• Composer Linda Cable Shute is Associate Music Minister at the Catholic Church of St. Ann, a 15,000-member parish in suburban Atlanta. She has previously served as organist-choirmaster in varied denominations throughout the southeast. Her undergraduate degree from the Queens University of Charlotte was in piano performance, with a minor in applied art. She pursued post-graduate composition study with Alice Parker(Westminster Choir College) and Richard Proulx (St. John's University, MN); conducting with faculty at Westminster Choir College and Emory University. Ms. Shute began writing music in 1992. Her first octavo was accepted for publication in 1992 by Augsburg Fortress. She has over 70 published scores - including octavos, hymn tunes, psalter and hymn accompaniments - with Augsburg Fortress, MorningStar, Selah, Abingdon and Kjos. Her works have been performed in Europe as well as in the U.S. She is a member of the American Composers Forum and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. She has been a clinician for Augsburg Fortress music workshops.

• Poet Herb Brokering (aka: The Rev. Dr. Herbert F. Brokering) is a pastor, poet, pilgrimage guide, speaker and staff associate for Wheat Ridge Ministries. A graduate of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, He also studied at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, graduated from Trinity Seminary in Columbus, Ohio and did his graduate work at seven United States and German universities. Brokering has served with the Lutheran World Federation refugee service and directed international work camps in Luebeck, Hamburg and Berlin after World War II.  He has served Lutheran congregations in Pennsylvania, New York and Texas, and is the former Director of Confirmation for the American Lutheran Church.  Brokering also taught at seminaries and at Navy and Air Force Chaplains’ Schools for 23 years. Brokering and Dr. Roland Bainton together have led 40 Renaissance-Reformation festivals and assisted in creating the film “Where Luther Walked.”  Since 1980, he has directed more than 100 pilgrimages to Luther sites and continues to design pilgrimages and Partner Projects promoting healing, justice and peace in Palestine, India, China, Poland, Germany and Slovakia. An author of more than 40 books, Brokering has also written lyrics which have been set to music by more than 50 composers in hundreds of songs, including the classic hymns “Earth and All Stars” and “Thine the Amen.”  He currently writes “Brokering Wheat Ridge,” a resource packet published by Wheat Ridge Ministries. (information from Wheat Ridge press release October 13, 2004).