Meet the Leadership

Joel grew up in Southern California and met his lovely wife Stephanie when they were students at Biola University. He stays connected to his SoCal roots through his family there and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Joel also attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois and has a Master's degree in Old Testament. He and his family have called Minnesota home for 15 years and love exploring the North Shore whenever they can! They make their home in South Minneapolis and can see the airport tarmac from their front yard. He worked as a manager at Trader Joe's for 16 years before coming on staff at Church of the Cross. Joel loves teaching, leading teams, and doing his best to make sure our building is getting the attention it needs. He also loves making sure people have the opportunity to make connections at Cross. He has a daughter (Corrie) and two sons (Jack and Wesley) and they love movies, music, baseball and pizza.

I grew up on a farm with wonderful freedoms, always a pair of dogs to get lost with and several cats who frequently multiplied. Today I love watching everything move in the backyard and have no pets aside from what God brings by; they are either wild or belong to a neighbor. I dream of landscape designs and implementing them step-by-step.  

So how did I end up running an office? Wife and motherhood helped hone multitasking; homeownership developed joy in organization & maintenance; sitting behind a desk has always delighted me; I love to talk on the phone and write through a keyboard. After the usual education, I followed my Dad’s suggestion of trying secretarial school. To my mild surprise, I took to it. All this, along with the gift of responsibility, has prepared me for this amazing work as Office Manager at Cross. God has given me a precious gift of loving & serving Him here.

Andrea, Matt, and their 3 children have called Cross home since moving back to MN in 2007. Andrea has degrees in Exercise Science and Oboe Performance, which do not traditionally lead to pastoral work. But through a path of serving on the worship team, coordinating the nursery, then joining the Children's Leadership Team in 2012, she accepted the call to be the Children and Families Pastor in 2017. With a passion and energy for people, Andrea believes there is no higher calling than shepherding and making spaces for children to weekly engage with the Spirit and the Body of Christ. In her spare time, Andrea loves playing music, making jewelry and mostly filling the family calendar full of gatherings of friends and loved ones.

As a young girl growing up in the cornfields and rural woods of southeastern Minnesota, Andene was innately curious about music, art, history, theology, and ministry. Her curiosity turned into a passion and a calling, drawing her to Bethel University where she earned a B.A. in history and then onto Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston where she earned an M.Div. and a Th.M. in church history and the arts. She also worked as the Director of Worship in Gordon College’s chapel department—honing her love of discipleship and worship leading. While out east, she fell in love with the Anglican tradition and intertwined her studies and work with the worship life of the Anglican Church.

Eventually, she felt called to return to her Midwestern roots where she met her husband Sean and began working at Church of the Cross. These days they live with their three children and their coon hound in an old home near enough woods to make suburbia feel a little wild. As a family they love to wander in the woods, to play music and sports of all kinds, to fill their home with the aromas of cozy meals, and to read good books by fires.

God began preparing Cheryl’s heart to be Anglican in 1989 when she and her family lived in England for two years. Coming to Church of the Cross in 2005 was like coming home. Prompted by a passion to see lives transformed by Christ, she studied spiritual formation at Bethel Seminary and completed a masters of Theology in 2004. After the death of her husband John in 2010, Cheryl was ordained as a deacon and began to serve on staff at COTC in 2013. She serves our community through the ministry of prayer, the experience of biblical narrative, small group spiritual formation as well as sanctuary liturgical arts. In 2014 Cheryl and Gerard Pierre were married. They minister together in prayer and in the sanctuary arts. Their lives are full of love for many; grown children, in-laws and grandchildren (35+), as well as those from our community in Hopkins and around the world. They are also really good cooks!