The current UniteBoston team is a tight-knit group of people that is committed to one another and to joining God in His work in this city. If you believe in Christian unity and want to be a part of a community that is working to make the unity we share in Christ visible, please prayerfully consider joining our team!
We are the volunteers who work hard to accomplish the mission of UniteBoston.
If you are interested in joining our team, click here to learn how you can Help UB!
Also, click here to view the UniteBoston Worship Team
UniteBoston Staff
Rev. Kelly Fassett
What is her role for UniteBoston?
She is the Team Leader (Executive Director) for UniteBoston.
How did she get involved with UniteBoston?
She was visiting different churches and noticed the disconnectedness between different Christian groups. There were so many amazing events taking place and yet no one knew what else was happening; people were not connected to the events that best matched their interests and passions. She felt the need to create an infrastructure for communication which would use today’s technology to connect the Christian community in new ways. She and Mike Lloyd initiated the UniteBoston weekly email newsletter in the fall of 2011, which was the beginning of UniteBoston.
What does she like most about UniteBoston?
Kelly loves visiting Christian pastors and leaders throughout the city, learning what they do and the beauty of God’s work within each individual Christian community. She considers it a joy to understand how God is working corporately throughout the city, to see the function and purpose of each part of the body of Christ coming together as one.
About Rev. Kelly:
Kelly has served as the Executive Director for UniteBoston since 2012 and has been the catalyst for UniteBoston’s bridge-building work throughout Christians in the region. She has a certificate in Christian Foundations from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She also graduated with her Masters of Divinity in Global and Community Engagement at Boston University in 2019, with certificates in Religion and Conflict Transformation as well as International Mission and Ecumenism. She has also worked as a consultant to organize the New England City Forum and has spoken at conferences around concepts related to evangelism, mission, Christian unity, and conflict transformation. Kelly and her husband Andrew are both ordained ministers with the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts and live in an intentional Christian community in the Dorchester area. They have two daughters named Abigail and Elyse enjoy spending time outdoors.
Rev. Devlin Scott
What is his role for UniteBoston?
UniteBoston Communications Administrator
How did he get involved with UniteBoston?
Devlin was first introduced to UniteBoston while following one of our summer worship nights at Boston Common. As a community leader and pastor in Newton, He wanted to connect to organizations to expand the church’s network and strengthen its influence in their city. Wanting to get more involved with UniteBoston, Devlin reached out to our Executive Director, Rev. Kelly Fassett.
What does he like most about UniteBoston?
Devlin loves that there seems to be a shared calling to advance the Kingdom of God in the Boston area. The diversity of Boston and its Christian population is a gift to the church. He is excited to join the heart of Christian Unity that UniteBoston radiates.
About Rev. Devlin:
Devlin Scott is a relationship leader dedicated to Christianity, committed to diversity and inclusion and passionate about people. As a cultural driver, he seeks to be active in the significant cultural conversations of our day. As a justice seeker, he speaks to the injustices in our society through charitable dialogue and courageous action. As a Gospel Bearer, he seeks to exegete the social climate to find the relevant point to apply the message of hope. Devlin has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Trinity International University, a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Midwest Theological Seminary, Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Master of Arts in Bioethics from Trinity Graduate School. Devlin serves as Senior Pastor of NewCity Church, a church plant in Newton, MA. He owes all he does to the unending support of his wife Katie, two sons; Iain (7) and Aldin (4) and their two “fur-babies” Coach (Boston Terrier, 9) and Louis (Mountain Cur, 8). You can watch a video that Devlin created to introduce himself to our community here!
UniteBoston Consultants
Varnel Antoine
What is his role for UniteBoston?
He is the Director of Finance / Accountant for UniteBoston. He is also on the UniteBoston Board of Directors.
What does he like most about UniteBoston?
Varnel resonates with UB’s mission of bridge-building and connecting Christians from diverse backgrounds. He believes that, “by unity and faith we can move mountains.”
About Varnel:
Varnel is an ordained minister of the Gospel and a member of Grace Chapel. He has been married to his wife Berthonia since August of 1992 and he is a proud father to three young adult children. He has over twenty-five years of experience serving For-Profit and Not-For-Profit entities with financial needs, including accounting and taxation. He has also served as a board member within various philanthropic organizations, and he is proud of his service in missionary organizations for over thirty-five years here in the U.S and abroad.
Bob Stains
What is his role for UniteBoston?
Bob is consulting with UniteBoston on “kingdom conversations,” which is a structured conversation model to help churches, individual Christians and communities to engage in conversations across deep divides with greater courage, equity, healing, and fruitfulness.
About Bob:
Bob has been equipping clergy and lay leaders with the skill-sets and mind-sets of Reflective Structured Dialogue for the past 26 years in the US, Europe and Asia, having trained more than 30,000 people worldwide. His workshops are highly rated by participants in both religious and secular settings and he continues to see their learning bear fruit in their communities of faith over many years. Bob has taught dialogue to ministers in training at Boston University and Harvard Divinity School and consulted to the Harvard Negotiation Project for 15 years. He also brings 10 years of conversation design and facilitation work with the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bob is also a Visiting Researcher at the Boston University School of Theology Tom Porter Program on Religion and Conflict Transformation. Bob has worked with many Christian and Jewish communities, small and large throughout his career as a consulting family therapist and as a dialogue practitioner. He lives in Danvers and is a member of All Saints Episcopal Church of the North Shore.
Shelton Oakley-Hersey
What is her
role for UniteBoston?
Shelton is consulting with UniteBoston on “kingdom conversations,” which is a structured conversation model to help churches, individual Christians and communities to engage in conversations across deep divides with greater courage, equity, healing, and fruitfulness.
About Shelton:
Shelton has sought out, participated, and facilitated spaces working toward holistic development of people and systems over the past decade. She has experience in diverse contexts, from low income neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Fuller Theological Seminary, where Shelton obtained a Masters in Intercultural Studies, to South Africa townships, and the multi-ethnic church of America. She also serves as a Spiritual Director with Nuos Formation, companioning churches, businesses, non-profits, and individuals in various ways to help them experience greater intimacy with God and to live out of their values and into their fullest and healthiest potential. This includes designing and facilitating conversation and training spaces called Kingdom Conversations, for which the fruit of the Spirit provide a structured and guided way of engaging healthily, equitably, and fruitfully in harder conversations. Shelton lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband Scott and two children.
UniteBoston Volunteer Profiles
UniteBoston Dinner Coordinators connect church and community. They help nurture relational connections with Christians across boundaries within a specific geographic community to learn about what God is doing within a neighborhood and discern how churches and ministries can collaborate together to further God’s work.
We would love to meet you to hear about what God is doing in your midst and connect you with others who are engaged in similar work!
To connect with your local UB Rep, email Kelly at kelly@uniteboston.com
Kiki Densamo
Home Church:
Hope Fellowship Church
UB Neighborhood Focus:
Cambridge
Why Kiki enjoys serving with UB:
“I love the mission and idea of connecting people, the sharing of resources and events in the Christian community. I have always seen myself as a connector. I believe by joining others like me through UniteBoston we can make a bigger impact while supporting each other. I am excited to step out and meet different people and learning from one another.”
About Kiki:
Kiki is a public health professional who lives and works in the Boston area. Her goal in life is to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing with the right people. In short, she wants to love people by living out the purpose God has set out before her and finish the race well.
Anne Freeman
UB Role:
UB School of Prayer Coordinator
Home Church
River of Life Church (Jamaica Plain)
UB Neighborhood Focus:
Rosindale
Why Anne enjoys serving with UB:
The vision and mission of UB is right up my alley! I can say a hearty AMEN! to the goals of this ministry and long to see Jesus’ prayer answered that His church will be one. I also love to cook and host people at my home!”
About Anne:
Anne Freeman is married with a teenage daughter. She is a member at River of Life Church in Jamaica Plain, where she serves as prayer coordinator. She is an ordained deaconess with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and serves as Coordinator of New England Deaf & Hard of Hearing Ministry, under the umbrella of the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts (TABCOM). Anne works as a free lance ASL interpreter in the Boston area and loves to host people for dinner!
Sally Jackson
Home Church
Church of the Cross
UB Neighborhood Focus
West Roxbury
Why Sally enjoys serving with UB:
“Gathering and connecting people is what comes most naturally to me! Throw in a dinner party and people coming together to talk about God’s work in the world; there are few other places I’d rather be.”
About Sally:
Sally works in higher education student services and called Chicago, Virginia, and Prague “home” before setting down roots in Boston. When she’s not working, you can find her biking around Boston, exploring outside, cooking up a storm, and finding creative ways to bring people together around the table.
Rebekah Kerstetter
Home Church
HighRock Church in Arlington
UB Neighborhood Focus:
Medford
What Rebekah enjoys about UB:
“In UniteBoston, there are so many open and friendly people all seeking to love God and others.”
About Rebekah:
Rebekah is a wife and mother of three in Massachusetts since 2017, and before that, in five other states. She loves dancing, helping people with parenting or marriage questions and relaxing with her family by playing Settlers of Catan and playing other games or watching movies.
Abel Caitlin Addleman
UB Role:
Newsletter Volunteer
Home Church:
Grantham Brethren in Christ
Why Abel enjoys serving with UB:
“I don’t think one person, with our limited perspectives, can ever fully understand God. In a diverse world, it seems to me like being united and learning through our differences in opinion is the best way to at least get closer to an understanding of who God is.”
About Abel:
Abel is a second-year M.Div. student at Boston University School of Theology, planning to pursue work in the church. Abel also works as a debate coach, does embroidery and is an avid fan of fantasy literature!
Cleopatra Muhammad
Home Church:
Mars Hill Fellowship
UB Neighborhood Focus:
Dorchester
Why Cleo enjoys serving with UB:
“I enjoy meeting different people, being a part of a network, and experiencing God at different events.”
About Cleo:
“Put simply, I am from Massachusetts and love the Lord Jesus. I currently reside in Dorchester.”
Pastor Stephen and Rebekah Nyakairu
Home Church:
Grace Chapel – Watertown
UB Neighborhood Focus:
Watertown
Why Stephen and Rebekah enjoys serving with UB:
“We love seeing Christians unite together to be shining light in our world.”
About Stephen and Rebekah:
Stephen is the campus pastor at Grace Chapel Watertown and Rebekah teaches second grade at Park Street School in Boston. They love spending time with their young girls Grace and Emma.
UB Board of Directors
Pastor Kika Ghobrial
Ministry Roles:
Pastor at Lighthouse Church Boston. Host at Social Media Revivalists Show
Why Kika enjoys serving with UB:
“UB brings together Christians in a way that I’m sure makes God think, ‘I like that!’ I’m grateful to have been able to serve alongside UB for the last few years at the worship nights and I’ve had both a behind-the-scenes as well as an upfront opportunity to see how UB is a huge blessing to the city of Boston. I’m praying that we can continue to encourage Christians of all ages and backgrounds to transform the city of Boston by being united as the hands and feet of Jesus.”
About Pastor Kika:
Kika was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt and in 2003, he moved with his family to the Boston area where he has been ever since. He has been highly involved at the Arabic Evangelical Baptist Church since moving to Boston (where his dad is the senior pastor) and has since launched Lighthouse Church, which is the English-speaking daughter church of AEBC in West Roxbury. He is married to Rachel whom he met at Gordon College as a student and he will be graduating from Gordon Conwell with an M.Div in December 2021.
Pastor Melinda 
Priest
Ministry Roles:
Lead Planting Pastor of Awaken City Church, Global Cities Network Lead Team Member, New England Network Leader for The Wesleyan Church, Local Director of Immigration Connection Site in Boston, and Church Planting Fundraising Coach
Why Melinda enjoys serving with UB:
“I truly believe that we are better together! If the Kingdom of heaven is going to come to earth, each of us need to be willing to join with our brothers and sisters in Christ and celebrate what unites us instead of focusing on what divides us. If the world ever needed to know about the transforming love of Jesus, it is now. What better way to show His love than by the way we love and serve one another and our community.”
About Pastor Melinda:
Pastor Melinda grew up in the Chicago area and has served in a variety of pastoral roles in Virginia, Indiana, and Michigan over the last 20 years. She is an ordained Pastor in The Wesleyan Church, with degrees in Music Ed/ Vocal Performance, and Divinity. She is a certified health coach, as well as a Church Planting/Ministry Resident Coach. A mother of two boys, she lives in Jamaica Plain and is married to a wonderful husband named Jason.
Pastor Robin Lutjohann
Ministry Roles:
“I am glad to serve as pastor to a quirky and lovely little church in Cambridge: Faith Lutheran Church. It’s a community full of grace, which I believe is desperately needed in an often grace-starved world. It’s also a church that somehow its able to hold a variety of theological perspectives, age groups, and ideological commitments in one body. To be sure, we are very flawed, but we mostly know it too. And from that self-awareness, we can appreciate God’s lavish kindness and pass it on to others.”
Why Robin enjoys serving with UB:
“I am impressed by UB’s ability to bring very different followers of Jesus together. In fact, our church has already benefited from this in a number of ways. I believe in the unity of the church, not just as an aspiration, but as a present reality. In my own Lutheran tradition, we have a somewhat minimalist conception of what “church” means. Wherever the Gospel is proclaimed and people gather to share the sacraments — there is the church of Christ. So, I see UniteBoston simply manifesting what is already true about the Body of Christ. Our unity is not something to achieved — it’s something to be lived! And I want to be a part of that.”
About Robin:
“I am a native of Berlin, Germany. I came to this continent for college and stayed because I fell in love with my wife Heather and with the city of Boston. I am a proud Allstonian and can be found cycling manically to and fro various coffee shops, bars, churches, and museums. I grew up unchurched in a loving family of musicians, bartenders, poets, hippies, and trouble-makers. When I was in college, Jesus decided to blindside me with the full heft of the Gospel and plunk me into an ecumenical community of Christian students. My best friends were the daughter of a Pentecostal missionary, a Catholic woman with a conflicted call to the priesthood, a environmentalist who had recently converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, and an aspiring Jesuit brother. Through many conversations and countless long nights of reading and praying, I ended up in the Lutheran church (ELCA). I was baptized in the Charles River, not far from one of the boathouses in Cambridge. Ever since, God has been throwing me into the wonderful company of the saints, and I am beyond grateful. After some time of study at Harvard’s Divinity School and a brief stint of appeasing the needs of a Lutheran education in the Midwest, I have found myself right back where it all started, and I couldn’t be more excited.”
Deacon Chuck Hall
Ministry Roles:
Permanent Deacon, Archdiocese of Boston (2014), currently assigned to the Living Water Collaborative, serving parishes in Amesbury and Salisbury, Massachusetts; Serving in the Archdiocese Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
Why Deacon Chuck Enjoys UB:
Deacon Chuck began following Jesus in 1971, coming out of the 60’s counterculture at the height of what was then called “The Jesus Movement.” He began his journey in a very conservative evangelical setting, and became heavily involved in the Reformed Presbyterian world for many years, before finding a home as a Roman Catholic. He has many associations with people of faith in various denominations (and no denomination!) and regards the prayer of Our Lord that His people be one as a call that is very important.
About Deacon Chuck:
Deacon Chuck was brought up on Cape Cod in a family that was not religious, and his encounter with Our Lord in 1971 began a life of conversion. That conversion continues as a work in progress! He and his wife, teacher and Anglican sacristan Mary Hall, were married in Waltham in 1991. He has worked in many fields, including software development, machine shop and sheet metal work, and a lifetime as a songwriter / musician and the host of a nightly folk music program in Boston in the ‘80’s and ‘90s. He has a number of albums to his credit, and songs that have been covered occasionally in the folk and acoustic world for decades. His work can be found on his Bandcamp.com site, and will soon be joined by his first collection of original gospel and scripture songs. He continues to find his greatest fulfillment in his service at the parishes in Amesbury and Salisbury, and the occasional speaking and music ministry
opportunities that come his way, to witness to the greatness and beauty of Our Lord.
Ayeisha Mathis
Ministry Roles:
Minister at Emmanuel Worship & Deliverance Center; Youth Ministry Bible Study Leader
Why you enjoy serving with UB:
UniteBoston provides another opportunity for me to share my knowledge and resources while intersecting my faith, musicality, and heart for urban communities.
About you:
Ayeisha Dennise Mathis is a teacher, preacher and youth developer. God has used Ayeisha’s passion, dedication and commitment to improving the lives of people by giving her a platform for marketplace ministry where she has served in leadership capacities for local community based organizations and nonprofits. She is also the founder and CEO of Sound Doctrine Company where she writes and produces music.
Ayeisha is an alumna and professor at Berklee College of Music and holds a Master Degree in Urban Ministry Leadership from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She is also a licensed minister at the Emmanuel Worship & Deliverance Center of Baltimore, Maryland under the leadership of Bishop James & Bishop Cheryl Smith.
