Peg Peterson

I have known Jesus as far back as I can remember. Baptized in an Episcopal church, I grew up in a faith-filled home, attending our  community church.  I was active in Sunday school, choir, and  youth groups,  Hungry for Jesus, I loved reading my Bible.  I visited Christian denominations.  I chose to attend a Lutheran college. One semester, I was befriended by an Episcopal priest and his wife who showed me Jesus in a new way. I joined their Episcopal church. 

During my married adult life, I had 2 children, lost another in pregancy, earned several grad-level teaching certificates, and taught full-time. Active in NJ  Lutheran churches, I was laison for world outreach programs which added to my wider understanding. 

TO TRUST HIM

Healing, loving, carrying me when needed. He also called me to become  Episcopalian again!  He gave me some wonderful new spiritual experiences and opportunities to praise Him through serving others.   

Following my divorce, I moved to a town near the ocean and experienced yet a new kind of God-encounter. One Sunday, 

Ephesians 2:8 was read from the pulpit. God chose that exact moment to immediately, dramatically, enter anew into my life. My spiritual journey and direction forever changed! He also blessed me with a life-saving miracle! He called me by name, sought me, saved me. How can I not fall on my knees!?

Suddenly, God  opened an opportunity to live in upstate NY. I was elected Senior Warden in my new small church, started two Sunday schools, attended Diocesan Healing Prayer classes, connected with an Anglican convent, and was a voting delegate for our new Bishop - a powerful experience for me.  As Sr. Warden in this sweet, small church without a permanent priest or staff, I quickly became super-familiar with the many facets of church functioning within that diocese! God placed beautifully spiritual people in my life just when needed.   I have many wonderful memories, but have also endured some difficult life events and health concerns. 

Jesus entered right into them--- the Good Shepherd searched for His sheep! Through my tears and fears, He found me, taught me. 

Then just as suddenly, 10 years ago, I came to Virginia to help my daughter! And here I am!  -- still growing, listening, learning,  loving, and  leaning into God  more and more! 

Over the years, returning thanks to God has been very important to me.  I’ve enjoyed many avenues of serving including heading an active Altar Guild, supporting missions, helping interview ordination candidates, and teaching English to immigrant families. 

At CCAC, I enjoy turns as reader, chalice bearer, counter, greeter, and after-church prayer. I participate in prayer groups, Formation Groups, the St. Ephrem study group, and family and women’s events. In CCAC’s “olden days”, I participated in Alpha and helped pack snacks for school kids. 

Within DOMA,  I currently serve on Bishop Chris’s Intercessory Prayer Team.  And as part of our Prayer Team for Church Plants and Missions, I was actually praying for Corpus Christi before we had a name! 

I am filled with gratitude and joy to be an official Corpus Christi member, and now to be nominated for a vestry position. Always trusting our amazing God, I’m excited to see how God will lead.

William Sulik

I was born into an observant Roman Catholic family and was baptized about 13 days after my birth. I was raised according to the teachings and traditions of the Church of Rome, although I truly did not understand what was communicated to me. At points of my childhood, I was thoroughly committed to the enchantment of the Christian community as I read about it in books like The Robe or The Silver Chalice and in movies like Ben Hur (and later, as a teen, in Godspell and the Jesus Christ Superstar record). Nevertheless, despite years of CCD (“Confraternity of Christian Doctrine”); being confirmed, and going to Catholic school for 3 years, I would have told you, when I was a senior in high school, that I was an agnostic (not an atheist, because I recognized that being an atheist required a degree of faith, which I did not have).

As a senior in high school, I was surrounded by a number of friends who were involved in Young Life – a parachurch Christian ministry geared toward proclaiming the Gospel to teens. One of my friends was a beautiful young girl named Debbie Blair, who was quite enthusiastic about Christ. Following my graduation, she began to bring me to a Bible study of the book of Romans.

About the same time, we began dating and, toward the end of the summer, we went on a long hike which included a climb up South River Falls in the Shenandoah National Park. At the top of the falls, I brought out a pocket New Testament and she had me read I Corinthians 13. My experience at that place and time reminds me of something I later read by John Wesley:, “...I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation...” I soon started college and got involved with one of the Young Life leaders, who was also at college with me – a young man named Sam Pascoe. He discipled me and introduced me to the Scriptures, including things like the Apocrypha. Sam later went on to become an Episcopal priest. Oh, and much later, young Debbie Blair married me.

Over the next few years, I was involved in some very good Christian fellowship groups, including Saturday Night Alive (with Renny Scott, an Episcopal Priest, and Benny Phillips, a non-denomination minister). I was also involved in several loose fellowship groups which weren’t very edifying - they advocated a more emotional spirituality – which rejected any form of serving Christ with one’s mind. At that time, I was enrolled in college at George Mason University and began taking classes in things like the Old and New Testament and Religion in America. In addition, the Religion in America course was important for me, as the final required a paper discussing the gospel as evangelization or the “social gospel.” I basically concluded that Jesus did not call for an “or” but an “and.”

I transferred to James Madison University, where Debbie was enrolled and became very involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. This was an important ministry because I saw that you could serve God with your mind.

Debbie and I were married at Church of the Apostles in Fairfax (1981) and were received into the Episcopal Church in 1982. At that time, we started teaching Sunday School, something we continued when we returned to Northern Virginia following law school in Oklahoma. We were members of Truro Church in Fairfax from the late 1980’s until we moved to Corpus Christi.

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.

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).

Alexei Laushkin (Treasurer)

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.