Staff and Leadership
The Rev. Barb Ballenger
Rector
The Rev. Barbara Ballenger has been the Rector at St. Peter's since late 2022. Previously, she served for seven years as an associate at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, the first five as a lay associate and the last two as Associate Rector. She was ordained in December 2019. Rev. Barb has worked in ministry settings in both the Catholic and Episcopal Church for nearly 30 years, including youth and adult faith formation, campus ministry, global relief and development, domestic disaster response, performing arts ministry and parish pastoral ministry. She also has a long history in social justice and political advocacy, especially in areas of climate justice and racial repair and healing. Rev. Barb is currently the co-chair of the Diocesan Anti-Racism Commission and is part of the diocese’s Loving Presence Initiative. Rev. Barb plays the guitar and the banjo and is a singer and songwriter. You can find several of her songs, written in her performing arts ministry days, on SoundCloud. Her husband, Jess, is a professor of medical ethics at Drexel University. She has two adult children, Hannah, 21, and Jesse, 27. A dog, Oakley, and cat, Yolandi, also live with the family in their home in Mt. Airy. Rev. Barb loves to read, play cooperative board games, and ride through Pennsylvania with her husband on the couple’s tandem bicycle.
Charlese Freeman grew up in Philadelphia, where she met her fiancé, Winzy. Charlese graduated from East Stroudsburg University, where she received her Bachelor's in English; she received her Master's of Journalism from Temple University. Charlese and Winzy have an 18-month-old son, Clark. She worked for Check Your Fact in 2021 as a National Association of Black Journalists Fellow. Charlese has served as an usher and tech team member at Faith Fellowship Baptist Church. She currently helps lead the annual Health and Safety Fair and Hearts of Praise Dance Ministry. Charlese enjoys spending time with her family, writing, watching movies, and baking. She is also the host of Phone In a Friend Podcast. Charlese is available Monday-Friday from 8am-4pm. You can email her at stpeter654@gmail.com.
Carol Cei, Minister of Music, has degrees in Education-Piano, Music History and Literature-Choral Conducting from Temple University. For more than 35 years, she worked as a realtor and residential appraiser in the 5-county Delaware Valley. Fortunately, she was able to find her way back to music almost 8 years ago. Over the years, she's had the honor of providing music for almost every denomination and it has been a wonderful learning experience for her. Carol places a great deal of emphasis on the hymns and lyrics of our Choir Anthems and believes "all that we do in Worship should be meaningful and prayerfully....spoken or sung". Family is very important to Carol. She has a son and daughter, two adult grandchildren and a 10-year-old grandchild who "keeps us on our toes". She's blessed to have her mother who will be 100 years old soon and is "sharp as could be". She is looking forward to coming out to St. Peter’s when she visits from Philadelphia. ction titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...
Kathleen Murphy Flaherty, Bell Choir Director, is in her 50th year of serving as a church musician. She is an experienced organist, pianist, choir director, choral singer, and handbell director for churches of varied denominations in the Philadelphia area. Mrs. Flaherty was Organist and Handbell Director at St. Philip-in-the-Fields for 31 years, prior to the merger with St. Peter’s Glenside. As an organist, Kathleen has performed on the great Philadelphia organs; Girard College, Irvine Auditorium and the Kimmel Center. She has also enjoyed accompanying for choir tours to Israel, Germany and Italy, encountering an assortment of very quirky instruments. Mrs. Flaherty holds a Bachelor of Music Education in keyboard from Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University and a Master’s Equivalency with graduate studies at Westminster Choir College, University of the Arts and Villanova University. She received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teachers in 2014, prior to her retirement from Girard Academic Music Program and currently supervises Music Education student teachers for Temple University. Collapsible text is great for longer section titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...
Kristina Marchuk
Parish Nurse
Tim Valera was born and raised in Glenside. He has worked exclusively for ATD American Co. in the IT department for 30 years. He joined the St. Peter’s community as our caretaker in the summer of 2012. As caretaker, Tim opens and closes all buildings, offers security on the property, and supports all parish, tenant and rental events. He also works on special property projects as needed.Collapsible text is great for longer section titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...
Kristina graduated from Frankford Hospital School of Nursing in 2007 and earned her BSN from Penn State in 2016. She currently works in Labor and Delivery at Abington Hospital, where she is co-chair of the Perinatal Loss Support Team. She obtained her Faith Community Nurse certificate from Eastern Mennonite University in 2020. While serving as the chair of the Health Ministry for the diocese, she became certified as a Youth Mental Health First Aid Instructor and has trained some of the diocese’s deacons. Her additional training and certifications include: Psychological First Aid (through her work as a Resilience in Stressful Events Team responder for staff at Abington experiencing stressful or distressing situations while at work); suicide prevention (through a program called QPR (Question. Persuade. Refer.)); and Perinatal Death and Resolve Through Sharing (RTS) Certified Bereavement Coordinator.
Lay Leadership
The 2024-2025 Vestry is comprised of the Rector's Warden (Dave Mosteller), People's Warden (Audrey Kipput), Accounting Warden (Mike Reeve), Secretary (Charlie Hannum), Youth Representative (Grayson Torpey), and 10 other members. Each vestry member liaises to one of our parish ministries. See their liaison assignments, pictures and bios HERE.
To contact a vestry member, please email the church office:
stpeter654@gmail.com.
Other Key Leadership Positions
Bob Hartung, Finance Chair
Dave Kipphut, Property Chair