Rev. Leah Atkinson Bilinski
Senior Pastor
Rev. Leah Atkinson Bilinski has been an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ since 2009. In 1999, she received a B.A. in anthropology and an elementary teaching certificate from Grinnell College but soon turned to ministry, initially as youth director at St. John UCC in St. Charles, Missouri. In 2004, she enrolled full-time at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and earned her M.Div. in 2007. She became acting youth coordinator for UCC’s Missouri Mid-South Conference, then accepted a call to her first pastorate, at St. Peter’s UCC in Washington, Missouri. Leah became senior pastor at Fauntleroy Church UCC in fall 2015.
About Fauntleroy Church, Pastor Leah says this: “This congregation is a strong inner-church community with a faithful outer-church desire to follow Christ’s teachings toward making the world a better place. We’re people who love to be together, to learn together, to strive for the realm of God on Earth, and we’re also a community center for the neighborhood, where relationships develop and good work gets done.”
Another plus for Leah is our open-and-affirming policy, which articulates that God creates LGBTQIA persons beautifully, just as they are. We are also willing to stand up for all those that society has marginalized, especially immigrants and homeless persons.
Pastor Leah, her spouse Jamie, and their daughter Naomi love the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the small-town feel of Fauntleroy within a vibrant major city, and the challenge of living into the future with a caring, future-focused congregation.
