Celebrity Blogger Week winds up with the Rev. Chris Yaw. Actually that's not entirely true since we're sticking in Bracket Czar Adam Thomas tomorrow -- we need to keep him happy. But Chris is our eighth and final Celebrity Blogger this year. He's so busy that he kept his answers brief; however we have read through the lines to determine that he won't be giving up chocolate for Lent.

The Rev. Chris Yaw lives in Detroit, where the weak are killed and eaten. He serves the good people of St. David's in Southfield, Michigan who have yet to figure out his three-year-old actually writes his homilies. Chris is thrilled to be entering his second year of celebrity blogging (sure, he writes those too...) and is actually quite enthralled with online Christian learning. Visit the experiment at churchnext.tv

(Editor's note: Chris is too humble to mention that he won an Emmy Award in a previous life as a TV journalist, writer, and producer. We translate this to mean that Lent Madness has won an Emmy. Take that, Susan Lucci!).

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
I love this job! And since I'm in my second year, Tim has doubled my pay. The best part of this job is being around some of the most gifted and energetic voices in the church who have a deep love for God despite her obvious bias for female saints.

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with our penultimate CB, Neil Alan Willard. Besides being the only Celebrity Blogger with four (count 'em!) "L"s in his name, Neil is related to most of the clergy in the Episcopal Church. Also, we like to use the word "penultimate" whenever the opportunity arises.

The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, one of the original Celebrity Bloggers and an early adopter of Lent Madness, is Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Edina, Minnesota, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. His study there overlooks beautiful Minnehaha Creek on its way to the Mississippi River. He’s married to Carrie, also beautiful, and they have two sons and a Labrador Retriever in the household. Outside the house are chipmunks, raccoons, and coyotes. No kidding. Last bit of trivia: his father-in-law and his sister-in-law’s husband are both Episcopal priests at different congregations in Aiken, South Carolina, and his brother-in-law is also an Episcopal priest, previously in Wasilla, Alaska, and now in Kapolei, Hawaii. No kidding. Follow him on Twitter @neilwillard and be sure to check out his blog Laughing Water.

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As someone who was raised on “Tobacco Road” and attended Wake Forest University, I know a little about ACC basketball and religious devotion to a favorite team. I’m not only a Demon Deacon but also the Rector of a church named for St. Stephen, and a member of the Martyrs, our men’s group. I really got into the first tournament of Lent Madness as soon as I realized that our patron saint, the first martyr and one of the first deacons, needed a boost in the second round. While that was a tough loss for us, we had made a strong, last-minute effort. So the next year I gladly accepted an invitation to become one of the original Celebrity Bloggers. I took C.S. Lewis all the way to the Golden Halo in 2011 and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the Faithful Four in 2012. I’m proud of that record (but not too proud, of course, since that would be unsaintly). What I’ve learned is that birds of a feather do indeed flock together. Last October, for example, I had the opportunity to meet Garrison Keillor backstage at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul after a live radio broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. It may take a moment for you to connect the dots, but it seems obvious to me that this gathering of celebrities in the Land of Lake Wobegon was a direct result of the blessings of Lent Madness.

What should the Lent Madness faithful know about you?
My congregation is located in Edina, which is the childhood home of Ric Flair (a.k.a. “The Nature Boy”). Fake-sports-oriented Episcopalians will surely remember him as the most stylish “pro wrestler” of the 70s and 80s. My family, however, lives in neighboring St. Louis Park, hometown of the Coen Brothers, Senator Al Franken, and Nordic Ware, which produced the original Bundt Pan in 1950. So when members of the House of Bishops choose the Nordic Ware Cathedral Bundt Pan as a gift for their clergy, they are indirectly helping to ensure that snow-covered streets are plowed between my house and my church throughout Minnesota’s harsh winters. I would tweet my thanks to them, but the mitred ones tend to react to that sort of thing like Mr. Carson did when he first saw an electric toaster at Downton Abbey: “Is it not enough that we are sheltering a dangerous revolutionary, Mrs. Hughes? Could you not have spared me that?” *sigh*

Due to celebrations of the triumph of purple, the Supreme Executive Committee will not be releasing an episode of Monday Madness this week. Tim was busy writing an article for the Huffington Post about Ray Lewis and his brilliant theology.

Tim has also issued a video statement which may be found on Maple Anglican's excellent video for the week. In this video, you will find reporting on the recent play-in between John Donne and T. S. Eliot, as well as a particular football game. The SEC is grateful to our neighbor to the north for this and for all his good work. We view this as evidence of the worldwide buzz around Lent Madness.

Tune in next week for a new episode of Monday Madness. If you're not sure what to do with yourself, why not spend some time in the Lentorium buying mugs, bracket posters, or ebooks for your Kindle or Nook? And of course it's still Celebrity Blogger Week, so there's that.

After a brief hiatus for the Donne vs. Eliot Play-In round (Donne moves on) and the Super Bowl (Ravens!), Celebrity Blogger Week continues with the Rev. Laura Toepfer. If you think of Lent Madness from an Electoral College point of view, Laura is critical as she hails from California. She claims to be "boring" but her unofficial photo proves otherwise.

Oh, and Maple Anglican has just released a new video recapping the final Play-In -- don't want to miss this one!

The Rev. Laura Toepfer, entering her second year as a Celebrity Blogger, is the Managing Director of Confirm not Conform, an organization devoted to creating confirmation programs that celebrate questions and authentic faith. After seven years in college, youth, and parish ministry, in 2008 Laura became a Kiva Fellow and worked with microfinance agencies in Uganda before returning to her native California. She is the author of the curriculum Eat, Pray, Grow, produced by Every Voice Network—a program that is remarkably well-suited to a church Lenten series. She preaches regularly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and often has snarky things to say about church on her blog The Infusion. She also has a thing about obituaries.

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with our third and final Lent Madness newbie. We've enjoyed hazing David the past few months and look forward to surprising him with the official Lent Madness ankle tattoo.

The Rev. David Sibley, while living in Brooklyn, does not craft artisanal cheeses. Instead, he serves as Priest-in-Charge of Saint John’s Church, Fort Hamilton, where six of the saints featured in this year’s bracket stare back at him every time he celebrates the Eucharist. Raised right in the middle of South Carolina, David studied and did research as a chemist before being whisked away to seminary in New York City. When he’s not in church, David enjoys travel, hiking and camping, all things food and music related, and praying for the yearly resurrection of the Chicago Cubs’ World Series hopes. When the ideas are forthcoming, he’s been known to blog at Feeding on Manna, and holds forth much more often with his partners in crime on Twitter at @davidsibley.

What are you most looking forward to about Lent Madness 2013?
I'm looking forward to getting to know a few saints better than I knew them before. One of my favorite authors, the Jesuit priest James Martin, notes in his book My Life with the Saints that "It's funny -- the way you discover a new saint is often similar to the way in which you meet a new friend. Maybe you hear an admiring comment about someone and think, I'd like to get to know that person… perhaps you're introduced to a person by someone else who knows you'll enjoy that person's company, or perhaps you run across someone, totally by accident, during your day-to-day life." The saints have been great companions in my spiritual life, and I'm looking forward to making a few more friends.

I'm also looking forward to see what dark-horse candidates will emerge on the strength of good grass-roots campaigns this year. I think many of us were quite surprised by the upstart campaign that Philander Chase made through last year's competition. Are we going to see a relative unknown make a no-holds barred run for the Golden Halo? The only way to find out is, as they say, to "stay tuned…"<

What should the the Lent Madness faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
While in most things I'm the epitome of a church nerd, I do manage to have a few other interests…

Before I was ordained, I did undergraduate and graduate studies in chemistry, and still can't quite understand why everyone seems to have hated that subject during high school and college. In many ways, I still consider myself a scientist at heart. Like most of the Episcopal Church, I managed to get hooked on watching Downton Abbey; I also remain a huge fan of Mad Men, Arrested Development, and The West Wing. I'm a huge sports fan -- my passion for college football (South Carolina Gamecocks) and professional baseball (Chicago Cubs) could be charitably described as "addictions." With fellow Celebrity Blogger Laurie Brock, I experience a bit of a twinge in my gut when Scott and Tim refer to "the other SEC" when referring to my college football conference of choice. I'm also pretty sure that being a Cubs fan makes me a better Christian, because you have to believe in resurrection when your team hasn't won a World Series since 1908. So don't be surprised if a few sports references make their way into any hagiographies I write.

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with the irrepressible Heidi Shott. Most closely identified with Queen Emma, last year's Cinderella saint, Heidi has turned down numerous offers of free trips to the Aloha State. Something about being impartial. Plus she's nervous about the chances of Damien of Molokai this Lent.

Heidi Shott, entering her second year as a Celebrity Blogger, is Canon for Communications and Social Justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. She is a member (and past Vice Chair) of the Standing Commission on Communications and Information Technology and served as Chair of the Episcopal Life Board of Governors. She worked on the Office of Communication’s video news team at two General Conventions, hosting “The Daily Wrap” in Anaheim in 2009. In Indianapolis she hosted an interview blog at www.indy300.net. Praised widely for her writing about faith in daily life, Heidi writes for a variety of publications and blogs. She keeps the blog Heidoville. With the departure of their twin sons for college, she and her husband Scott are milling aimlessly around their home in mid-coast Maine where they root for the Red Sox even when they lose. Follow her on Twitter @heidomaine. 

How long have you been a CB? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As the token non-seminary-trained member of the Lent Madness team, I am honored to represent the underrepresented lay order for a second year. No. I really am. It’s not like we should pretend that Lent Madness is a proportional democracy or something. While coping with last year’s copy deadlines and the demands of scrounging up kitsch and amusing saintly anecdotes about people who weren’t always amusing -- think St. Augustine -- was stressful, it was a pleasure to be involved. I learned an enormous amount about these faithful followers of Jesus, with the bonus of discovering a kindred spirit in Enmegabowh’s wife, Iron Sky Woman. Also, I learned how to spell his name without looking it up. That Queen Emma of Hawaii made it all the way to the Golden Halo round was the icing on the cake.

What should the LM faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
Well, I have a pretty awesome corner office at the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, one floor above the Bishop’s. Since I’m pretty fidgety and my desk is directly over his, I suspect he finds my toe tapping pretty annoying but is too kind to say anything. It’s something we don’t discuss. I’m very fond of my aged mini-rex house rabbit, Hester. I fear he -- Hester’s a he, long story -- will die soon and have contemplated having him stuffed. Members of my immediate family find this prospect disturbing and have taken to buying fake rabbits to offer me comfort in advance of his demise. Recently I’ve been looking at photos of taxidermied rabbits online and confess that, on the whole, they don’t look so good or very comforting at all. In other animal news, I’m an avid scuba diver and take great pleasure in identifying many species of tropical fish and critters whenever I get the chance. Here in Maine I live on a millpond where, hypocritically, I don’t appreciate close encounters with fish or critters while swimming in the pond.

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As one of the original Celebrity Bloggers, this is my third year here at Lent Madness. I'm a big fan of church social media, and I get all geeked out about the community that has been built and is growing around Lent Madness. Plus, it gives me more people to play with, both IRL (in real life) and online. It was because of our work together at Lent Madness that now-retired Celebrity Blogger Meredith Gould asked me to be in her wedding in 2011.

What should the the LM faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
I am an avid beachologist. I like to walk for many miles along ocean beaches, particularly national wildlife refuges or national seashores, to watch and photographwildlife and collect shells. The advanced practice of beachology also includes snorkeling, kayaking in tidal marshes (only in a double boat with someone else paddling, so perhaps that's called "being kayaked"), bike-riding on islands with flat beachside roads, having a relative with a beach house, traveling to other states and even other countries to check out their beaches, and eating seafood.

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with another newly minted Lent Madness participant. As our missionary to Arizona, Megan has been tasked with yodeling the results of each day's voting into the Grand Canyon.

The Rev. Megan Castellan is the Episcopal chaplain at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona. She preaches all around the northern portion of Arizona, resembling an old-timey circuit rider, only with much better shoes, and has also been known to occasionally teach a college course or two. Having lived in Arizona for over three years now, she is still surprised to discover things here she previously thought existed only in Wile E. Coyote cartoons. These adventures are chronicled in her blog Red Shoes, Funny Shirt  and on Twitter @revlucymeg. In her spare time, she enjoys singing, being obsessive about television comedy, and marshaling the forces of the Ginger Rescue Squad, otherwise known as her rescue dog and rescue cat.

What are you most looking forward to about Lent Madness 2013?

The Rev. Laurie Brock

Welcome to Celebrity Blogger Week here at Lent Madness! It's kind of like (the over-hyped) Shark Week but instead of sharp teeth you get the biting commentary of some of the nation's best Episcopal bloggers.

Every day this week, we'll introduce you to one of our amazing Celebrity Bloggers -- the folks who will be illuminating the lives of the saints for us throughout Lent.

In addition to their "official" bio we've asked them a few questions and also requested an informal or goofy picture. Enjoy getting to know these wonderful, faithful, and sometimes madcap Christians!

The Rev. Laurie Brock serves as the rector of St. Michael the Archangel Episcopal Church in Lexington, Kentucky and is delighted to serve in a diocese and parish where she can cheer for the Alabama Crimson Tide in football and the Kentucky Wildcats in basketball. She blogs at Dirty Sexy Ministry and is the co-author of Where God Hides Holiness: Thoughts on Grief, Joy and the Search for Fabulous Heels (Church Publishing). She frequently shares her quirky, snarky views on faith and popular culture on Twitter at @drtysxyministry, but don't follow unless you can laugh at yourself and your religion. Otherwise, you'll just be offended. When she's not doing priest things, she is riding horses or texting other fabulous women priests about which True Blood character would be the perfect clergy spouse.

What possessed you to answer the (high) calling to participate in Lent Madness as a Celebrity Blogger?
I'm one of the Celebrity Blogger Lent Madness Snark-a-ratti, which is probably how I got this gig in the first place. The crazy Hobbit shire to hospital room with big creepy dolls in the Olympic opening ceremony this past summer was just too rich not to tweet copious amounts of snark. Thankfully, my fellow Celebrity Bloggers were there, ready to offer their own wit and humor. Apparently, when one makes certain observations about dancing puppets in an Olympic stadium, it gets you on the radar for Lent Madness. And I have a blog, DirtySexyMinistry. Clearly, the maestros of Lent Madness thought that would be scandalous enough to add to the fun. Forward Movement is known for its combination of snark, scandal, and spirituality.

What are you most looking forward to about Lent Madness 2013?
I'm looking forward to finding out more about the saints than I did for Church History finals. Our saints of the church are certainly not neat and tidy holier-than-thou people. They were extremists for love and inclusivity. They annoyed people in power. Some were mentally ill, and God was still present and speaking through their lives and actions. The saints of our church were glorious sinners who believed God loved them in a radical way. I can't wait to bring their lives full-flesh, dirty sexy ministry, to Lent Madness.

What should the the Lent Madness faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
When I arrived in the Diocese of Lexington, I made a snarky remark at a gathering (shocking, I know) which led the then-bishop and canon to nickname me Miss Alabama. It stuck. I was, indeed, born in the great state of Alabama, where we play football like no one else. Fellow Celebrity Blogger David Sibley and I are the resident college football experts among the Episcopal clergy. I also suggested (via Twitter) that a nifty way to select the new Archbishop of Canterbury would be a Survivor-like contest. Time Online picked up the quote, but the Church of England didn't run with the idea. Oh well. I love good barbecue (the classy picture is evidence of that). My fur family includes my dog Sophie and my horse Nina. I always knew I loved dogs. I didn't know how much I loved horses until I moved to Kentucky. I'm a writer, priest, and Southern woman who loves dogs, horses, good wine, and God. And I hope skinny jeans will go the way of the dinosaur.

In an attempt to compete with the excellent Lent Madness videos coming from Maple Anglican, the Supreme Executive Committee has released a Pre-Game video to highlight tomorrow's contest between Samuel Seabury and George Berkeley (make sure you pronounce his name correctly). This is the third play-in match, to determine whether Seabury or Berkeley will earn a spot in the first round of Lent Madness.

[vimeo 57572532 w=500 h=281]

For the record, the Supreme Executive Committee have passed a unanimous resolution condemning Maple Anglican for, on the one hand, mispronouncing Tim's name and, on the other hand, making Scott's photo too small. Aside from those huge problems, we commend Maple's introduction to Lent Madness.

Tune in tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time to cast your vote for Berkeley or Seabury.