initially funded by the Lilly Endowment (the Bethany Project and the Bethany Fellowships), as well as the Mainline Evangelism Project.
Her ongoing consulting in pastoral leadership and spiritual development are grounded in seven years as senior pastor of a revitalizing congregation, tripling worship attendance in the first three years. She has also served as a middle judicatory minister, a consultant for foundations, on the boards of directors of several not-for-profit corporations, and has had extensive practice and training in centering prayer and Christian spirituality. Before seminary, she was a corporate lawyer.
Reese is a magna cum laude graduate of Indiana University School of Law (JD), Christian Theological Seminary (MDiv), DePauw University and the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad de Madrid (BA, major in Spanish, minors in Economics and Religion), and The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and is married to Cyrus N. White, President and Publisher of Christian Board of Publication. They have two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth.