Saint Stephen's calls the Rev. Mary Bea Sullivan as Director of Spirituality and Wellness

Dear Saint Stephen’s Community, 

I am thrilled to share that the Rev. Mary Bea Sullivan will be joining the staff of Saint Stephen’s as the Director of Spirituality and Wellness in September at 75% time.  Mary Bea is an exceptionally gifted priest, author, and retreat leader with twenty-five years of pastoral and program development experience. For the past few months, she has been preaching some on Sunday evenings and she and her husband, the Rev. Malcolm Marler, have been a regular part of our 5:00 p.m. worship community.   

As the Director of Spirituality and Wellness, Mary Bea will be a part of our clergy team in the regular preaching and serving rotation, provide pastoral care, and spiritual direction, as well as teaching classes throughout the week.  She will be involved in the overall life of the parish as any clergy member is called to do. Different from positions in the past, Mary Bea will take a leadership role in the continued design and evolution of our 5:00 p.m. Celtic service which is deeply contemplative in nature. Earlier this month, our vestry participated in a visioning conversation around the Chapel of St. John’s on the corner of Crosshaven and Overton, a continuation of conversations over the past four years. Our vestry leadership continues to see this chapel as one of the critical components of our future as Saint Stephen’s grows as a place of healing, renewal, and proclamation of the Good News of God in Christ. One thing that was apparent was that St. John’s is already filled with activities that improve the lives of those who participate. Four days a week, there is respite care through our partnership with Collat Jewish Family Services.  We have exercise programs and 12-step groups that meet there on a regular basis. As the vestry dreamed, every new activity that we imagined happening there would help make our community and our congregation more well.  We imagined spirituality and wellness deepening in the lives of our community.   

Part of Mary Bea’s call as Director of Spirituality and Wellness will be to help our congregation create an intentional vision for how we use this space as well as claim the Gospel hope of wellness in all aspects of our life as a community. This is a long-term process that I hope will unfold over the next few years involving other clergy, staff, and our whole community as we become more deliberate in how we share what is already happening and visioning how to deepen our capacity for ministering to and with the greater community. While initially, this will not be a very time-consuming part of her call, it’s a very important one, that I hope will deeply enhance the life of our community over the coming years.  

Please join us on Sunday, September 10 as we formally welcome the Rev. Mary Bea Sullivan as a part of our clergy team as the Director of Spirituality and Wellness. You can reach her at marybea@ssechurch.org.  

Faithfully,  

The Rev. John B. Burruss, Rector