St. Mark's Parish Leadership

Photo of the rector: The Rev. Dr. Lydia Agnew Speller

The Rev. Dr. Lydia Agnew Speller has served as rector (an old English term for senior pastor) of Saint Mark's Church since 1993. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College with a double major in Latin and History of Religion, she got a D.Phil. in Theology from Oxford University in England. After teaching school and college for several years, she was ordained deacon in 1987 and priest in 1988. She's been married for over 20 years and has twin teen-aged daughters. Here's how she recently described her theological outlook:

An old teacher of mine (Patrick Henry) wrote a book last year called The Ironic Christian's Companion. An Ironic Christian, as I understand it, is one who does not have all the answers, who is willing to live faithfully with uncertainty and ambiguity. I am one of those.

Around the time I was ordained priest, there was a profile in the New Yorker about the controversial bishop of Durham, David Jenkins. At his consecration, it reported, he said, "I face you as an ambiguous, compromised and questioning person entering upon an ambiguous office in the midst of a threatened and threatening world. I dare to do this and I even rejoice to do this because this is where God is to be found." I took it as an epigraph for my life as an ordained person. I believe that all modern people of faith live, in a way, if we are honest, with ambiguity, compromise and questions and that church should be a place where we can share our experience of feeling that way and discovering God, none the less, with us.

My theology and my spirituality are essentially incarnational - prayerfully looking for God in the midst of human experience, in my story and in the stories of those I encounter. I find myself challenged and excited by contemporary biblical scholars and the vision they offer of Jesus as the one who preaches that wherever healing is freely given and received and people gather at the table - without regard to barriers of race, gender, class, purity or religion -- the reign of God is to be found.

Rector
The Rev. Dr. Lydia Agnew Speller
Deacon The Rev. Marylen Stansbery
Vestry - 2008
Kathy Tracy	Senior Warden
John Carroll	Junior Warden
Susan Healey	Treasurer
Elaine Mickley	Recording Treasurer
Louis Stiller	Clerk
Tom Simon
Barbra Raedeke
Meg Kaupp
Doug Jeffery

Allen Porter
Jack Foshage
Kelly Borowiak	Jeff Smith

Other Parish Leaders

Organist & Choirmaster: Robert Mullgardt
Administrative Support: Margie Bowman
Altar Guild: Kelly Lattanzi
Arts in Worship : Barbara Raedecke
Christian Education: Scott Thompson, Ana Schnellmann
Evangelism: Jack Foshage, Meg Kaupp
Finance: Rita Diekemper, Carol Shahriary
Habitat for Humanity: Jeanette Sellers
Nuture: Joleen Shelton

Outreach: The Rev. Marylen Stansbery, Burnell Esbenshade
Stewardship: Scott Thompson, Ana Schnellmann
Youth Group: Emily Davis