{"id":6836,"date":"2018-09-11T06:11:53","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T10:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/?page_id=6836"},"modified":"2025-11-17T07:29:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:29:43","slug":"staff","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/who-we-are\/staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Our Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rev. Mark Mendes, Senior Pastor
\nmmendes@fccej.org<\/span><\/h4>\n

Rev. Mendes grew up in Miami Florida, graduated with\u00a0 BS in Business Finance from Auburn University in Alabama and an Master of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts.\u00a0 A life-long UCC member and clergyman, he has a unique energetic yet authentic style that mixes a strong faith in Jesus Christ with a realistic yet challenging application to both individual and corporate lives.\u00a0 \u00a0He, his wife and two children live in Essex Junction and love to camp, hike, ski, play games and do projects around the house.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Elizabeth O\u2019Beirne, Children\u2019s Ministry Coordinator
\nchildrensministry@fccej.org<\/span><\/h4>\n

Elizabeth is passionate about sharing her faith and creating meaningful connections. Although her background is in accounting and human resources, ministry work is fulfilling for her as well as investing in a faith community. Laughter is one of her key values, and creating cherished memories with her two children, family and friends. A sense of well-being is found in a daily practice of yoga, nature walks, music and dance, along with time for travel, especially to the ocean. She is inspired by sunrises and the possibilities of a new day!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jen Kelly, Church Administrator
\nwelcome@fccej.org<\/span><\/h4>\n

Jen has an eclectic professional background with experience in marketing, printing, stage management, church administration, and camp operations. She enjoys camping, cooking, reading, watching movies, and going to the theater. Jen lives in Essex Junction with her family and considers herself multi-lingual \u2013 she can speak movie quotes, song lyrics, and occasionally whale. Jen feels incredibly blessed to be part of FCCEJ!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rev. Ron Faux, Minister of Visitation<\/h3>\n

The Rev. Ron Faux is a retired United Methodist pastor. He has served churches in Arizona, Hawaii and California. While in the Air Force he was stationed at Fort Ethan Allen. He and Joan were married at First Methodist Church in Burlington in 1961. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. The couple moved back to Vermont in 2018 to be with their daughter and her family.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bethany Blake, Music Director
\nbblake@fccej.org<\/span><\/h4>\n

Bethany<\/span>\u00a0Blake joined the First Church community in 2022. She has previously served as the organist for churches of various faith backgrounds, including Catholic, Lutheran, Unitarian Universalist, Baptist, and Episcopalian. After growing up in Michigan and graduating from the University of Michigan, she continued her musical pursuits at Stony Brook University where she specialized in eighteenth-century British vocal clubs and gender studies. At SBU she met her husband and became an enthusiastic hiker and road biker. Together with their three children they are happy to call Vermont home.\u00a0Bethany<\/span>\u00a0teaches music history and piano at the University of Vermont. She is also an experienced harpsichordist and early music advocate, with a partiality for French Baroque music.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":13199,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6836","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6836"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17985,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6836\/revisions\/17985"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}