CBE’s eighth annual writing contest has finally come to a close. We deeply appreciate all participants’ involvement and commitment to CBE and to the Mutuality blog. Our writers include men and women, young and old, clergy and laypeople from around the globe. We are so grateful for the work you do. You remind us that, while our work may sometimes seem overwhelming, we are far from alone. Together, we can change the world for the women of tomorrow.
All entries were judged anonymously, and we would like to note that due to the high quality of many of our entries, the final choices for Grand Prize were very difficult. Many of the honorable mentions could easily have been Grand Prize winners themselves! In addition, many non-winners will still likely be published. We encourage you to continue submitting any ideas or drafts you may have throughout the year. In particular, we would like to see more entries in line with the categories of “pop culture” and “intersectionality.”
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Our Winners by Competitive Category
1. Positive Examples of Mutuality in Action
Grand Prize Winners
Amber Mann Riggs and Israel Steinmetz (coauthors)
Amber Mann Riggs serves as co-founder/director of operations at OneStory, where she writes Bible curriculum for families. Dr. Israel Steinmetz serves as Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Practical Theology at The Bible Seminary in Katy, TX.
Honorable Mentions
Irene Maciá
Irene Maciá Doménech is a criminologist, writer, and amateur actor in Spanish theater. She studies theology at institutions like CEPROMELAT, the RTM Academy, and the Instituto Teológico Encuentra. In 2017 she started publishing her books on Amazon, the most recent being the biblical essay And He Created Woman.
Christine Redwood
Christine Redwood is the pastor of Seaforth Baptist Church in Sydney, Australia. In 2011 she was the preaching intern for Morling College and has worked as an adjunct lecturer. She completed her PhD in preaching, the Old Testament, and feminist hermeneutics in 2021 and has just published an adaption of that work titled Hear Her Voice: Preaching Women of the Bible.
Stephanie Wilsey
Stephanie Wilsey is a Christ-follower, academic, and writer who reflects on psychology, theology, and everyday life on Substack, Medium, and Red Tent Living. She also manages a blog. She and her husband are parents of two teenagers and manage a household full of music, theology discussions, and sports activities.
2. Biographical pieces on Bible women and women in Church history, art, and archaeology.
Grand Prize Winner
Hannah Lewis Voncarl
Hannah lives in Tucson, Arizona, near her large family and with her husband Jonathan and two young daughters, Tirzah and Elizabeth. She grew up in Afghanistan and India, “wonderful yet broken places,” which led her to cling even more deeply to a God who loves her and values women fully.
Honorable Mentions
Cory Driver
Cory Pechan Driver is the director of the Center for L.I.F.E. (Leading the Integration of Faith and Entrepreneurship) at Miami University. He is an adjunct professor of Hebrew Bible at Luther Seminary. His book God, Gender and Family Trauma: How Re-reading Genesis can be a Revelation comes out March 2025.
Ani Weinman
Ani Weinman lives in Tucson, Arizona, and has a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Arizona. Last May she graduated from Calvin Seminary with a master’s in missional theology. She is the founder of Dropping Keys Ministry as well as a writer, speaker, and mentor.
Rachel Wilson
Rachel Wilson is an Anglican from Sydney, Australia, a single mother of two teenagers and devoted aunt of eight. She is a high school English, Religion and History teacher, a passionate singer and chair of the board of The Abigail Project, an NFP helping educate and assist victims of abuse.
3. Commentary on a movie, book, or other aspect of popular culture through a mutualist lens.
Unfortunately, we received NO entries for this category! We’d still love to get submissions on this topic, so we encourage any readers with ideas along these lines to submit pitches or drafts throughout the year.
4. Personal testimonies.
Grand Prize Winner
Jazmine Lawrence
Jazmine Lawrence lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and son and attends Acadia Divinity College as a second year MA (Theology) student. She hails from Vancouver, British Columbia, growing up as one of five girls before spending fourteen years in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Honorable Mentions
Kristin Coupal
Kristin Coupal is a registered nurse located in northern California. She is married to her husband, Jon, who is the senior pastor of their church. They served as missionaries in Uganda for six and a half years, where they adopted their son. Kristin grew up in church and continued to wrestle with what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in the daily life of a believer.
Dawn Gentry
Dawn Gentry serves on the executive team at a large church in Omaha, Nebraska. She earned a Master of Divinity degree from Emmanuel Christian Seminary in 2016 and has taught Bible, ministry, and leadership classes at both Milligan University and Nebraska Christian College.
Elizabeth Ruth Jewson
Elizabeth Ruth Jewson works in leadership in community and welfare and feels privileged to support the vulnerable. An accredited partnership broker, Elizabeth is passionate about finding ways for people to work more closely together. She is involved actively in her church and loves working in her garden, bike riding, and sharing meals and stories.
Hannele Ottschofski
Hannele Ottschofski is a native of Finland and has spent most of her life in Germany married to a pastor. She has served her church as a writer, educator, editor, conference speaker, church elder, and translator. She has written a book, Tired of Waiting: Women in Church and Society, available through Amazon.com.
5. Biblical exegesis and theology.
Grand Prize Winner
Neil Gordon Rees
Following ten years in the UK leading their sending church, Neil and his wife, Lynn, have returned to ministry in Spain, where they previously lived for twenty-seven years. This included eight years when Neil was international director of their mission agency, World Horizons.
Honorable Mentions
Aaron Husband
Aaron K. Husband serves as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of Canada in Montréal, Québec, primarily ministering to the fellowship at Concordia University. A husband and a father, he is originally from the Canadian prairies and loves to read, write, and research in his free time.
Jessica L.M. Jenkins
Jessica L.M. Jenkins holds an MA in Israel Studies and an Advanced MDiv in Biblical Languages. Her research explores the historical context of the Bible, women of the Bible, and gender roles. Passionate about God’s nearness, she creates content that considers the hurting, weary, and marginalized.
Monica Warren
Monica Napoli Warren is a wife, mom, mimi, and a perpetual student who loves to share what she learns. Monica teaches religion in the Philosophy Department at the University of South Alabama and serves as an Anglican priest in the church where her family has worshiped for thirty-two years.
6. Egalitarianism and intersectionality.
Grand Prize Winner
Dawn Sutherland
Dawn Lewis Sutherland is an accomplished educator, scholar, and speaker specializing in Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern studies. With a PhD in Bible Exposition from Liberty University, she focuses on equipping others with deep scriptural insights, fostering critical engagement with the Bible, and advocating for leadership inclusivity within the church and in academia.
Congratulations again to all our winners! In addition to being published by the Mutuality blog, grand prize winners will receive access to the CBE e-course of their choice, a free e-book, and a year-long print subscription to Mutuality magazine. Honorable mentions may also be published and will receive access to the CBE e-course of their choice.
Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.