In May 2023 we voted in our first Vestry. If you would like to learn more about what a Vestry is and does, please see our previous article, “We will have a Vestry…What is that?!” We sent out a call for members to discern who they would nominate to serve on the Vestry. Those who were nominated took time to pray and discern. Some answered that call and said “I think God is calling me to serve on this first Vestry”. These individuals met with a nominating committee comprised of Fr. Morgan Reed and two of our outgoing board members (Rev. Pamela Meeks and Rev. Erin Bair) who discerned with these individuals whether or not God might be calling them into this ministry. After over a month of discernment, God has brought Corpus Christi Anglican Church three wonderful candidates for our first Vestry. Between May 21-May 28 members voted online or in person and on May 28 the Vestry candidates were all voted in! We have our first vestry!

Please take time to read their spiritual autobiographies below.

The Vestry

Alexei Laushkin (Treasurer)

About Alexei…

I grew up in a Mainline Protestant Church in Monrovia, CA and had my first church experience of God through visiting a black church choir. Later in my teen years I came to a deeper experience of Jesus Christ through the Vineyard Church USA; in particular through reading the Bible and through heartfelt worship and encounters with the Holy Spirit. I served in college in student ministry as a student volunteer at the InterVarsity chapter of the Claremont Colleges which had various names over the years. This began a short reformed phase of faith which eventually matured toward an Anglo-Catholic orientation. I describe Anglicanism as a prayer book faith and our practice as Anglo-Catholics to look back to what is common across time and culture to the worship and practices of the body of Christ. This ties us to the saints above and the saints on earth as we become transformed into Christ in the salvation we have already attained.

My life and ministry and vocation have been a journey. I have been shaped by the Focolare and Chiara Lubich in understanding that life, economy, and vocation can be like varied branches on one tree. In my work I have someone on staff dedicated to prayer and spiritual counsel, a position I hope to retain through the years. In non-profit ministry we continue to try and help Evangelicals and Pentecostals have various conversations with other streams of the church. I have a passion for spiritual formation and in recent years that has taken shape most often through personal mentorship. I have a noticeable ability to elicit honesty and what I would describe as spontaneous confessions from strangers or those I don’t know well.

I consult nationally with churches on their strategy and board development as well as their racial justice work (this has even included an ACNA church). I do have strategy and board budget experience both with the stand alone ministry where I do unpaid ecumenical ministry and serving as the board Co-Chair for an ecumenical body based in Illinois. 

Chip Webb (Senior warden)

I grew up attending a fairly evangelical United Methodist church in Lynchburg, VA, and initially experienced a personal relationship with God for several years surrounding my baptism and confirmation at age nine. The Psalms attracted me when I first started having a simple devotional life around age eight. My faith then deepened through regular times of turning to God as a result of troubles after my family moved to northeast Ohio. Nevertheless, particularly as times got better, I struggled with giving my life to Christ, and even went through a teenage am-I-atheist-or-am-I-agnostic phase for nearly two years. By the start of my college freshman year, I knew that I believed the truths of the Christian faith but still did not want Christ to control my life. I finally committed my life to Him near the end of that school year after attending an investigative Bible study run by a Navigators campus ministry.

I then grew as a disciple through the Navigators and nondenominational church attendance. I started self-studying Christian theology initially to better understand a Roman Catholic housemate in graduate school, then later to determine what I believed once I was exposed to many different Christian schools of thought. I soon grew convinced of the importance of liturgy and the Church; I describe myself as having been an evangelical on the liturgical trail. A Walk to Emmaus spiritual renewal retreat later further aided in this journey and, even more significantly, provided me with a transforming experience of God’s love. I eventually came to Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax, VA. A year later I was confirmed as an Anglican, sponsored by my future wife Sharon.

I have since been blessed with a love for Anglicanism and the contributions it makes to the larger body of Christ. I have served in a variety of capacities at Anglican gatherings, initially through Truro and later as Anglican staff at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and as a freelance journalist covering Anglican events. I received a diploma in Christian ministry from Trinity School for Ministry. Sharon and I have also hosted Anglican seminary representatives visiting the DC area.

As much as I value Anglicanism, however, I have a greater love of which Anglicanism is only one manifestation: the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. A primary motivation for me throughout the years of serving the Church in a variety of capacities has been to work for and promote the visible unity of the Church. I also appreciate very much the witness of those who have gone before us and the communion of saints.

I have attended Corpus Christi Anglican Church since 2020 and been a member since 2022. I have been active in a variety of Corpus Christi activities and ministries, including lay ecclesiastical leadership, lector, prayers of the people, formation group facilitator, student ministry leadership, and men's ministry. I have preached during Sunday services and given a retreat meditation. I also served as Corpus Christi's lay delegate for the election of Bishop Chris Warner. At Truro, I served one term on vestry, co-led a home group with Sharon and another couple, and served as lay Eucharistic minister, prayer minister, lector, adult education teacher, committee member, and preacher during one Good Friday service and nursing home services.

Professionally, the most common thread throughout my employment has been writing/editing. I started in the business world after college as a proofreader and then moved into technical writing. My time at the IRD largely involved writing, and my freelance articles were for The Living Church magazine. I am currently employed as a quality assurance analyst at HII in Fairfax, VA; writing still serves as a significant part of my work.

Sharon and I became friends as Truro parishioners in 1996 and were married in 2005. We live in Fairfax Station with our dog Ellie. In my free time, I enjoy walking, reading, writing devotional reflections and poems, spending time alone with God, turning times of travel into mini-pilgrimages by visiting churches and other religious sites, and getting outside in nature (most especially the mountains).

Carol Weiler (Junior warden)

I came to Christ at the age of 12 when an evangelist shared the Gospel at our church and followed Christ throughout my teenage years. Listening to God’s voice for what he wants me to do is very important to me and I followed His call to be trained as a nurse so that I could serve as a missionary nurse. I worked as a nurse for a couple years and stayed involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship leading Bible Studies and leading musical worship on the piano. I was invited to work for a month at Lake Huron with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, worked there for a month, came back and hoped to be a missionary nurse, but God led me in a different direction.

After being back for a week from Lake Huron, I met Bill Weiler, whom I would marry. He discerned his call to become an Episcopal priest and I set aside my call to oversees missions work to live out my calling as the wife of a priest and mother to our children. We served all over the country and raised three wonderful children. It was fun! I ran Sunday Schools, played the piano, ran the choir, but my favorite ministry involved hospitality. I love having people over to my home to welcome them with the love of Christ. One of my greatest joys in the church has been bringing people into my home to listen to their stories and watch what God does in them as we eat food together, talk, and pray.

I came to Corpus Christi Anglican Church in April of 2022, almost two years after my husband passed away. I had discovered that there was a new church plant near where I live and I began praying weekly for this new church that was beginning in Springfield. When I visited, I was struck with the life in this church. I pray for this church every single day. I believe God has gifted me with the gift of encouragement. This was true when I worked as a nurse and it has been true in the church. I love to encourage people wherever they are. One of my hopes for this church is that as the Holy Spirit resides in us that we love the gifts out of one another in the church.

Since beginning to attend CCAC I have shared my testimony, read the Scriptures in the liturgy, led the prayers of the people, and I now help Fr. Morgan with liturgical leadership for our monthly Anglican/Episcopal Eucharist service at Garden Ridge, which is part of Greenspring Senior Living Community. It is my joy to be a part of what God is doing at CCAC and if elected to the Vestry, it would be my joy to prayerfully help lead this church into its next phase of life.