Tom Boomershine
Tom is President of GoTell Communications. He is an internationally known speaker and author in the interpretation of the narratives of the Bible as oral story in antiquity and in the communication systems of the digital age. He served as the G. Ernest Thomas Distinguished Professor of Christianity and Communication at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio from 2004-2006 where he also served as Professor of New Testament from 1979-2000.
From 2000-2004, Tom served as Dean of the Lumicon Institute and Vice-President of Lumicon Digital Productions, a division of UMR Communications in Dallas, Texas. At Lumicon he led a team that established the first comprehensive program for the education of clergy and laity in digital culture ministry and produced an integrated series of oral, written, and digital resources for the full three-year cycle of the lectionary.
Tom founded the Network of Biblical Storytellers in 1977 and has lectured and led biblical storytelling workshops around the world. He recently spent a month in Australia making presentations on digital biblical storytelling and resourcing the NOBS community there. A leader in the rediscovery of the Gospel as story, his dissertation at Union Theological Seminary, Mark the Storyteller, was the first systematic study of the Gospel narratives as story. As part of his research and ministry, he began telling the Gospel of Mark in the early ‘70’s. Tom’s book, Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling, is published by Abingdon Press. In 2004 he organized the NOBS Seminar, a group of biblical scholars and biblical storytellers, that is exploring the implications of biblical storytelling for biblical scholarship.
Tom served as Chief Consultant for Multimedia Translations for the American Bible Society (1989-1993). He was an Executive Producer for the award winning ABS video/multimedia program “Out of the Tombs”, an audiovisual translation of Mark’s story of the Gerasene demoniac. Tom has been on-camera talent for three segments of the “Disciple” Bible study series of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship.
Tom is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and was the founder (1982) and past chair (1982-89) of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media group. He has received major grants from the Lilly Endowment for research in the media history of Christianity and has participated in several international research conferences on Christianity and communications. He has published a range of articles on the Gospels as story, the intersection of biblical studies and communication, the Church in digital culture, and digital biblical hermeneutics.
Tom lived in the heart of the civil rights struggle of the 1960’s while serving inner city multi-ethnic parishes in New York and Chicago. During his tenure as Professor of Biblical Studies at New York Theological Seminary (1972-79), he had an integral role in the development of the Certificate, STM, and DMin programs for African-American, Hispanic and Korean pastors in the New York metropolitan area.
Tom is an ordained elder in the West Ohio Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He is a classical pianist, a church organist since age 12, loves to play golf, and to work and hike with his wife, Amelia.
Amelia Cooper Boomershine
Amelia is a retired Deacon of the United Methodist Church. To her ministry of Word and Service Amelia brings gifts of biblical storytelling, teaching, and multimedia production. Her work involves helping people internalize stories of the biblical tradition to nurture their relationship with God through the way of Jesus Christ. In oral and digital storytelling she proclaims God’s radical good news of peace and justice to a broken and warring world.
Amelia has been a leader in the Network of Biblical Storytellers for 15 years, serving as Coordinator, newsletter editor, and workshop leader. She co-leads the CinDay Guild of the Network and regularly tells biblical stories in various venues.
During 2000-04 Amelia was a member of the worship resource design team for Lumicon Digital Productions in Dallas, Texas. While at Lumicon she developed and implemented the Lumicon Institute for Digital Culture Ministry, a certificate program combining a series of seminars and online courses which she designed.She has participated in the design of a variety of websites, the first being a site on the book of Joshua which went online in 1997, the most recent being the site for GoTell. She has co-authored three curriculum resources to accompany The Storykeepers animated video series for children and is currently working on a fourth.
In many aspects of her ministry Amelia partners with her husband, Tom Boomershine. Besides working together they like to go to state parks and Key West in their motorhome, hike, enjoy the arts scene in Dayton, and keep track of their blended family. Amelia also makes time for bicycling, Jazzercise and gardening.
Amelia is a retired clergy member of the West Ohio Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. She holds degrees from the University of Colorado (B.S. in Elementary Education, 1972), the University of Michigan (M.A. in Early Childhood Education, 1975) and United Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1991). In 2006 she earned a Certificate in Multimedia from Sinclair Community College.
