Meet The Team
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Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers is a nationally known speaker, author and researcher on religious sexual shame. She is professor emerita of sexuality, and marriage & family therapy in the Department of Psychology, Family and Community at Seattle Pacific University. Tina serves on the board of The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, and is a Co-Creator of She Is Called – a Leadership Collective for Women. As a preeminent voice on purity culture and Hebrew Mystic Sexuality, Dr. Sellers is frequently featured on podcasts, TV, documentaries, articles and radio, including Spirituality & Health magazine, and NPR’s All Things Considered. In her acclaimed 2017 book, Sex, God and the Conservative Church – Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy, Dr. Sellers reveals how the western conservative church in collusion with consumer driven culture and politics, has infiltrated our core ability to attach to our partners, and instruct our children to attach to theirs.
Tina travels the country helping churches, parents, therapists, doctors, and other professionals become competent teaching shame-free relational and sexual health material. Professionals and the public will find free resources on her personal, the institute, and this website. www.TinaSchermerSellers.com, and www.InstituteOnIntimacy.com She can also be followed on Instagram @DrTinaShamelessSex @InstituteOnIntimacy or Twitter @TinaSSellers Tina lives in Seattle with her beloved Gary, where they have four grown kids, three grand-puppies, two amazing little granddaughters, and a Westfalia named Lola. Lauren Rimkus Lauren, a Pacific Northwest native, helped launch the TGFS project with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. They had met a few years before, connecting deeply around areas of religious sexual shame as she had experienced the painful effects of conservative Christian purity culture and misogyny. Tina's mentorship and expertise was extremely helpful in her healing process.
She then graduated with a Masters of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University and is a therapist with Navos. In her free time she enjoys reading, yoga, running, DIY-ing, baking, gardening and good documentaries (reluctantly to admit, bad reality television too). More than anything she loves her kitty Frida, her puppy Bella, and her husband, Adam. You may see Adam around TGFS events and gatherings as well where he often participates. He has his Masters of Divinity, and a doctorate in Semiotics, and has done extensive research around emerging adulthood. Taylor Ulrey Taylor is also a graduate of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Seattle Pacific University. Taylor was Tina's graduate assistant in 2014 and was introduced to TGFS at that time. Unlike the rest of the team, Taylor was from the midwest where it is still not "lady like" to talk about sexuality, and volunteering with this project gave her the voice to do so! Taylor was also interested in the Thank God For Sex project because it directly addressed the effects of sexual shame in many contexts - many of which she experienced growing up as a woman in a conservative state. Taylor helped plan events in the Seattle area, which she loved. She loves inviting people from behind computer screens and cell phones to gather in live, in-person events and connect them to others who are struggling, as well as to connect them to more resources.
She now lives back in the Midwest, has a practice serving new moms. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her husband, John, her little baby, and her puppies. She also loves doing any activity that requires being outdoors. Rev. Danae Ashley A native of Spokane, Washington, The Rev. Danae Ashley is an Episcopal priest who has served parishes in North Carolina, New York, Minnesota, and is currently serving in Seattle. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate and seeks to use art, music, drama, poetry, and movement in counseling, spiritual direction, and creation of ritual, especially for pregnancy and infant loss. Danae is a trained facilitator of the Mandala Assessment Research Instrument (MARI), Prepare-Enrich, and Positive Discipline parenting workshops. Proudly joining the TGFS team after taking a class from Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers in the spring of 2015, Danae was inspired by Dr. Sellers’ passion for healing those who have shame around their bodies, sexuality, and faith. She is also part of The Young Clergy Women Project and has written for their online magazine Fidelia's Sisters and their Advent devotional published by Chalice Press, as well as being a contributing writer to the Episcopal Church's online ministry "Sermons that Work." Danae is one of the contributors of the book Still a Mother: Journeys through Perinatal Bereavement released in 2016 by Judson Press. Her favorite past times include hiking with her husband and beloved dog, reading, traveling, visiting with family and friends, dancing with wild abandon to Celtic music, and serious karaoke.
Randall AjimineRandall was born and raised in Honolulu Hawaii. He lived there for 37 years before moving to Seattle in 2006 to pursue dreams of rock stardom. He has worn a number of different hats throughout his life (drummer, live and recording sound engineer, writer, video producer, barista, and coffee shop manager, to name just a few). He graduated with his MDiv in 2013 from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. His capstone project centered around helping the church find better ways of talking about sexuality. Through a variety of connections, he got plugged into the Thank God For Sex project and he's been helping out ever since.
Moving forward, he hopes to get more serious about his writing and is looking forward to starting up a podcast (stay tuned for that!). |