The Threads That Hold Us Facilitators
Rev. Dr. Melissa Stewart
Rev. Dr. Melissa Stewart is an Interfaith/Interspiritual educator, facilitator, and psychotherapist. Melissa has over 30 years of experience as an oncology social worker at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and nearly 20 years ordained in ministry. Melissa approaches life experiences as sacred opportunities for growth, healing, and transformation, and is committed to affirming and anti-oppressive practice in all of her endeavors. Melissa embraces an Interspiritual sensibility that honors ancient and emerging threads of spiritual experience and practice. She engages in deeply related interpersonal connections, rooted in care and presence. It is a profound sense of interconnection that fuels Melissa's desire to build and strengthen spiritually grounded networks, which led to co-founding The Thread Interfaith Seminary in July 2025, where she continues to serve as Spiritual Director. Melissa lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her wife.
Rev. Kevin Kubota
Rev. Kev is an Interfaith/Interspiritual minister ordained by The Thread Interfaith Seminary. He has also pursued ministerial studies under Unity Worldwide Ministries and One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. He has a professional background as a photographer and photography educator and received the Monte Zucker Humanitarian Award for charitable service.
Kevin has led small groups on Spiritual Adventure Travel tours all over the world since 2015. He has served Unity Spiritual Community of Central Oregon as a volunteer since 2015, and is currently serving as Technical advisor and assisting on program facilitation at The Thread Interfaith Seminary. Kevin pursues collaboration and compassionate curiosity, basking in the common ground connecting all our rich faith traditions.
Rev. Nathan Brisby
Nathan Brisby, MBA, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, GC-C, PGRS-C, CMMT, is an ordained Interfaith/Interspiritual minister, educator, and organizational leader whose work centers on human connection, belonging, and transformation. He is a co-founder of The Thread Interfaith Seminary and previously served as Education Director at One Spirit Learning Alliance. His spiritual work reflects a deep commitment to interfaith understanding, contemplative practice, and creating spaces where people can explore life’s most meaningful questions across differences in belief and experience. Professionally, he serves as a senior leader at LEAP, a New York City nonprofit dedicated to empowering young people through arts education, and has held executive leadership roles as Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief People Officer across the nonprofit, education, and private sectors. He is also the founder of Broadway Gives Back, an initiative that brings together the Broadway community in support of charitable causes.
Nathan brings together spiritual education, organizational leadership, and contemplative practice with a curiosity about how relationships, creativity, and encounters across difference can open new possibilities for personal and collective growth. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his husband, Stephen, their son, Dean, and their three dogs; his experiences as a husband, father, and adoptive parent continue to deepen his understanding of belonging, love, and the responsibilities we hold toward one another.
Rev. Mary Kay Tobin
Rev. Mary Kay Tobin MD is a graduate of One Spirit Interfaith Seminary (2022) and its Interspiritual Companioning and Counseling (ISCC) program (2025). She is also a member of the Ethics Circle of The Thread. Rev. Mary Kay is a facilitator and lecturer currently committed to fostering a transparent and loving community supporting a seminary and affiliate community at The Thread.
Rev. Bronwen Merle
Rev. Bronwen Merle is a disabled elder who lives in the Unceded Coast Salish Territories (B.C. Canada). She is a graduate of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, England. An avid environmentalist, she trained as an Al Gore Climate Reality Leader and is the co-founder of The Climate Aid Arts Brigade (CAAB); she also studied at The Women’s Theological Institute. She began her ordination journey with One Spirit Interfaith/Interspiritual Seminary and completed her ordination in 2026 with The Thread Interfaith/Interspiritual Seminary. She has been active in Restorative Justice, Truth and Reconciliation Circles, Seasonal Circles, ceremony leadership. A poet and writer, Rev. Bronwen’s creative and educational endeavors are guided by mysticism, prayer, social justice, Nature, and philosophy.
Rev. Kirstin Hanson
Rev. Kirstin Hanson is a spiritual leader, corporate chaplain, executive advisor, and speaker whose work bridges three decades of executive leadership with fifteen years of guiding others in spiritual formation. A near-death experience brought her face to face with the Light and a calling to help create heaven on earth. An ordained graduate of The Thread Interfaith Seminary, Kirstin cultivates spaces where individuals reclaim what is intrinsically theirs: their dignity, wisdom, strength, and unique gifts. Within these spaces, they cultivate the courage and discernment to meet a complex and changing world. Believing that inner transformation is inseparable from our collective becoming, Kirstin creates the conditions where wisdom reveals our capacity for compassionate action, empowering individuals to bring their unique gifts into service and create lasting impact in a more harmonious, peaceful, and loving world.
Rev. Jackie Boyden
Rev. Jackie Boyden is a 2022 graduate of One Spirit Seminary and a member of the Spiritual Care Team at The Thread Interfaith Seminary. Professionally, her background in ethics includes serving as the Vice President for Ethics and Integrity at a large healthcare company in North Carolina; she was a lawyer for many years in the health care field and has served as an adjunct faculty member at Duke University, NC State University, and Grand Valley State University, teaching constitutional and administrative law for government and nonprofit employees in the Master of Public Administration program. Raised in a midwestern conservative Christian church, Jackie moved away from institutionalized denominational religion and found her home in Interspiritual/Interfaith spirituality, where her spirituality continues to grow through relationships with deeply loving and interesting people and many different streams of wisdom and faith.
Rev. Sera Nolan
Rev. Sera Nolan is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Interfaith/Interspiritual minister ordained at The Thread Interfaith Seminary, and Reiki Master Teacher. For more than twelve years, she has specialized in trauma work, accompanying individuals through complicated seasons including crisis and loss. Her clinical work has included providing support services to some of the most underserved peoples in the United States, including Native American communities, incarcerated individuals, and our nation’s Veterans. Rev. Sera’s ministry is a combination of psychotherapy, spiritual companioning, and holistic healing in her emerging offering, Rooted Well Rising. She lives in New Mexico and enjoys connecting with nature and listening to music.
Rev. Dr. Sam Stebbins
Rev. Dr. Sam Stebbins is a death doula, Interfaith/Interspiritual minister, grief educator, retired family physician, death cafe host, and Reiki practitioner helping individuals, families, and groups meet life’s most challenging moments with grace, strength, and love.
Rev. Karin Parramore
Reverend Asherah (Karin) Parramore has been a student of myriad spiritual paths for over 45 years. Each path has contributed a thread to the tapestry that is her deep connection to Spirit. In 2011 Rev. Asherah took hand in the Mevlevi Sufi order in Konya, Turkey, near the tomb of Rumi, founder of the Mevlevi tradition. Sufism and Sufi principles still guide her approach to living a spiritual life. After working as a hospice volunteer, No One Dies Alone (NODA) volunteer, and death doula, Reverend Asherah started hearing from those who had left physical form, and has been an active spirit communicator ever since. Karin finished seminary and was ordained as Reverend Asherah in 2025. She hold a Master's degree in Classical Chinese Medicine, and is currently working on her doctoral dissertation, which focuses on psychic phenomena in light of current theories of consciousness.
Rev. Sonia Fernández LeBlanc
Rev. Sonia Fernández LeBlanc, M.Ed, is an Interfaith/Interspiritual minister, medicinal storyteller, teacher, author, magical realist, and a scholar of inter-sovereignty, ancient futuring, and sacred imagination. She creates, facilitates, and leads rituals, ceremonies, and community experiences that tap into the medicine of our interwoven stories through creative and contemplative practices rooted in a balance of political, spiritual, and creative homemaking from the lens of liberation.
Rev. Michelle VanEyck
Rev. Michelle VanEyck is a recent graduate of The Thread Interfaith Seminary and an Interfaith/Interspiritual minister who feels deeply called to offer heart-centered spiritual companionship rooted in compassion, presence, and love. She brings a heart-centered presence shaped by her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Minor in Special Education, and more than six years of metaphysical study, weaving together psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, and soulful reflection in service of healing, growth, and deeper self-awareness. Certified in Spiritual Direction/Companion work through Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute, she draws on reflective listening, guided meditation, and contemplative practices to create a loving, grounded, non-judgmental space rooted in self-acceptance and unconditional love. Having co-facilitated group Spiritual Direction sessions at her previous Spiritual Center, she looks forward to continuing this meaningful work in whatever capacity she is led.
Rev. Grace (Kay) Stewart
Grace Stewart grew up in Cleveland, Ohio but has lived in North Carolina the last 53 years. She is a married mother of three and grandmother of three teenagers. She has been a 6th grade teacher, accountant, financial adviser, stockbroker and realtor. In parallel with these career pursuits, she has explored and synthesized learnings from a variety of spiritual paths and teachings. Although raised Presbyterian, she has explored fundamental Christianity, prison, youth ministry and mission work, A Course in Miracles, Energy healing modalities, the indigenous Red Path (she is an honorary Lakota Sioux), east Indian mysticism (Meher Baba), the Way of Mastery, heart coherence, Hawaiian spirituality, dream yoga, Nine Gates Mystery School and Esoteric School, the sound sciences of Tom Kenyon and the Monroe Institute, and near death experiencer studies. A recent graduate of the Thread interspiritual seminary, she hosts a monthly Attitudinal Healing circle and continues her involvement and facilitation in an Art of Conscious Aging Women's group and an ARE (Edgar Cayce) study group.