Welcome Andrea!

Director of Children and Family Ministries

We are excited to announce that Andrea Shirey has started her work as Director of Children and Family Ministries. Please take time to welcome her to her new role. Andrea's work is to help all of us to fulfill our baptismal promises to our children, youth, and families—to “guide and nurture them by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging them to know and follow Jesus Christ.” Andrea is a connector with a lot of energy and people skills that will help her to be a partner to all our children and their families. Andrea’s role is just under half-time (18 hours per week), and she will work with Amber Oakes who has engaged many of our youth in Afterplay during the year and will continue to do so. As we move toward the fall, the shape of the role will become more developed. In the meantime, have a conversation with her. Share your hopes and gifts and listen for hers. You can reach out at [email protected].

Here's a bit more about Andrea:

Five Random Things About Andrea

Andrea loves people, mostly kids and babies, but adults are pretty great.

• I love spending time with others! I’m definitely an extravert and will chat with people given the chance. Grocery store lines, flights, watching my kids practice taekwondo, anywhere. Everyone has an interesting life story.
• My favorite people are my family. My husband is Adam. He works at Microsoft, enjoys brewing his own beer, baking bread, speaking French and hiking every mountain possible.
• Jake just turned twelve this summer! He loves to draw and create art, reading books and comics and making people laugh. Jake just crossed over into boy scouts and recently joined taekwondo. He’ll be attending 6th grade at McKnight Middle School after two years of homeschooling.
• Reed is ten years old. He loves to ride his bike, build with Legos, swim, read, and do whatever his brother or dad are doing. Reed will be in 5th grade at Kennydale Elementary School after one year of homeschooling.

Andrea has had some interesting, exciting jobs.

• I have worked on a potato farm, in a pizza shop, as a lifeguard, a tutor, a nanny, a teacher, a firefighter, EMT, as a wedding coordinator, a professional organizer and the chaos manager in the Shirey household. I’ve homeschooled my awesome kids and now I want to serve St. Andrew!

Andrea loves coffee and orange soda. 

• It’s true! I used to drink Mountain Dew, but when I was expecting my first son, Jake, my husband Adam suggested that I not drink so much caffeine. I tried an orange soda and have been hooked ever since - Sunkist is the best. I also drink lots of coffee, because it’s delicious and feels like a hug in a mug. I’ll also take water with ice and a straw, because straws make drinking an event.

Andrea loves to read. 

• Each year, I challenge myself to read more than the previous year. I like to rotate between spiritual books, biographies, personal growth, parenting and historical fiction. I’m currently working on book 24 of 36 for 2019.

Andrea’s not quite sure where the Spirit is leading this new position.

• I was so honored when I was offered this position as Director of Youth and Family Ministry. I love to learn and grow in my faith, God has always been important in my life. I have many ideas of how I can serve this community and am very excited to partner with all of you.