This Sunday we welcome the Reverend Dr. Rachel Matthews as our guest preacher and Margo Chaney and Paula Hancock as liturgists. There will be a lots of special music as members of the McKinley choir and community continue to lead the singing.
Pastor Heidi first met Rachel Matthews and her husband, Matt, during their seminary years in Richmond, Virginia. An ordained PC(USA) minister of the Word and Sacrament, Rachel is currently mission coordinator at First Presbyterian Church Champaign. Rachel came to Illinois two years ago from Greenville, South Carolina, where she was a pastor at McCarter Presbyterian Church as well as a pastoral counselor and play therapist at Easley Pastoral Counseling. She is a licensed clinical professional counselor in Illinois.
Rachel holds several degrees: a master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, a master of arts in Christian education from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (also in Virginia), and a doctor of ministry in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Since 1989 Rachel has practiced ministry in local congregations in Arkansas, Virginia, and South Carolina. In 2001 she shifted her vocational focus to pastoral counseling.
When not working, Rachel enjoys taking long walks, digging in the dirt, watching flowers grow, curling up with an exciting mystery, or going to the movies with her husband and three boys (who are now grown and out of the house).
Welcome, Rachel!