In accordance with governing principles laid out by the United Methodist Church, the leadership at St. Paul's is comprised of a robust roster of church lay members from a variety of backgrounds, in addition to clergy and staff.
In 2022, our church voted to move to a Simplified Accountability Model. Within SAM, there are two umbrella groups broadly encompassing ministry and administrative needs:
- The Ministry Table covers those decisions previously falling to Justice & Compassion, Spiritual Care, Education and Faith Formation, the United Methodist Men and Women's groups.
- The Strategy, Accountability, and Leadership Table covers Finance, Trustees, Staff-Parish Relations, Council, and Administrative needs.
Meetings are held over Zoom and are open to the entire St. Paul's community.
For the Zoom link or more information, contact SAM chairperson Rachel Stalcup.
Each area has a member of the church in a dedicated leadership role, who can call on the full SAM group for guidance, support, and approval. The new structure mitigates communication delays, reduces the information "silo" effect, cuts down on unintentional and unnecessary overlap between teams, and avoids the risk of burn-out faced when the same handful of volunteers are tasked with serving in multiple areas.
In the new SAM model, energized lay leaders can seek new and improved ways of serving the community and supporting the life of the church, in community with other leaders and a wide array of church members and friends.
SAM meetings are open to all who wish to attend and are usually held once a month using Zoom. Please contact Chairperson Rachel Stalcup for more information. (To request Rachel's contact info through the church office, email stpaulsunited@stpaulsk.org.) When appropriate, meeting minutes may be included here as attachments.
Area Leadership:
SAM Chairperson: Rachel Stalcup
Staff-Parish Relations: Jenny Lipford
Justice & Compassion: Grace Graham
United Methodist Men: Rich Higgins
Stewardship Chair: Gregg Molander
Finance & Memorials: Rich Higgins
Education & Faith Formation: Meg Baker
Building and Trustees: Mike Barnes
Lay Leader: Anne Dean
Lay Member to Annual Conference: Marge Higgins