Leadership
Baptism is our vocation. In baptism the community recognizes that everyone is loved by God, and we in turn are called to love God by loving our neighbor.
St. Mary's is a community of baptized, and in that we all take our place in leadership, one way or another. We all have gifts to share. Some can play the piano, another can fix computers, another has time to take food to the food shelf, another is good with kids. You get the idea.
We encourage leadership on some level from everyone, young and old. Church is a good place for children and youth to learn valuable skills about how to plan a project, work with other people, evaluate what has been done, and offer gratitude to those who did it.
That being said, as Episcopalians we do have a leadership structure. On a grand scale we take our place in the International Episcopal Church by supporting our rector as she serves as a Deputy to General Convention.
On a Minnesota level, we elect 3 delegates to participate in Diocesan Convention once a year, along with the clergy. Our Diocese(which is all the Episcopal Churches in Minnesota) is under the spiritual leadership of our Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Brian Prior.
Those same people participate in our Regional structure, with 14 Episcopal Churches in the St. Paul area.
At St. Mary's we have the vestry, which includes 9 people elected every year at our Annual Meeting. The vestry is responsible for setting the tone for the mission and ministry of St. Mary's. We meet once a month to go over our financial records and discuss whatever needs discussing about parish life.
Our rector, LeeAnne Watkins, is the spiritual leader of the congregation, assisted by the Deacon the Rev. Rex McKee. In addition, there are always two key llay (non-ordained) leaders - the Jr and Sr Wardens. Currently Bob Butterbrodt is the Sr Warden, and Suzann Brown is the Jr warden.